Programs/Content

PRPD, Day One: In keynote, Mohn issues promotion challenge

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PORTLAND, Ore. — Addressing the nearly 500 attendees of the Public Radio Program Directors conference, NPR CEO Jarl Mohn reassured attendees Tuesday that he would renew the network’s focus on radio programming and challenged them to take part in a systemwide experiment to boost listening to NPR’s newsmagazines. “If we don’t get the radio part right, if we don’t get the terrestrial part right, if we don’t get broadcasting right, the rest of it isn’t going to make a difference,” Mohn told the crowd. “So you’re going to see from us, and from me, a renewed focus on the broadcasting side of the business.” Closing the conference’s first day, Mohn used his keynote speech to give thumbnail grades of public radio’s performance in areas including news, promotion, programming and positioning.

System/Policy

Private equity gobbling up public TV stations: what does the public get?

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Public stations in Connecticut and San Mateo may be at the leading edge of a mass sell-off of public media assets in next year’s FCC spectrum auction. These stations have entered into agreements with LocusPoint Networks, a subsidiary of the private equity firm Blackstone Group, whereby LocusPoint shoulders the stations’ operating costs until the auction and then takes a significant share of the auction revenue after the station has sold its spectrum to wireless bidders. These deals have to be disclosed to the FCC, but their details do not. When the spectrum is auctioned, stations  may receive tens of millions of dollars for their spectrum, especially in congested coastal areas. This money is unrestricted and can go back into community-based digital media, or into university gyms, or into a city’s general treasury.

People

Plane crash claims lives of two WXXI board members, major donors

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Two major donors and board members of Rochester, N.Y., dual licensee WXXI died Sept. 5 after their plane crashed in the ocean off the coast of Jamaica. Both were 68. Larry and Jane Glazer, major figures in Rochester’s business community who both served on WXXI’s board and co-chaired the station’s $17 million Go Public capital campaign, were flying their single-engine plane from Rochester to Naples, Fla., when their aircraft became unresponsive. Larry, a registered pilot, was at the controls.

People

The time Joan Rivers didn’t become an NPR host

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With the death of Joan Rivers, Jay Kernis, former senior v.p. for programming at NPR, shared this remembrance of Rivers on his Facebook page yesterday. It’s reproduced here with his permission. Between 2001-08, I was SVP for Programming at NPR and someone told Joan that she would be perfect to host a public radio show. I had interviewed her many years ago for NPR and I knew from producers like Amy Rosenblum just how smart Joan was. I was thrilled to be invited for lunch at her remarkable home on the East Side of NYC.

Programs/Content

Two public TV networks decline to air POV documentary After Tiller

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At least two public television networks opted not to air this week the POV documentary After Tiller, which profiles four late-term abortion providers and prompted a campaign among anti-abortion organizations. POV’s plans to air the film’s national broadcast premiere at 10 p.m. Sept. 1 spurred an Aug. 27 online statement from Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, who called the documentary “nothing short of pure propaganda intended to demonize the entire pro-life movement and drum up support for late-term abortion.” Several other anti-abortion websites urged visitors to contact PBS headquarters or PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler to protest stations airing the film. South Carolina ETV in Columbia and Mississippi Public Broadcasting in Jackson declined to air After Tiller.

Programs/Content

NPR’s Ellen McDonnell, executive editor for news programming, will retire after almost 35 years

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NPR’s news division is seeing the exit of another longtime executive with today’s announcement that Executive Editor for News Programming Ellen McDonnell will retire. McDonnell oversees NPR news programs including Morning Edition and All Things Considered. She started at NPR in 1979 and worked for nine years as executive producer of Morning Edition. “Ellen is as much a part of NPR’s DNA as she is a presence in our daily lives,” NPR’s Chief Content Officer Kinsey Wilson wrote in a memo quoted on the network’s breaking news blog. “She has touched and transformed nearly every aspect of NPR News, her creativity and zeal surpassed only by her generosity of spirit.

Development

Former iMA director leaves Greater Public amid shift in planned services

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Greater Public, the organization providing fundraising resources and support to public media stations, has opted not to renew the contract of Jeannie Ericson, executive director of its digital division. Ericson formerly worked directly with stations as executive director of the Integrated Media Association, which merged with Greater Public in August 2013. Under a yearlong contract that expired Aug. 29, she helped Greater Public evaluate how to integrate iMA’s digital services for stations into its existing portfolio of development-focused activities. Ericson had not expected that Greater Public would decline to renew her contract, she said.

System/Policy

CPB eyes TV CSG rules in anticipation of spectrum auctions

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CPB will review its television Community Service Grant policies to clarify how to handle station revenues from the upcoming spectrum auction. The auctions, mandated by Congress to be conducted by the FCC before 2022, will clear spectrum for wireless devices. All broadcasters must decide whether to participate, and a station’s sale of spectrum could bring in millions of dollars. So far, two recent noncom TV deals in California and Maryland, in which a speculator paid stations up front for a share of future spectrum proceeds, each topped $1 million. The value of a similar deal in Connecticut was not made public.