Quick Takes

Five words may sway women donors, academic researcher finds

By |

An academic specializing in philanthropic psychology working with WFIU in Bloomington, Ind., has discovered that five words appear to boost contributions among female donors. In a Chronicle of Philanthropy podcast, Jen Shang, assistant professor in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs of Indiana University, said volunteers during a WFIU pledge drive were instructed to use one of five words when initially thanking donors for calling in to the station: caring, compassionate, helpful, friendly or kind. Shang said women donors who heard one of those words went on to give an average of $100, compared with women who heard simply “thank you,” who gave an average of $83. There was no difference between those two groups of male callers, Shang said. 

Quick Takes

All choral, all the time: MPR launches 24/7 choral stream

By |

Banking on the strong Minnesotan tradition of choral music, Minnesota Public Radio is now offering a public-media first: a web stream of programmed choral music around the clock.The 24/7 stream features professional, college and church choirs singing pieces “from Palestrina to Pärt, spirituals to Schubert.” A major element is the inclusion of Minnesota’s sizable local choral talent, including ensembles such as VocalEssence, Cantus, The Singers, St. Olaf Choir, Choral Arts Ensemble and the National Lutheran Choir.The stream is part of a larger initiative by Classical MPR to boost choral music. June 7 will be the first annual “Harmony In The Park” — a free outdoor choral festival at Minneapolis’ Minnehaha Park — and MPR will bring the world-famous Mormon Tabernacle Choir to the city’s 20,000-seat Target Center in June 2013.Listen to Classical MPR’s new choral stream here.

CPB

Former communications head at CPB, Stanley Harrison, dies at 81

By |

Stanley Harrison, a former communications director for CPB, died of cardiac arrest on April 5 in Miami Beach, Fla., six days before his 82nd birthday. He had suffered a stroke in November 2011. Harrison oversaw public relations and publications for CPB from 1976 to 1985, where his office was distinguished by a haze of cigar smoke. After CPB, he followed the corporation’s past president, Ed Pfister, to the University of Miami’s School of Communication, where Pfister became dean. Harrison remained a professor of public relations at the school.

Quick Takes

W.V. state pubcasting panel lifts contract and hiring freezes for station

By |

A committee appointed by the Educational Broadcasting Authority in West Virginia to examine the financial health of the state’s public broadcaster met for the first time Monday (April 23), and voted to lift several contract and hiring freezes, reports the Charleston Gazette. The review was prompted by testimony in January by Dennis Adkins, executive director of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, before the House Finance Committee that the station may have to reduce programming due to state funding cuts and a reduction in underwriting. “To put it bluntly,” he said in January, “our expenses are outpacing our revenues.”At the meeting Monday, Adkins had better news. “Our underwriting is coming back around, and our current pledge drive is going to exceed projections,” Adkins said.He told the committee that an April 30 retirement would leave the station short-staffed and force overtime pay, and discussed the need for computer upgrades. The state had been delaying filling several personnel vacancies as well as approving a $16,786 bid to replace servers.

System/Policy

San Mateo’s KCSM-TV nears sale with two bid finalists

By |

The two remaining finalists bidding for KCSM-TV in San Mateo, Calif., are local groups aligned with Independent Public Media and Public Media Company. The bid amounts have not been disclosed. Independent Public Media is headed by former pubcasters John Schwartz and Ken Devine, who are working to preserve noncom TV licenses for the public system. (Current, Oct. 17, 2011).

Development

Maine legislators reject proposal to zero out pubcasting aid

By |

A committee of Maine’s legislature unanimously voted April 5 to reject Gov.  Paul LePage’s bid to eliminate funding for the state’s public broadcasting network. The bipartisan 13-member Joint Standing Committee on Appropriations and Financial Affairs agreed to keep the Maine Public Broadcasting Network’s $1.7 million appropriation in the budget for the upcoming fiscal year. Unless the governor vetoes the budget before April 26, the spending plan will take effect with MPBN’s funding intact. The appropriation is 13 percent less than last year’s state subsidy for MBPN, but President Mark Vogelzang told an MPBN reporter that he was happy with the restoration of funds. The legislative committee also directed Maine’s government to determine how much MPBN spends on emergency broadcasting services and to survey other ways in which the network might be able to provide services to the state.

Development

Court would let public stations sell candidate and issues ads

By |

No, there won’t be any windfall of Obama and Romney Super PAC gazillions for public stations this year. By a 2–1 vote, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco did indeed rule April 12 that public broadcasters can carry political and public-issue commercials, but the decision is unlikely to take effect any time soon, even in the Ninth Circuit states of the West. Neither side in Minority Television Project v. FCC got everything it wanted in the decision, so one or the other could ask the appeals court for a review by a larger panel of its judges even before the District Court implements the appeals court’s order. For Minority Television Project, licensee of San Francisco pubTV station KMTP, the court decision left standing the main legislation that bars untrammeled advertising on public stations. The low-profile non-PBS station, which fills much of its four DTV multicast channels with German, Chinese, South Korean and other imported or foreign-language programs, went to court after the FCC fined it $10,000 for violating that law 1,900 times between 1999 and 2002.

People

NewsHour‘s Judy Woodruff and former CPB Chair Ernest Wilson III have been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

By |

The academy, an independent policy research center, was founded in 1780 in Cambridge, Mass. Woodruff and Wilson, now dean of the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California, join 4,000 fellows and 600 foreign honorary members that include George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, more than 250 Nobel laureates and some 60 Pulitzer Prize winners. Other members of the 2012 Academy Fellows are U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, actor Clint Eastwood, playwright Neil Simon, philanthropist Melinda Gates and Amazon founder Jeffrey Bezos. The 2012 academy class will be inducted at a ceremony Oct. 6 in Cambridge.

Programs/Content

PubTV multicaster V-me faulted for airing ‘ordinary commercials’

By |

V-me, the Spanish-language multicast channel carried by 42 public TV stations, pulled underwriting spots from its schedule last month amid complaints about potential violations of FCC standards for noncommercial sponsorship. V-me Media, a for-profit venture in which New York’s WNET has a minority ownership stake, is in the process of reviewing all sponsorship spots under tightened underwriting guidelines. RoseLynn Marra, director of station relations for V-me Media in New York, told Current that V-me has heard from “three to five” stations about its underwriting credits since January, and is working to address their concerns. She declined to identify the stations or the specific problems they raised. But V-me’s leadership moved abruptly last month to ensure the channel was in compliance with FCC underwriting rules.

Awards

Lourdes Garcia-Navarro was honored for distinguished reporting from the world’s most volatile regions.

By |

NPR’s Jerusalem-based foreign correspondent received CPB’s highest award, recognizing outstanding contributions to public radio, during an April 9 dinner attended by top pubcasting execs. Garcia-Navarro reported from NPR’s Baghdad bureau from 2008 to 2009, and was one of the first reporters to enter Libya after last year’s uprising. She made in-depth reporting of events from the world’s most volatile regions a hallmark of her reporting, providing “powerful and sound-rich descriptions” of the conflict in Libya and other hotspots. “It is fitting that Lourdes receive this award named after the famed war correspondent,” said CPB Chair Bruce Ramer. “We honor her dedication and service, as well as the courage of those like her who ensure that we are all informed about important world events and issues.”

“Oh, Lulu — you have made us so proud,” said Margaret Low Smith, NPR programming chief, in a videotape reel of congratulations from colleagues.

People

WUFT, VPR led pubcasters in regional Edward R. Murrow Awards.

By |

Among the 54 public stations receiving regional Edward R. Murrow Awards for electronic journalism, WUFT-FM of Gainesville, Fla., won eight, and Vermont Public Radio captured seven. Five additional pubradio stations — KUNC, Greeley, Colo.; South Dakota Public Broadcasting (SDPB); KCCU, Lawton, Okla.; WBUR, Boston; and WITF, Harrisburg, Pa. — each won six Murrows in regional RTDNA competitions among broadcast and online news outlets. Awards for overall excellence among large market stations went to KUT in Austin, Texas, and WUNC in Chapel Hill, N.C., while WUFT and Alabama Public Radio were recognized among small-market stations in their regions. The Radio Television Digital News Association honored broadcasters across 13 multistate U.S. regions for outstanding news reporting.

People

StoryCorps’ multiplatform production on the anniversary of 9/11 earned a prize for public radio and TV.

By |

The Peabody-winning segment aired on NPR’s Morning Edition and featured interviews that had been adapted as animated shorts for PBS’s POV. The award, one of nine presented for pubcasting programs this year, recognized the oral history project’s treatment of interviews with the relatives of 9/11 victims in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the 2001 attacks on New York’s World Trade Center. NPR received two additional trophies for its radio reporting. Judges cited “Arab Spring from Egypt to Libya” by foreign correspondent Lourdes Garcia-Navarro for “exemplary coverage throughout the Middle East,” and “Native Foster Care: Lost Children, Shattered Families,” a three-part NPR News Investigation by Laura Sullivan and Amy Walters. POV received another Peabody for “My Perestroika,”a doc following five young Russians over several years after the collapse of communism.

System/Policy

Feds arrest Arizona man for stealing Native group’s PTFP money

By |

An Arizona man with a background in Native radio faces federal civil and criminal charges for using a federal grant for personal expenses rather than its intended purpose — starting a radio station for two Navajo organizations. An indictment filed March 27 in the District of Arizona U.S. District Court alleges that John Bittner of Flagstaff misrepresented himself as a certified engineer to New Mexico-based Navajo groups. He obtained a Public Telecommunications Facilities Program grant based on a building plan that he is alleged to have lied about. After the Navajo groups received a PTFP grant at Bittner’s urging, the purported engineer used the $322,364 for child support payments, medical and legal expenses, travel and other personal spending, according to the indictment and a court suit. An FCC FM construction permit awarded to Diné Agriculture Inc., a Navajo nonprofit in Shiprock, N.M., expired in January, dashing plans for the station Bittner had promised to build.

Quick Takes

Maine Public Broadcasting pondering role in saving three classical radio stations

By |

Mark Vogelzang, president of Maine Public Broadcasting, told the Bangor Daily News that the pubcaster is following the bankruptcy proceedings of Princeton, N.J.-based Nassau Broadcasting “very closely,” especially concerning its three classical radio stations in Maine. “We have no intention of making a bid — this is serious money,” Vogelzang said. “But if we could play a role, we’d be very interested in saving classical music in Maine. How we might do that, I don’t know.”Nassau went into bankruptcy last year, reportedly owing nearly $284 million to various lenders. It owns 50 stations in the northeast, including 10 in Maine.

Development

NEA slashes funds to WNET arts series, elevates digital media

By |

The Arts on Radio and Television fund of the National Endowment for the Arts, a source of millions of programming dollars for public media, is distributing matching grants to a wider range of recipients this year — from a smaller pool of money. Pubcasters are anxious about the plunge in funding to flagship programs and independent projects now that the Endowment’s revamped Arts in Media fund also supplies cash to digital-game designers, app designers and artists working on web-based interactive platforms.

In 2011, almost all of the grants went to public TV and radio programs. This year about half did. The number of grantees was up from 64 to 78 and the total amount committed was down from $4 million to $3.55 million. In the past, two major beneficiaries of NEA funding are the PBS arts showcases American Masters and Great Performances, both produced by New York’s WNET. The biographical documentary series and the performance strand each received $400,000 from the NEA last year.

Quick Takes

‘Education Station’ KLCS in Los Angeles launches first-ever fundraising drive

By |

KLCS-TV in Los Angeles is conducting the first fundraising drive ever in its 40-plus year history, hoping to replace $1.4 million for fiscal 2012-13 cut from its $4.6 million budget by its licensee, the Los Angeles Unified School District, reports the Los Angeles Daily News. The newspaper said a text-to-give campaign begins this week, with a goal to raise $100,000 by November, when a traditional pledge drive will start.Previously, the school district had provided $2.8 million, Los Angeles County gave $150,000 and the remainder of the budget came from CPB and other philanthropic and government grants. The cash-strapped school district currently is in the midst of public hearings over its recent decision to lay off some 9,500 teachers.The PBS affiliate broadcasts from 6 a.m.to 1 a.m. Its programming includes educational shows (Homework Hotline, College Buzz) PBS fare (Sesame Street, Downton Abbey), coverage of school board and county Board of Supervisors meetings, and original shows about district programs and classes. The station is one of three in the Los Angeles market — along with PBS SoCal/KOCE and KVCR — collaborating in the wake of KCET’s departure (Current, Dec. 12, 2011).

Development

Partner up, get local for best shot at funding, execs advise

By |

Grantmakers at foundations increasingly look for public radio and television stations to move beyond traditional broadcasting and serve their communities in new ways — as conveners of public dialogue, as innovators testing new approaches for producing and funding digital journalism, and as partners in helping their communities tackle social problems.

Station execs who are veterans at foundation fundraising say pubcasting projects that touch on these key themes have a good shot at capturing the attention of grantmakers:
Emphasis on community engagement
Nine Network/KETC in St. Louis received a three-year $450,000 foundation grant backing its participation in CPB’s American Graduate initiative. The JSM Charitable Trust, a private foundation in St. Louis, awarded the grant last month to help support a series of events, programs and community-engagement activities aimed at improving high-school graduation rates. The station will sponsor town-hall meetings for teachers and students, for example, and is working with a youth-literacy group on a poetry project for kids.

Development
David Oliphant of Pittsburgh Foundation

Foundations favor grantees with digital, local news chops

By |

By giving two seminal news-related grants last year, the Pittsburgh Foundation broke from what chief executive Grant Oliphant described as the foundation’s history of “generic support” for public media. Answering the call from the Knight Foundation for matching grants to address gaps in local news coverage …