System/Policy

Two Native tribes are first to benefit from FCC rules favoring tribal applicants

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Native tribes in New Mexico and Arizona are the first to benefit from the FCC’s Tribal Radio Priority, a provision created by the commission to help tribal entities start new radio stations. The FCC announced March 1 that it set aside FM allotments for Navajo Technical College in Crownpoint, N.M., and for the Hualapai Tribe in Peach Springs, Ariz. Allotments serve as placeholders for future FM stations; the tribes must now wait until the FCC opens a filing window and accepts their applications for construction permits. The commission created the Tribal Radio Priority provision in 2010, establishing standards by which Native tribes could be given priority in securing licenses for AM and FM stations. “The need for Tribal radio stations is clear,” wrote Geoffrey Blackwell, chief of the FCC’s Office of Native Affairs and Policy, in a blog post announcing the allotments.

Quick Takes

Legislative committee recommends Idaho PTV gets 9.8 percent hike in state support

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Idaho’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee is recommending that Idaho Public Television receive a boost in state support over the governor’s recommendation, mainly for equipment replacement, according to the Spokesman-Review. Gov. Butch Otter had recommended a 2.6 percent hike in state funding in next year’s budget, to $1.6 million. IPTV’s request was for a 78.2 percent rise to $2.8 million. The legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee on Tuesday approved a 9.8 percent increase to $1.7 million. Included is funding to replace $34,000 worth of failed, 22-year-old equipment that has knocked out service to the communities of Challis, Salmon and Leadore, the newspaper noted.

People

One ouster leads to another at Iowa Public Radio

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When the board of Iowa Public Radio voted to remove Mary Grace Herrington as c.e.o. Feb. 25, the directors were responding to mounting evidence of declining staff morale at the state network. Dissension over Herrington’s leadership was sparked at least in part by her decision to fire a popular news director last year. The sole “no” in the IPR board’s 6-1 vote was cast by a newly appointed director who was attending his first meeting. Herrington had been chief executive since 2009, leading IPR through a signal expansion and format differentiation that created two distinct public radio channels for Iowans.

System/Policy

CPB details how automatic budget cuts will work, corporation-wide

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This item has been updated and reposted. CPB on Monday sent a memo to public broadcasting stations detailing the 5 percent sequester of its $445 million 2013 appropriation. “Reflecting our continued concern about the potential for additional budget actions in FY 2013,” CPB President Pat Harrison told pubcasting executives, CPB will base this fiscal year’s second Community Service Grant payments on an appropriation level of $421.415 million, which will incorporate a recalculation of the first CSG payment at $421.415 million. CSGs should be ready by April 1, she added. By statute, Harrison said, the 5 percent cut will be allocated across all CPB functions (numbers  rounded): System support, a total $26.7 million appropriation, will receive a $1.33 million cut; administration, $22.3 million, drops $1.11 million; television station grants, $222.8 million, drops $11.1 million; television programming, $74.3 million, drops $3.7 million; radio station grants, $69.3 million, drops $3.5 million; radio programming acquisition grants, $22.8 million, drops $1.1 million; and radio programming, $6.9 million, drops $347,000.

Quick Takes

Report: CPB radio v.p. a finalist to run Iowa Public Television

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Greg Schnirring, vice president for radio at CPB, is a finalist for the executive director/general manager post at Iowa Public Television, the Des Moines Register reports. Also vying for the job is Molly Phillips, currently IPTV’s director of communications and community engagement. The IPTV Board will interview the candidates Friday, the report said. Dan Miller, e.d. and g.m. since July 2002, has been with the station for 37 years. He announced his retirement in December 2012 to focus on his health, after receiving a diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, according to the Register.

Quick Takes

Former Sesame puppeteer Clash files for dismissal of lawsuits

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Puppeteer Kevin Clash, who resigned his Sesame Street role as Elmo after multiple charges of sexual impropriety surfaced last year, is seeking to have the charges dropped, according to The Wrap, an entertainment news site. An attorney for Clash filed papers in U.S. District Court in New York on Friday. Clash contends the three lawsuits against him should be dropped because the statute of limitations on the allegations has expired.

Quick Takes

PBS eyeing weekend editions of PBS NewsHour, produced at WNET

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The New York Times is quoting unnamed pubTV employees who say that PBS is close to a decision on adding weekend broadcasts of PBS NewsHour for the first time since the show began in 1975. The programs would be produced at WNET in New York City instead of longtime presenting station WETA in Arlington, Va., the report said. The NewsHour employees also told the Times that program producer MacNeil-Lehrer Productions is facing a shortfall of up to $7 million this fiscal year from what had been a $28 million budget. In the proposed deal, PBS would provide $3 million to WNET to produce the weekend shows. WNET and NewsHour officials declined comment to the Times.

Quick Takes

It’s official: Sequestration will trim CPB’s appropriation by 5 percent

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CPB is losing 5 percent of its $445 million appropriation for 2013 due to the automatic budget cuts known as sequestration, according to a memo released by the White House on Friday. The corporation had received previous estimates of either 5.1 percent or 5.3 percent cuts, and is carefully considering how it handles Community Service Grant disbursements to stations. Last November, the Office of Management and Budget told CPB officials that sequestration would reduce its appropriation by 8.2 percent, so CPB tucked 10 percent into 90-day CDs in preparation for cutbacks.

Programs/Content

Report: IRS needs to change “antiquated” approach to nonprofit news startups

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Taking too long to confer 501(c)3 status to startup nonprofit news organizations not only undervalues journalism but also has stymied new approaches to community journalism when they are needed most, according to a report released today by the Nonprofit Working Group of the Council on Foundations. The group was created by the Council on Foundations with a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to study the impact of the IRS’s recent approach to granting nonprofit status to media organizations. The report cites the IRS’s “antiquated” methods of granting tax-exempt status as hobbling efforts to create new media outlets. “Over the last several decades, accountability reporting, especially at the local level, has contracted dramatically, with potentially grave consequences for communities, government accountability, and democracy,” said Steven Waldman, chair of the Nonprofit Media Working Group, in a prepared statement. “Nonprofit media provides an innovative solution to help fill this vacuum, but only if the IRS modernizes its approach.”

The group pointed out five problems with how the IRS currently handles tax-exempt requests, including taking too long, undervaluing journalism and failing to “recognize the changing nature of digital media.”

The group recommended that the IRS address the problems by counting news and journalism as “educational” under tax-exempt rules.

People

Charles Scruggs, “Mr. Chuck” on WKNO

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Charles Scruggs, known to Memphis children for his appearances as “Mr. Chuck” on WKNO Public Television for nearly two decades, died Jan. 18. He was 80. Fred Rogers once called Scruggs’ community work “remarkable.”