System/Policy

Incoming Republican chairs include ‘powerful friends’ of public broadcasting, says APTS president

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SAN DIEGO — Patrick Butler, public television’s chief advocate on Capitol Hill, wants to reassure broadcasters who are nervous about the incoming Republican majority, particularly on the powerful Senate side. In a speech at the annual American Public Television Fall Marketplace, Butler said that he “detected some anxiety in the public television industry that we will be going to hell in a handbasket now that Republicans control the entire Congress” after this month’s midterm elections. “I’ve come to San Diego to tell you that it ain’t necessarily so.”

Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, reminded the crowd that GOP support for pubcasting goes back even to Arizona Sen. Barry Goldwater — known as “Mr. Conservative” — who helped Joan Ganz Cooney, the niece of a friend, get the first $1 million to create Sesame Street in the 1960s. And even now, Butler noted, “public broadcasting does have powerful friends among Republicans in the Senate.”

One is Sen. Thad Cochran of Mississippi, new chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee. His father was the first chair of the Mississippi Public Broadcasting Commission in the late ’60s, Butler said.

Programs/Content

PBS to test whether core series can bring in pledge dollars

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PBS has set the lineup for an upcoming fundraising test that will use a full week’s schedule of first-run National Program Service shows. Seventeen stations will take part in the experiment, running Nov. 28 through Dec. 5. PBS is trying to determine whether using core series, rather than pledge specials that veer from the regular lineup, will lead to a more stable member and donor base and perhaps even prompt more major gifts.

Tech

Public Radio Satellite System adopts new standard for audio levels

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The Public Radio Satellite System adopted standards Thursday intended to normalize audio levels among the programs it distributes to stations. PRSS adopted an audio measurement standard using a number to denote audio levels, instead of the longtime industry standard of peak meters. Decibel measurements provided by meters are largely subjective. The loudness unit adopted by PRSS is used by organizations around the world. Because PBS also uses it, joint licensees can now rely on a single standard, which will simplify operations, according to the PRSS working group that approved the change.

Programs/Content

APT offers MST3K episodes to public TV stations

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SAN DIEGO — Mystery Science Theater 3000 could be headed for public television. It’s one of some 75 shows that public TV programmers are previewing at distributor American Public Television’s annual Fall Marketplace, running here through Thursday. In the cult comedy series, janitor Joel Robinson (played by series creator Joel Hodgson) is forced to watch grade-Z movies on a remote space station as part of a psychological experiment devised by an evil scientist. Robinson creates robot pals Tom Servo, Crow T. Robot and Gypsy to watch with him, and they pass the time by making snarky yet erudite comments throughout each film. Their shadows are superimposed along the bottom of the screen so viewers see the movie while hearing their quips.

Programs/Content

Masterpiece expands hours with “gushing pipeline” of classics, mysteries

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Masterpiece will concentrate on bolstering its popular Classics and Mystery! strands with an boost in support from its main sponsor, Viking River Cruises. Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton is also working on developing a major new series. The WGBH icon program’s footprint will expand by 50 percent — around 20 hours — with additional episodes spread throughout the season. Extra hours will be scheduled Sundays at 8 p.m. or 10 p.m. Eastern time, before or after Masterpiece’s longtime 9 p.m. time slot.

Programs/Content

BBC crafts module to take advantage of NPR clock changes

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Responding to an opening created by changes to the clock for NPR’s Morning Edition, the BBC is rolling out a 90-second news module for insertion into a bottom-of-the-hour segment designated for local news coverage. The BBC’s Topline will curate top international news stories selected to compliment Morning Edition’s coverage. Stations that subscribe to the BBC World Service through American Public Media can pick it up at no additional cost, but the window for airing it is limited to the newly created 8:31:30 a.m. (Eastern time) break in Morning Edition. Stations are also prohibited from editing it. In a Q&A about the offering, the BBC said its editors will monitor Morning Edition to ensure that the stories featured on Topline don’t overlap with those covered by NPR.

Jobs

Avoid these cardinal sins in applying for public media jobs

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I’ve hired a lot of folks over the past 35 years in broadcasting, and thankfully most have been good hires, some excellent, and some even extraordinary. I count in that latter group Robert Krulwich, Robert Siegel, Noah Adams, Scott Simon, David Brancaccio, David Brown, and many others. But I have also encountered job applicants who left me with a bad taste in my mouth — not because of who they were, but rather because of what they did during the application process. For the benefit of future applicants, I thought I’d detail some of what I consider the “cardinal sins” of applying for a job. The obvious time-wasters: those who haven’t read the detailed job description or lifted a finger to research the company or station doing the hiring.

System/Policy

Indiana pubTV finance manager pleads guilty to stealing station funds

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The former finance manager of WFWA-TV in Fort Wayne, Ind., has pleaded guilty to embezzling money from the PBS member station. In a plea bargain, Gail Waymire confessed to one count of routing nearly $9,000 of the station’s funds to her personal bank account and waived a jury trial. A federal grand jury in South Bend, Ind., indicted her last month on 20 charges in connection with stealing more than $130,000 from the station’s coffers over three years. The FBI requested that no one at the station speak publicly on the matter while Waymire’s case is pending. Station Board Chair Randall Steiner also declined to comment to Current Tuesday.

Programs/Content

PBS weighs balance between free, premium access for launch of Plus

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PBS is preparing for a pilot run of Membership Video on Demand, a premium service for station contributors, under the new name PBS Plus. The service will be structured to preserve a window of free access to program streams on PBS.org and to protect stations’ member data, according to Tom Davidson, PBS senior director of digital strategies, during a session at the NETA Professional Development Conference, Oct. 20–22 in Dallas. PBS Plus will go into soft launch in the spring for existing members at seven test stations. Under the full kickoff scheduled for late summer 2015, stations nationwide can begin marketing it to new members.

People

Joyce MacDonald joins CPB as first v.p. of journalism

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CPB has hired former NPR executive Joyce MacDonald for the new position of vice president of journalism, it announced Tuesday. MacDonald will work with Bruce Theriault, s.v.p., journalism and radio, on local and regional journalism strategy, planning and major initiatives. Since January, MacDonald has led National Public Media, a subsidiary of NPR, PBS and WGBH, as interim president. NPM is responsible for corporate sponsorship sales. After joining NPR in 1999, her positions included chief of staff, v.p. of member partnership and director of station relations.

People

Frank Mankiewicz, former NPR president, dies at 90

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Frank Mankiewicz, a former NPR president credited with taking the fledgling network to new levels of professionalism while also overseeing its decline into near-bankruptcy, died of natural causes Oct. 23 at George Washington University Hospital in Washington, D.C. He was 90. Mankiewicz led NPR from 1977-83 after a career in politics, during which he served as Robert Kennedy’s press secretary. It was Mankiewicz’s task to announce the assassination of the then-presidential candidate. According to the Public Radio Archives at the University of Maryland, Mankiewicz also worked as a journalist, wrote four books and a syndicated column and delivered commentaries for television.