Quick Takes

Three longtime staffers retiring from Illinois Public Media

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Three talk-show staffers at WILL-AM in Urbana, Ill., are retiring, Illinois Public Media said on its website. Departing will be David Inge, longtime host of morning show Focus; the show’s producer, Harriet Williamson; and Afternoon Magazine host Celeste Quinn, married to Inge for 24 years after the two met at the station.Inge, retiring June 30, has conducted more than 12,000 Focus interviews in his 29-plus years as the program’s host. He started at the station as a classical music announcer, then became a reporter. He also hosted WILL-TV’s pubaffairs Talking Point from 1992 until it ended in 2001. Williamson began at the station as a volunteer, joining the staff in 1996 after careers as a medical librarian and nurse.

Quick Takes

Kartemquin establishing liaison group to advocate for indie filmmakers with PBS

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Kartemquin Films is beginning work to form a permanent advocacy group to serve as a liaison between independent filmmakers and PBS, in the wake of the controversy surrounding PBS’s rescheduling of Independent Lens and P.O.V. and their subsequent ratings and carriage woes (Current, March 12, 2012). Gordon Quinn, artistic director and founder of the Chicago documentary production house, said he is in conversations to partner with the International Documentary Association on the effort.Public television “is not just another outlet for independent producers,” Quinn told Current. “The public aspect of it is of vital importance to us.”Following Current’s story, Kartemquin posted on its website an open letter to PBS expressing concern over its shift of the two programs from their longtime home on Tuesdays to Thursdays, which many stations program with local shows. Hundreds of filmmakers signed and the controversy was covered widely, from the New York Times to multiple documentary-oriented websites. PBS agreed to find a different timeslot for the shows, and its negotiations continue with reps from ITVS, home to Independent Lens, as well as P.O.V. Quinn said he and documentarian Carlos Sandoval are approaching 10 to 20 filmmakers to serve on a coordinating committee.

Quick Takes

PBS proposed FY13 budget has 2 percent membership dues increase

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PBS’s fiscal 2013 draft budget, which the board today (March 30) approved to send to stations for comment, contains a 2 percent membership dues increase. At the board meeting at headquarters in Arlington, Va., Barbara Landes, PBS c.f.o., said this is the first dues increase for stations since fiscal 2009. Also at the meeting, directors unanimously approved a change in language in PBS’s common-carriage policy to align with PBS’s ongoing primetime revamp. The two-hour nightly limit was removed to accommodate three-hour programming blocks. The change does not affect total common carriage hours over the season, or station flexibility to preempt common-carriage programming.

Quick Takes

Wisconsin to experiment with “text to pledge” mobile giving model

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Wisconsin Public Television will be testing a “text to pledge” model that it hopes will combine the immediacy that mobile users expect with the more nuanced interaction that stations need to establish a lasting relationship with members. David Dickinson, online manager at Wisconsin Public Television, writes in a post on the PBS Station Products & Innovation blog that the station wants to provide users the ability to text a number with a pledge for any amount, then the station will contact them to fulfill payment and become a member if they choose.That approach “may offer the best of both worlds,” Dickinson writes.”We’ll funnel half our mobile donation traffic to our existing page, and half the traffic to a new page asking for a text-to-pledge,” he adds. “After a few months, it will be interesting to see the results.”

Quick Takes

Partnership models emerging in collaborative journalism, writes Stearns of Free Press

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Several basic partnership models have emerged in the growing collaborative journalism ecosphere, writes the Free Press’s Josh Stearns on MediaShift. There are commercial partnerships, often contractual agreements among newspapers and TV stations; nonprofit and commercial agreements, such as the recent NBC-pubmedia partnerships (Current, Jan. 17); public and noncom collaborations, connecting pubmedia outlets with one another or with other nonprofit news organizations (Current, March 30, 2009); university collaborations; and community and audience cooperative work, including APM’s Public Insight Network (Current, Jan. 24, 2011).”We are still at the early stages of experimentation with large- and small-scale collaboration across the news and journalism ecosystem,” Stearns writes. “Partners differ, motivations differ, needs differ and funding differs.

Quick Takes

FCC announces three firms to assist in designing spectrum auctions

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The FCC has selected three companies — Auctionomics, Power Auctions and MicroTech — to help it design upcoming spectrum auctions, reports Broadcasting & Cable. Leading the team is Auctionomics Chairman Paul Milgrom, a Stanford professor and member of the National Academy of Sciences who was the main academic contributor to the FCC’s original spectrum auction design. Also on the board of Auctionomics, reports TV Techology, is Reed Hundt, former FCC chair. Power Auctions, based in Washington, D.C., has designed spectrum auctions for Canada and Australia, and MicroTech of Vienna, Va., will lend technical expertise. Congress last month authorized the FCC to conduct auctions of TV spectrum to free up bandwidth for mobile devices (Current, Feb.

Quick Takes

WFDD general manager Denise Franklin “can’t comment” on her departure

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Denise Franklin is gone from her post as general manager of NPR member station WFDD at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. “There are a lot of talented professionals at WFDD, and I wish them the best,” Franklin told the Winston-Salem Journal. “I can’t comment beyond that.” Brett Eaton, Wake Forest spokesman, confirmed to the paper that Franklin is no longer employed by the university but declined further comment. Franklin had been with the station for 11 years, first as a news host. She became g.m. in 2007.

Quick Takes

Lore joins MPT as vice president and chief development officer

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Rick Lore is the new vice president and chief development officer at Maryland Public Television, responsible for membership, on-air fundraising, major and planned giving, publications, outreach and community engagement at the station in Ownings Mills, Md. Lore had joined the station on an interim basis last fall following the departure of Joe Krushinsky, MPT’s former vice president of institutional advancement, who is now director of station development services at PBS.Previously he served as executive director of Friends of Milwaukee Public Television, the fundraising affiliate of Milwaukee Public TV. Earlier, he worked for nearly eight years as director of on-air fundraising for PBS, as well as director of development for pubTV stations in New Hampshire and Dayton, Ohio. He began his public television career in 1989 in San Jose, Calif.He’s won eight PBS development awards and is a frequent conference speaker. (Photo: MPT)

People

Philadelphia broadcasters John B. Roberts, 94, and Bruce H. Beale, 82

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Two pioneering pubcasters in Philadelphia, John B. Roberts and Bruce Harrison Beale, died on the same day, March 8 [2012]. John B. Roberts, one of the founding directors of WHYY-FM/TV in 1957, died of a spinal infection at his home in the retirement community of Rydal Park in suburban Philadelphia. He was 94. In 1953, Roberts had founded the Temple University public radio station, WRTI-FM, now an outlet for classical and jazz music, and taught communication at the university from 1946 to 1988. “When I was an undergrad at Temple in the 1970s, “WRTI was staffed and managed by students,” said Temple faculty member Paul Gluck, who served as station manager of WHYY-TV from 1999 to 2007.

Quick Takes

Patricia Simon stepping down from helm of PBS39

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Patricia Simon, president of PBS39 in Bethlehem, Pa., is leaving the station after 10 years to pursue other opportunities, reports the local Express-Times. Station Board Chair Jamie Musselman announced today (March 28) that Timothy Fallon will act as c.e.o. while the board of directors begins a search for a new leader. Fallon has been involved with the station since 1995 and served as chairman 2002-04.

Quick Takes

WTMD to move from Towson campus to City Center

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NPR member station WTMD-FM is moving from an 1,800-square-foot facility in the center of the Towson University campus to an 8,000 square-foot broadcast and community gathering place this fall in the new Towson City Center. The new home will provide a live-music performance space, a community meeting room and classroom, studios and offices. WTMD’s General Manager Stephen Yasko said on the station’s website that the new building will be contain than a pubradio station serving the Baltimore region. “We’ve designed this space to be a combination: a music lovers’ clubhouse, community meeting space and education center,” he said. “Our listeners and the public will be invited into WTMD every day to experience the best in national and Baltimore bands.” WTMD members also may use the space for social and corporate events.

Quick Takes

“Masterpiece” and KPBS split $1 million gift to Masterpiece Trust

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The Masterpiece Trust has received a $1 million gift from San Diego philanthropist Darlene Shiley. It’s the largest gift to date for the Trust, which was established in January 2011 to allow major donors to directly support the Masterpiece strand, and enable those donors to provide part of their gift to a local station. Half of Shiley’s gift, made on behalf of her and her late husband Donald, will go to KPBS in San Diego.Shiley was one of the first donors to the Trust, with a previous gift of $250,000.Other stations that have received a local portion of major gifts to the Trust include WNET, New York City; Vermont Public Television; WTCI, Chattanooga, Tenn.; WGBY, Springfield, Mass.; and WTTW, Chicago.The PBS NewsHour recently revealed it is modeling a giving effort on Masterpiece Trust, to be called Friends of NewsHour.

Quick Takes

How about affinity credit cards to help support the pubcasting system?

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Matt MacDonald of PRX has an idea for funding pubcasting. “Public radio and television stations should collaborate and work together with Visa, Mastercard or American Express to create an nationally branded affinity public media credit card,” he writes in a blog post today (March 27), which is an extension of his recent session at IMA. “Each transaction made with that credit card would get rounded up to the nearest dollar and the card holder uses a website that allows them to determine how it gets allocated back out to participating stations, programs and producers.”If there are 170 million people using public media each month, MacDonald writes, “then there are a large number of credit card transactions each day performed by public media consumers. With a coordinated effort could public radio and television stations switch 1 percent of their consumers over to using a public media branded card?” If so, and if that 1 percent of 170 million averaged one transaction daily with an average round-up of 52 cents, that could generate more than $322 million annually for the system, he notes.

Quick Takes

CPB Board okays $7 million for seven-station centralcast project in Florida

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The CPB Board on Tuesday (March 27) unanimously approved spending up to $7 million for a joint master-control project linking six stations in Florida and one in Georgia, similar to its centralcast project in New York state (Current, Oct. 3, 2011). The Jacksonville Digital Convergence Alliance LLC will run one master control for WJCT in Jacksonville; WFSU, Tallahassee; WPBT, Miami; WBCC, Cocoa; WUCF, Orlando; Tampa stations WUSF and WEDU; and WPBA, Atlanta. The facility will be in Jacksonville. CPB estimates cost savings to the stations of $15 million to $20 million over the next 10 years.

Quick Takes

Stalking the wild pubradio reporter

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KPCC is giving the public a rare (tongue firmly in cheek) chance to see the public-radio journalist in its natural habitat — “an idyllic and fragile Eden free from the bias and bile of the 24-hour news cycle” —  in this hilarious two-minute pledge promo. In the takeoff on a wildlife doc, an intrepid explorer/host intones, “Make no mistake, the future of this highly developed species is imperiled. Only one thing can save it: A symbiotic relationship with another highly developed species — the public radio listener.”

Quick Takes

KVCR president put on administrative leave for “undisclosed matter”

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Larry Ciecalone, president of dual licensee KVCR in San Bernardino, Calif., has been placed on administrative leave “while an undisclosed matter is investigated,” the Press-Enterprise in Riverside is reporting. Bruce Baron, chancellor of licensee San Bernardino Community College District, announced the decision to the station staff Tuesday (March 27). He told the newspaper that the issue was a personnel matter and declined to discuss details. The investigation is expected to take about three months. During that time, Baron will head up station operations, TV Station Manager Kenn Couch will oversee both TV and radio, and Charles Fox remains head of the new First Nations television, funded by the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians (Current, July 26, 2010).

Quick Takes

Arkansas pubcasting advocate of nearly 50 years dies in Little Rock

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Jane Krutz, an enthusiastic advocate for more than 47 years for the Arkansas Educational Television Network, died Sunday (March 25) in Little Rock. She was 86. “It is literally true that there might not have been an AETN without her,” Allen Weatherly, executive director of AETN, said in a tribute on the network’s website. “In fact, she was advocating for a public television station for Arkansas years before we finally made it to the air in the mid 1960s.”Krutz frequently appeared during membership drives, testified before Congress for public broadcasting in 1995, served since 1996 on the AETN Commission, and received the PBS National Volunteer of the Year award. The original studio at AETN, still in service, is named for her.

Quick Takes

Masterpiece Trust concept sparks new “Friends of NewsHour” effort

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The PBS NewsHour is developing a Friends of the NewsHour initiative, similar to that created for WGBH’s Masterpiece strand, to allow viewers to contribute directly to the weeknight news program. The fund would solicit gifts from major donors. Bo Jones, president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, told Current that he’s just begun to plan the project. “We want to consult with local stations to elicit ideas and their input,” he said. “We plan for Friends to be a cooperative effort with the stations.” The Masterpiece Trust has raised more than $2.5 million since January 2011, said Ellen Frank, director of major gifts at WGBH in Boston.

Quick Takes

CPB backs NPR’s foreign coverage

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CPB has awarded a $500,000 grant to NPR in support of its international news coverage.The grant, announced during a March 26 awards dinner honoring NPR correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro, supports travel costs for reporters and their producers, as well as the work of NPR’s foreign desk editors, according to CPB Chair Bruce Ramer.As NPR’s foreign desk steps up its reporting from the Middle East, Asia and Africa, reporters are putting themselves “on the frontline of historic news events,” Ramer said.”This will help NPR stay on the story as long as it takes.””This is going to be so important for our work,” said NPR President Gary Knell. “There’s nothing more important to me and my colleagues than the foreign reporting work that we do.”Garcia-Navarro, recipient of CPB’s 2011 Edward R. Murrow Award honoring outstanding contributions to public radio, described the grant as “a real gift to those of us who work in the field, and it has actual, practical implications.””Never has covering the world been more dangerous and more vital,” she said.