Jacksonville’s WJCT in partnership negotiations with University of North Florida

WJCT in Jacksonville, Fla., is in partnership talks with University of North Florida. Dual-licensee WJCT “would remain a community-based public broadcasting station but would work with UNF in a number of ways,” reports News 4 in Jacksonville.”It has yet to be determined how that relationship is going to be formulated,” said Michael Boylan, president of WJCT. “There are some financial benefits to having this kind of relationship.”In September WJCT-FM dropped A Prairie Home Companion and two others shows, citing a $500,000 drop in state funding.

TuneIn announces successful launch of donation app at KQED

TuneIn, a free streaming audio aggregation app that lets listeners hear music, sports and news from around the world, has launched TuneIn Donate, which enables listeners to contribute to pubradio stations. KQED in San Francisco is piloting the new app, available for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android smartphones. TuneIn said in a statement that since using TuneIn Donate, KQED “has seen a meaningful increase in traffic” to its website donation page, although it provided no details. “KQED donors are some of the earliest adopters of new technologies,” said Tim Olson, station v.p. of digital media and education. “We are excited to be part of this groundbreaking initiative and are encouraged with the initial results.” TuneIn plans to offer TuneIn Donate to listener-supported stations worldwide by the end of the year, it said, adding that 100 percent of donations go to stations.

Human skull, bones, discovered in KCAW building in Sitka, Alaska

Contractors working in the basement of KCAW/Raven Radio in Sitka, Alaska, uncovered human remains that may predate the 103-year-old building, the Associated Press is reporting in the Anchorage Daily News. When workers found the skull and skeleton between two slabs of bedrock, work immediately stopped. “And the first thing we had to do was figure out what to do,” said KCAW General Manager Ken Fate. Police and an archeologist determined the bones were not part of a crime scene. Then, “erring on the side of caution,” Fate said, “we determined that we better treat them as if they might be culturally significant.”

Thank you, public broadcasting

Here’s a nice Thanksgiving tribute to public media from the staff of the National Center for Media Engagement, talking about what they’re most thankful for. From Charles Meyer, NCME executive director: “I’m grateful for the times I’ve giggled uncontrollably while listening to This American Life podcasts. I’m thankful for being moved deeply every time I watch Ken Burns’s documentary about Lewis and Clark. And I’ve never been more proud and grateful to be part of public media as I was when my family and I watched the recent NewsHour segment about American Graduate and the Nine Network Teacher Town Hall. I could tell that my son understood the importance of school in a way he never had before, and I could see in my family’s eyes that they realized the enormous value and potential of what public media can do in communities.

Brian Eckstein of Indiana Public Radio dies at 40

Brian Eckstein, production manager at Indiana Public Radio and a volunteer at the station since high school, died unexpectedly Monday (Nov. 21) at his home in Muncie, Ind. He was 40.”Chances are, if you live around here, your life has been touched somehow, in some way, by Brian Eckstein,” wrote the Star Press in Muncie.”His small shoes leave an enormous space to fill at the radio station, and in our hearts,” Angie Rapp, marketing manager of WIPB and IPR, told the paper. Eckstein was recognized as an Outstanding Alumnus by the Disabled Student Development Office of Ball State University.Eckstein had long battled health problems: Two kidney transplants, cancer (twice), leg braces and near-blindness. “But he never complained,” the paper said.

California governor taps pubcaster for prison media relations post

California Gov. Jerry Brown has named Jeffrey Callison of Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, as press secretary of media relations in the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Callison, with his distinctive Scottish brogue, is host of the daily pubaffairs show Insight. “I’m happy what I’m doing,” Callison told the Sacramento Bee. “It’s not that I don’t like what I’m doing or that I’m not happy at Cap Radio. I just felt it was time for a new challenge.”

CPB ombudsman gets complaint over station’s Occupy Wall Street button premiums

CPB Ombudsman Joel Kaplan looks into a complaint that during a recent fundraising campaign at WAMC Northeast Public Radio in Albany, N.Y., the station sold buttons that read “I support WAMC & Occupy Wall Street — 99%” for an additional 99-cent contribution. Also, the listener writes to Kaplan, during that campaign, station President Alan Chartock “constantly referred to the Republicans in the House as ‘radical’ intent on silencing public radio because it is an answer to Rush Limbaugh. This speaks directly to how Dr. Chartock views himself. If he is the answer to Rush Limbaugh, he should raise the money from sponsors and not the taxpayers.”Chartock told Kaplan: “I am the president of the radio station but we have a First Amendment in this country and I can say anything I want. I won’t be silenced by those who don’t like what I say.”

Two political parties protest Dutch pubcasting plan to cut channels from 21 to eight

Two Dutch political parties are opposing a plan to cut the number of public broadcasting organizations in the Netherlands from the 21 to eight, because they think two channels will end up with an unfair advantage over the others, according to Radio Netherlands Worldwide. The VVD and Freedom Party are lobbying media minister Marja van Bijsterveldt to ban the merger, supported by the Dutch Public Broadcaster authority (NPO), which would give 10 million euros extra to two of the broadcasters. “The Dutch government is shaving up to €127 million off the national TV/radio budgets, demanding that broadcasters merge rather than co-operate,” explains Dutch media consultant Jonathan Marks on his Critical Distance blog, which explains the proposal in depth.

Screeners complete pre-selection for INPUT pubcasting entries

Pre-selection for U.S. entries for next year’s INPUT (INternational PUblic Television) screening conference took place Nov. 16-20 in Charleston, S.C., where South Carolina ETV is INPUT secretariat. American finalists will be announced in mid-December for INPUT, which takes place May 7-12, 2012, in Sydney, Australia. The panel, from left to right: Gayle Loeber, NETA; Erica Deiparine-Sugars, ITVS; Donald Thoms, PBS; Ron Hull, Nebraska ETV; Amy Shumaker, SCETV; Jennifer Lawson, CPB; Betsy Newman, SCETV; Sandie Pedlow, Latino Public Broadcasting; and Bill Gilcher, Goethe Institute. (Image: Kent Steele, WNET)

Former “Sesame Street” composer charged in child porn case

Fernando Rivas, a former award-winning composer for Sesame Street, entered a not guilty plea in federal court Monday (Nov. 21), in Charleston, S.C., on charges of production, transportation and possession of child pornography, according to the local Post and Courier.  Local officers and FBI agents had executed a search warrant at Rivas’s Charleston home on April 19, during which Rivas reportedly admitted to restraining a 4-year-old girl in handcuffs and photographing her, the paper says.According to his website, Rivas began to write for the Children’s Television Workshop, now Sesame Workshop, in 1990 and composed “a number of songs for the show Sesame Street,” featuring singers Celia Cruz, Gloria Estefan and Cindy Lauper. The Juilliard School alum shared Emmy Awards in 1995 and ’96 for his work on the show. The New York Daily News reports he worked on Elmopalooza, which won the 1999 Grammy for Best Children’s Album.Rivas posted 10 percent of $300,000 bail. U.S. Magistrate Judge Bristow Marchant ordered Rivas to  remain at home with electronic monitoring, no Internet access and no interaction with children without an adult present who is aware of the charges against him.

Bachmann’s book reveals soft spot for Keillor — who doesn’t return the feeling

Michele Bachmann has lots of nice things to say about her fellow Anoka (Minn.) High School alum Garrison Keillor in her new book Core of Conviction, which hit bookstores Monday (Nov. 21), reports Politico. Of the Prairie Home Companion host, she writes, “His politics are very different from mine, but I love his gentle, knowing humor. Keillor understands Minnesota, from Lutherans to lutefisk, and his ability to squeeze laughs out of serious-minded midwesterners makes him a legend.” She also compliments his writing skills.But Keillor doesn’t feel the same about her. In a 2010 letter of support for her Bachmann’s Democratic opponent in Minnesota’s 6th District, Keillor wrote: “It’s embarrassing to me and a great many Minnesotans that Michele Bachmann, a politician who is so busy grandstanding and giving interviews on Fox News that she doesn’t have time to serve the people who elected her, represents the 6th District in Washington.”Politico contacted Keillor to get his reaction to Bachmann’s book.

With Super Committee failing to agree, CPB may lose $35 million

Pat Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, expressed disappointment over the announcement today (Nov. 21) that the congressional deficit-reduction Super Committee could not reach agreement to avoid automatic budget cuts. All domestic discretionary spending, which includes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, could now be subject to an 8 percent across-the-board cut effective Jan. 1, 2013, Butler said. For CPB, that equals about $35 million of its $445 million appropriation.

Colorado net assigns idle AM to Triple A duty in Denver

Colorado Public Radio has found a new use for the spare AM frequency that it couldn’t sell. OpenAir 1340 took to the air last month, bringing the Denver area a Triple A–format station featuring rock, folk and indie music ranging from the present day to rootsy influences. The station signed on Oct. 31 with the song “Colorado” by Denver band Paper Bird, an early indicator of OpenAir’s commitment to showcasing local music. CPR has already recorded more than a dozen local bands in its studios for broadcast on OpenAir.

A second state news feed arises from Florida funding rift

A dispute over state funding of Florida pubcasters has prompted Miami’s WLRN to create a new system for sharing news stories among pubradio stations. Eight stations serving the state’s largest markets have signed onto the Florida News Exchange, a digital network for content sharing that the Miami station launched in September. It’s modeled after the Northwest News Network, a reporting collaborative of stations in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Its formation is a direct challenge to the Florida Public Radio Network operated by WFSU in Tallahassee, the state capital — the only Florida pubcaster to be spared from a complete loss of state funding this year. So far the Miami station is the only one to drop its use of that news service, which charges an annual fee of nothing.

StoryCorps’ Day of Listening: “Let us give thanks for teachers who changed our lives”

StoryCorps chose a special theme for this year’s National Day of Listening, the four-year-old public radio tradition of encouraging Americans to take time out over the Thanksgiving holiday to recognize their loved ones through the simple art of intimate conversation.Instead of family members, participants are being asked to set aside some time on Friday, Nov. 25, to recognize favorite teachers. “National Day of Listening 2011 will send a powerful and necessary message to teachers across the nation: that they matter, and that we as a nation are grateful for the impact they have on our lives,” said David Isay, StoryCorps founder and radio documentarian. As in previous years, National Day of Listening coincides with the day after Thanksgiving, one of the biggest shopping days of the year. “A lot of people think of it as Black Friday and a shopping day,” Isay said during a Nov.

State aid down $85 million in four years

In four years that include the deepening recession, fiscal 2008 through 2012, public broadcasting stations in 24 states have lost a total of $85 million in financial support from state governments, according to a study released last week by Free Press, a progressive media-reform group. Those states reduced spending on public media by 42 percent of their 2008 amount. Free Press, which has joined the defense of federal and state aid to public media, gave the study a timely release date, one week before the congressional Super Committee’s Nov. 23 [2011] deadline to cut vast sums from the federal budget and deficit. “As federal lawmakers are considering making further cuts to public broadcasting nationally, we wanted to make sure they understood the full picture of public broadcasting in their states,” said Josh Stearns, co-author of the study and associate program director of Free Press.

After a hard year, NBR investor brings in new management

Rick Ray considered purchasing public TV’s Nightly Business Report earlier this year but last week ended up as its new c.e.o. instead. Atalaya Capital Management, the New York venture-capital firm that ended up owning the show, was shopping it around in March, said Ray, a veteran media executive who built cable syndicator Raycom Sports. He took a look, was intrigued and spoke with Atalaya. But the timing for a deal wasn’t right at that point, Ray said; he was too busy with several other projects. “But I liked what I saw” in NBR, Ray said.

News of NPR’s Infinite Player, dripping with sarcasm

On the Nov. 20 edition of his KCRW broadcast le Show, host Harry Shearer delivers a sardonic reading of a Nov. 17 current.org blog post, “NPR test-drives personalized Infinite Player.” Shearer, who has many notable film and TV credits but is perhaps most famous for his voice work on The Simpsons, has been a frequent critic of NPR since 2010. That’s when the network declined to give airtime — even as paid underwriting spots — to his documentary about the failures of the federal levee system surrounding New Orleans, The Big Uneasy.

Western stations ask for new election to fill McTaggart’s seat on NPR Board

When a candidate wins re-election but withdraws from service before taking office, does the electorate get another chance to vote? Given the irregular turnover after NPR Board elections this summer, station leaders in Western States Public Radio think so. After American Public Media President Jon McTaggart won re-election to a three-year term and resigned before taking the director’s seat, WSPR objected to the NPR Board’s decision to appoint a replacement rather than hold a new election. The resolution said its complaint involved procedure, not McTaggart or the board’s selection to succeed him, Marita Rivero, g.m. of television and radio at Boston’s WGBH. Managers attending the regional association’s meeting, Nov.

Moyers calls for a convention to remake system

Bill Moyers, in a speech to public TV program execs in Memphis Nov. 10 [2011], compared today’s public broadcasting system to the half-baked union of the nation’s Articles of Confederation before the adoption of the U.S. Constitution.” Forty years after the founding, our ‘Articles of Confederation’ aren’t working all that well, either,” he said and suggested that public broadcasters call the equivalent of a weeklong constitutional convention to begin a creative “rebirth” and start developing “a structure and scheme for the 2lst century.” “Until we are able to say clearly and comprehensively what it is we really want to do, how much it will cost,” funders won’t wholeheartedly pitch in, he said. Since the second Carnegie Commission in the late 1970s, he said, “we haven’t engaged in a full and frank examination of the system — the full nature of the process — top to bottom and with all the interested internal and external public and private parties participating.”