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The National Endowment for the Arts will be holding a webinar Jan. 29, 1-2 p.m. EST, to provide guidance for applying to their Media Arts grant opportunities. Applicants have a shot at earning up to $100,000 in individual grants. The webinar registration link can be found on the NEA’s website.
Dear Readers,
I wanted to take a moment to remind you about Current’s Reader Survey. Not that long ago, Current Newspaper and Current.org became a part of our family as a new center at the American University School of Communication. We take our role in managing Current very seriously, and look to you to help shape the future direction of this important industry resource. For over thirty years, Current has been the independent news and information source for public media professionals. We intend to build upon its strong foundation by adding additional editorial bandwidth and online resources to further serve you.
The Expanding Opportunities for Broadcasters Coalition, a group of 39 broadcasters willing to sell spectrum rights, filed comments with the FCC on Thursday. Among its recommendations, reports Broadcasting & Cable, is that the FCC make the upcoming spectrum auctions more attractive to stations by not limiting wireless bidders, or restricting which stations may share spectrum after the auctions are complete. “We told the FCC that when they think about what they’re going to pay these willing stations, they should think about the value of the spectrum for the wireless, not the broadcasting business,” coalition Executive Director Preston Padden told Ad Week. Over the past few weeks, TVNewsCheck notes, the National Association of Broadcasters has been saying that plans for a 2014 auction may be too ambitious. However, Padden told the media site, the NAB “appropriately is focused on the vast majority of stations who will remain in broadcasting, and our coalition is focused on broadcasters who want to participate in the auction if they can get fair value for their spectrum.”
Padden, a former exec at Fox, ABC and Disney who formed the coalition in November 2012, declined to tell Current if any public broadcasters are involved with the group, due to confidentiality requirements of the spectrum auctions.
The Association of Independents in Radio is joining forces with Independent Television Service for the next round of funding for Localore, the $2 million innovation initiative that pairs independent producers with public stations. Boston-based AIR spearheaded the first year of Localore with funding from CPB, the National Endowment for the Arts and two foundations. Localore projects include a multimedia look at the impact of the oil boom in North Dakota and an alternate-reality game challenging students to stay in school, Ed Zed Omega. On Wednesday, AIR and San Francisco-based ITVS said they would partner to support a second phase of development for selected Localore projects. ITVS has invited producer-station teams to apply, with funding decisions coming next month.
Colorado Public Radio is adding an arts news bureau and online arts hub, using a $900,000 grant from Denver’s Bonfils-Stanton Foundation. Max Wycisk, station president, said the grant will “transform the organization” by providing its first full news bureau and expanding music coverage. The grant will fund three full-time staffers for three years: An arts editor and two full-time reporters, one specializing in broadcast reports and the other in digital content. Coverage will include previews and stories about cultural organizations, funding and sustainability of the arts, and arts in education, as well as reviews, interviews, audio and video performances and events calendars. The new editorial team will produce articles, images and video.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has proposed cutting state aid to public television and radio by 42 percent in the next two fiscal years. State policymakers allocated $1.04 million to Kansas pubcasters for fiscal 2013. Under the budget proposal unveiled by Republican Gov. Brownback Jan. 16, the total subsidy would drop to $600,000 annually in fiscal 2014 and 2015. Gov. Brownback has previously targeted for public broadcasting even deeper spending cuts: for fiscal 2012, he sought to completely eliminate state aid.
Ashlie Wilson Pendley, a senior producer at Georgia Public Broadcasting, has resigned to protest the station’s decision in December to hire a former state legislator at the suggestion of Gov. Nathan Deal. Pendley detailed her decision to leave the station, where she has worked since 1997, in a letter to GPB President Teya Ryan, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In the letter, Pendley said former Georgia Sen. Chip Rogers’ salary of $150,000 is “more than any other Executive Producer, more than many of the Vice Presidents — and all in a time when budget cuts are deep and the rank and file have been told there is no money. I think it is unconscionable to create a position and compensate any individual in this manner during these difficult times.” The letter added: “For all of those who cannot, I resign in protest.
The host of WTTW’s popular restaurant review Check Please! series, which spawned several local versions across the pubcasting system, is departing after 10 years. Alpana Singh is leaving the Chicago program to devote more time to her own new restaurant, The Boarding House, where she is also Master Sommelier. Singh took over hosting duties in the third season of Check, Please! from its original host, Amanda Puck.
Emily Squires, who worked on the first regularly scheduled public television series as well as Sesame Street and Between the Lions, died Nov. 21 at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. She was 71. Squires won six Daytime Emmys for directing more than two dozen episodes of Sesame Street.
The Chicago station topped several program categories, and its staff took awards for individual achievements in television crafts. Architect Michael Graves: A Grand Tour won for outstanding cultural documentary. It was produced by Daniel Andries with associate producer Elizabeth Reeves and executive producers Dan Soles and V.J. McAleer. Andries and Geoffrey Baer, who wrote the program, received Emmys for outstanding crafts achievement off-air. WTTW’s Kindred, produced by Michael Sternoff, Beth Bennett, Scott Lamps, Marl McLennan, Marnie Sprenger, Maria Bain Ferraro, Jaclyn Foutz, Aj Gomberg and Susan Buchanan, was named outstanding topical documentary.
A list of attendees at the Jan. 15 pre-bid meeting for KCSM-TV in San Mateo, Calif., reveals only one public broadcasting-related entity so far. Participating via telephone in the meeting were John Schwartz, Kevin Lindsay and Ken Devine of Independent Public Media, which attempted to purchase the station during its first sale attempt. A local entity aligned with IPM, San Mateo Community TV Corp., was one of two finalists the San Mateo County Community College District Board rejected in November 2012, citing lack of proof of financing. The board reopened the bidding process with a new RFP in mid-December that includes options for purchase, or sustaining the station and sharing in the proceeds when its broadcast spectrum is sold off in upcoming auctions.
KLRU in Austin won three statuettes, including one in the community service category for “Light/The Holocaust & Humanity Project 2012,” a contemporary ballet and education program promoting human rights through the arts, education and public dialogue. Cited were Sara Robertson and Karen Bernstein, producers; Betsy Gerdeman, executive producer; Maury Sullivan, community engagement; and Cookie Ruiz, project supervisor. KRLU also won with “KRLU Collective: Asian Occasion” (Eve Tarlo, producer/editor) for arts/entertainment program feature, and “Arts in Context: Trouble Puppet” (Lauren Burton, producer; Mario Troncoso, producer/editor/videographer) for arts/entertainment program. Houston’s KUHT won an Emmy for public and current affairs with “Houston Refugees: Stories of Courage,” produced and hosted by Patricia Gras. In addition, Matthew Brawley was named best director of a live or live-to-tape program for KUHT’s 2012 Houston PBS Spelling Bee.
Wendell D. Garrett, an appraiser on Antiques Roadshow since 1997, died Nov. 14 at a hospice facility in Williston, Vt. He was 83. In addition to his work on Roadshow, Garrett was a retired senior vice president of the prestigious auction house Sotheby’s, and the longtime editor and publisher of The Magazine Antiques, a highly regarded publication in the field.
Folksy public TV personality Huell Howser, who chronicled California’s unique people and places while retaining his dulcet Tennessee twang, died Jan. 6 in Palm Springs. He was 67.
Charles Scruggs, known to Memphis children as “Mr. Chuck” on WKNO Public Television for more than a decade, died Jan. 18, reports the Commercial-Appeal. He was 80 years old. Beginning in the 1990s, Scruggs hosted Number 10 Friends Circle and Hello Mr. Chuck. “He wasn’t looking for anything or trying to sell any product,” Michael LaBonia, WKNO president, told the local CBS affiliate.
Newman’s Own Foundation, established by actor Paul Newman, has provided the Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network with a $125,000 grant to provide workforce development training to returning veterans, who face some of the highest unemployment rates in the state. “Although many veterans face unprecedented challenges as they reintegrate back into civilian life, CPBN is committed to making a difference by providing training, certifications and employment placement opportunities.” Jerry Franklin, network president, in the Jan. 15 announcement. The program, launching in February, will provide education and training workshops toward certifications in web and graphic design and video editing. “For nearly 20 years, we have been supporting the organizations that help our nation’s troops and their families,” said Robert Forrester, president of Newman’s Own Foundation.
Staffers at Southern California Public Radio in Pasadena, Calif., have voted to join Hollywood’s largest union, SAG-AFTRA, according to the station. The union was formed last year with the merger of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. The Jan. 11 vote, tallied Jan. 18 by the National Labor Relations Board, was 35-26.
The St. Louis public TV station’s Nine Academy, a program that trains individuals and community organizations to produce short videos on stories of “community impact,” received special recognition among the awards presented during NETA’s recent conference in St. Louis. In honoring the academy as the top winner in its annual awards program, NETA cited the station for groundbreaking community work. NETA recognized 20 public TV stations in 30 categories spread across four divisions — community engagement, content production, instructional media and promotion.
Former Georgia state Sen. Chip Rogers, a controversial figure recently hired by Georgia Public Broadcasting at the recommendation of Gov. Nathan Deal, will make $150,000 annually, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The “lofty” salary, the paper notes, comes “despite a rather pedestrian title: Executive producer, community jobs program.” Rogers will earn more than the governor, lieutenant governor, GPB’s vice president for radio and its chief information officer, the paper adds. The state legislator has been linked to a $2.3 million loan default on a failed hotel venture and a group of ultra-conservative activists promoting theories that President Obama uses mind control techniques to influence public opinion (Current, Dec. 17, 2012).
PBS is jumping into the “over-the-top” video-streaming space with a pair of deals to distribute public TV programs through apps on Roku boxes and Xbox Live.