Quick Takes

PBS steals big wins from HBO at Primetime Emmys

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At the Primetime Emmy Awards Sunday night (Sept. 18), premium cable channel HBO “was beaten up in prestige categories by an unlikely foe — public broadcasting, which gets its funding from the government and viewer contributions,” reports the Los Angeles Times. PBS won 14 statuettes (including the earlier Creative Emmy presentations) compared with HBO’s 19, but Masterpiece’s “Downton Abbey” walked away with some of the night’s top honors, generally reserved for big-money HBO productions. The Brit import about an aristocratic family in pre-World War I England won for TV miniseries or movie; Julian Fellowes, series creator, also won the writing award in that category; and director Brian Percival and supporting actress Maggie Smith took those honors. A full list of winners here.

Programs/Content
Seun Kuti

Musicians’ stories join their music in Sound Tracks for PBS

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Steve Talbot worked in public TV for more than 20 years before trying his hand as chief fundraiser for one of his own projects. His timing was not the greatest. On the day in 2008 when Lehman Brothers imploded, PBS agreed to back the pilot for Talbot’s Sound Tracks, a newsmagazine-style show about contemporary music around the world. The hourlong debut, which aired in January 2010, got positive feedback from viewers, programmers and PBS, but the recession has hampered Talbot’s efforts to make more episodes of Sound Tracks ever since. He’s still raising money to produce additional episodes.

Quick Takes

Digital Promise finally realized in White House launch

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Lawrence Grossman, former PBS president, and Shae Hopkins, executive director of Kentucky Educational Television, are two board members of Digital Promise, the White House’s educational initiative that was announced Friday (Sept. 16) in Washington, D.C. The project, backed by the Department of Education, Carnegie Corporation of New York and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, will work to identify breakthrough educational technologies, partner with researchers and entrepreneurs to determine what works best, and drive private-sector investment in innovation. The initiative also includes a League of Innovative Schools to help test projects, $15 million in new awards from the National Science Foundation to support research on next-generation learning environments, a national alliance of more 35 of America’s top education-policy researchers, and more. Digital Promise was “founded after more than a decade of effort,” it says; its roots can be traced to Grossman and former FCC Chairman Newton Minow’s 2001 proposal for an $18 billion Digital Opportunity Investment Trust for educational materials (Current, April 9, 2001).

People

Robert M. Reed, first g.m. of Hawaii’s public TV network, 79

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Robert M. Reed, the founding manager of Hawaii’s public TV network who became a publisher and an author, died of respiratory failure Sept. 17, 2011, in Winter Park, Fla. He was 79. He started the Hawaii Educational Television Network in 1962 and served as its g.m. and an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii. In a 20-year career in public television, he also served as g.m. of KUED in Salt Lake City and as head of public TV’s national syndication service in Bloomington, Ind., and at PBS.

Quick Takes

FCC extends Common Alerting Protocol deadline into 2012

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The Federal Communication Commission released an order today (Sept. 16) that extends the deadline for Emergency Alert System (EAS) participating stations to implement the new Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) standard. The order moves the deadline from Sept. 30 to June 30, 2012. The extension may allow the first-ever National EAS Test scheduled by the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the FCC, set for Nov.

Quick Takes

National Book Award finalists to be revealed live on pubradio

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Finalists for this year’s National Book Awards will be revealed live on Oregon Public Broadcasting’s Think Out Loud, from the new Literary Arts space in Portland. It’s a public-radio first, said Sarah Jane Rothenfluch, the show’s executive producer. Beginning at 9 a.m. local time on Oct. 12, host Dave Miller will interview past winners, finalists and judges, who will announce the finalists.

Quick Takes

WDUQ sale finalized

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Essential Public Media has completed its purchase of Pittsburgh’s WDUQ/90.5 FM, reports the local Post-Gazette. The call letters will change to WESA-FM. Under the terms of the agreement, seller Duquesne University will receive $4,004,500 in cash. Essential Public Media also will provide $1 million in underwriting to the university over the next 10 years, along with $500,000 worth of internships to Duquesne students. The deal was announced in January (Current, Jan.

Quick Takes

WNET going into international distribution business

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WNET will distribute its own content internationally beginning at next month’s MIPCOM program marketplace, according to entertainment news site C21. Previously, overseas distribution was handled by PBSd, a partnership between PBS and WGBH in Boston. “We thought we could do better,” said Harvey Seslowsky, managing director of sales and global content distribution for WNET in New York City. “What we’re trying to do is find ways to kick up our sources of revenue,” and perhaps funnel those funds into new programming or expanded seasons of existing shows, he said. PBS will continue to handle domestic distribution of the station’s content, while WNET will take over international sales.

Quick Takes

Current TV selects Shelley Lewis as e.v.p. programming

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Shelley Lewis, the executive producer who just left WNET’s Need to Know, has landed as executive vice president of programming at Current TV, it announced today (Sept. 15). Current President David Bohrman called Lewis, right, “a great idea person” with the “perfect combination of relationships, experience and entrepreneurial drive to help us establish Current as a new kind of multi-screen news experience for a new kind of news viewer.” Prior to her time at NTK, Lewis was a co-creator of Air America Radio and also worked at CNN and ABC News. She starts Sept. 19 at Current.

Quick Takes

AIR unveils Localore, its initiative backing new media experiments at stations

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Association of Independents in Radio launched the beta website for its new CPB-backed initiative, Localore. Inspired by Maker’s Quest 2.0, AIR’s 2009 project for indie-led cross-platform media experiments, Localore will pair radio and TV indies with pubcasting stations on projects that blend digital with broadcast media.The site that launched today features the Station Runway, a series of digital video presentations by six “incubator” stations that hope to recruit producers to work with them. AIR and CPB will announce more grant details and identify as many as 20 participating stations on Sept. 22 during the Public Radio Program Directors conference in Baltimore.Look for an extended Q&A with AIR Executive Director Sue Schardt in the Sept. 19 edition of Current.

Quick Takes

‘Reading Rainbow’ host Burton to offer RRKidz reading app

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Actor and former Reading Rainbow host LeVar Burton has raised $3 million for his RRKidz reading app for iPad and Android users, reports Venture Beat. He’s partnering with PBS affiliate WNED in Buffalo, which was Reading Rainbow’s presenting station, on the project. (The show ended its 26-year run in August 2009.) “With RRKidz, Burton is introducing a reading, discovery and exploration platform (enhanced eBooks) that could have more than 300 interactive books by the time it launches,” according to Venture Beat. “We are slipping on the world’s stage in education, very precipitously,” Burton said. “To remain a world leader, we have to do a better job educating our children.

Quick Takes

CPB gives $4.1 million for Public Insight Network expansion

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The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is awarding $4.1 million to help American Public Media expand its digital Public Insight Network, it announced today (Sept. 15). PIN gathers more than 120,000 citizen sources who share their knowledge with reporters in 45 newsrooms, including 15 of the top 20 media markets (background, Current, Jan. 24, 2011). CPB said its investment will add more than 100,000 new sources and  bring PIN to 50 additional newsrooms.

Quick Takes

Anchor and e.p. named for NJTV’s nightly news NJ Today

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Mike Schneider, a familiar anchor and reporter who has worked with the four major commercial nets and major station newsrooms in the Northeast in the past 30-plus years, was announced Wednesday (Sept. 14) as anchor and managing editor of NJTV’s nightly state news program, NJ Today. He and his physician wife raised their children in Bergen County, N.J., and he ran for Congress there as a Democrat in 1998.He’ll work with new Executive Producer Bob Males, a New Jersey native and resident who previously worked as e.p. of New Jersey and Long Island news for Verizon’s Fios service, and Michael Aron, longtime senior political correspondent at New Jersey Network, NJTV’s predecessor, who joined NJTV as political correspondent in August. The state-owned NJN network lost operating funds in the state’s fiscal crisis earlier this year and was replaced by NJTV, a new service set up by New York-based WNET under a new nonprofit, NJ Public Media. Aron gave a testimonial for NJTV in last week’s news release about Schneider’s hiring.

Quick Takes

New Hampshire Public Television discussing collaboration with WGBH

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New Hampshire Public Television is in collaboration talks with WGBH, as well as stations in Vermont and Maine, according to Foster’s Daily Democrat, which covers New Hampshire and Maine. Grace Lessner, spokesperson for NHPTV, confirmed the discussions but said no further details are available. Jeanne Hopkins, vice president of Communications at WGBH, told the paper: “We’re in conversation to see if there’s ways to collaborate. We’re looking at if there are things that would make sense.”In June, NHPTV laid off 20 full-time employees in an effort to offset a loss of about $2.7 million in state funding. That’s about a 30 percent reduction for the station’s $8.8 million operating budget.Lessner told Current in a Sept.

Quick Takes

KCRW unveils new mode of music discovery

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KCRW, the Los Angeles station whose taste-making sensibilities for new music extend from its airwaves to digital platforms, is releasing its first iPad app today.Music Mine, offered for free in the iPad app store, displays up to 100 artists that have been recommended by the station’s deejays. Users can listen to a deejay’s full show, learn more about the featured artists or — for those who want a “lean-back” music experience — tap into KCRW’s all-music stream Eclectic 24.The app was designed as a “new mode of music discovery” — one that departs from long-form audio content of KCRW radio broadcasts yet still provides “a human-curated experience that is knowledgeable, passionate, unpredictable and even quirky,” said Anil Dewan, KCRW director of new media.To develop Music Mine, KCRW tapped Public Radio Exchange, a leading producer of software applications for public media companies, and the digital design firm Roundarch. The app is built on the Echo Nest music platform that provides music applications for a variety of media companies.

Quick Takes

“Sloppiness” led to NewsHour transcript misunderstanding, PBS ombudsman finds

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There is no evidence that PBS altered a transcript of President Obama’s recent speech to Congress to cover a “major gaffe by the president,” PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler writes. However, he adds that leaving the prepared remarks on the NewsHour website “from Thursday night until bloggers, and the ombudsman, shook their tree Saturday morning — long after the White House and the [New York] Times had published actual transcripts — was a serious lapse.” During the speech, Obama mistakenly said that Abraham Lincoln was the “founder” of the Republican party, but that statement was not in the original transcript supplied by the White House and posted by NewsHour.”I think any fair-minded person, and I hope I’m one of them, would accept this as an unfortunate sequence of events, compounded by some carelessness and sloppiness by the NewsHour and PBS,” Getler says.

Quick Takes

WBGO enters homestretch for signal upgrade project

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WBGO launched the public phase of a $3 million capital campaign fundraising for a major signal improvement project. The jazz and NPR News station plans to put a new antenna on the spire atop 4 Times Square, one of the tallest structures in New York City, which is home of Condé Nast magazines and a huge NASDAQ display above street level. The upgrade will improve signal quality for listeners throughout metropolitan New York and New Jersey and expand the station’s potential audience by 1 million listeners.Several funders, including the defunct Public Telecommunications Facilities Program, brought WBGO to the half-way mark in its capital campaign. The station now is appealing for listener contributions so that engineers can flip the switch on the new transmitter by year’s end.

Quick Takes

Stations’ D.C. bureau, Capitol News Connection, to close this month

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After covering Congress for dozens of public radio stations for more than eight years, the nonprofit operator of Capitol News Connection will wind down operations by the end of the month. The news service faltered late last year, lost subscribing stations and finally lost further support from CPB, which itself suffered a $30 million cut from its digital project funding. “[A]fter a careful review of our finances and cash flow, we have concluded that it would be impossible to replace those funds in time to ensure the continuation of the service,” CNC announced today.The service held down its fees to stations, which rarely exceeded 32 percent of its annual revenue, but that made it dependent on aid from CPB and foundations, said Melinda Wittstock, founder and chief exec — who also served as one of CNC’s handful of Capitol Hill reporters.She said CNC, since 2003, has produced 32,594 spots customized for particular local stations and 7,094 feature and investigative reports for as many as 51 subscribing station licensees.”We are endeavoring to make good on as many of the outstanding spots and features owed to stations in the next few weeks,” Wittstock said.More in Current, Sept. 19.

Quick Takes

Rhode Island Public Radio seals deal for FM channel

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Rhode Island Public Radio will move its NPR News service to WELH 88.1 FM in Providence in October.The signal transition, which was negotiated this summer, provides for Latino Public Radio to expand into a full-time broadcast service on 1290 AM, the channel that served as a beachhead in establishing an independent public radio service in Rhode Island under the call letters WRNI. By moving off the AM dial onto the reserved FM band, RIPR strengthens its channel position in the most populated region of the state.The Wheeler School, a private prep school in Providence, agreed to provide 88.1 FM to RIPR through a programming partnership, not a sale. Its student-programmed radio service will migrate to an online streaming site.