Nycklemoe
• Erik Nycklemoe, who took over as general manager at KPLU-FM in February 2013, has left the pubcaster in Tacoma, Wash. Donna Gibbs, station spokesperson, said licensee Pacific Lutheran University opted not to renew his contract, effective April 23. Previous to his position at KPLU, Nycklemoe was director of network initiatives at American Public Media Group in St. Paul, Minn. Stepping in at KPLU as interim GM for “at least one year,” Gibbs told Current, is Joey Cohn, music director.
• Arthur Cohen, who has served as president of Public Radio Program Directors (PRPD) for eight years, will retire in January 2015, ending a 35-year career in public broadcasting that also included executive positions at New York’s WNYC, Minnesota Public Radio and WETA in Arlington, Va. Cohen’s relationship with PRPD dates to 1989, when he joined its board of directors; he also served as a consultant to the group and organized its national conference.
“Arthur has been instrumental over the past decade in leading our association through a shifting landscape in how music and news are consumed and how we reach new generations with public radio content,” said Tamar Charney, PRPD Board chair and p.d. for Michigan Radio, in Monday’s announcement. Cohen said he intends to remain involved in public media as a consultant. A search committee will find his replacement.
• Online magazine Slate is trying to convince readers to donate $50 per year for Slate Plus, which gives access to premium content. “As with NPR and PBS, [Slate is hoping] that liberal guilt might become another revenue stream,” writes USA Today columnist Michael Wolff, who sees Slate as following pubmedia’s lead in the “publishers as beggars” media business.
• “The Internet is coming to NPR!” Those words, memorialized in an April 28, 1994, memo to NPR staffers, ushered in the digital age at NPR. See the memo here via NPRchives.