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.

Programs/Content

Final NPR newsmag clocks will take effect Nov. 17

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NPR has released the final versions of the new clocks for its newsmagazines and set a date of Nov. 17 for their implementation. The network unveiled proposed clocks in July after more than a year of work that involved staff and representatives from member stations. The clocks are the second-by-second scheduling of what happens when during the newsmagazines, including newscasts, music beds and funding credits. They also affect when stations can insert their own local content.

Quick Takes

NAB challenges parts of FCC’s plan for spectrum auction

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The National Association of Broadcasters filed a petition for review in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Monday to challenge part of the FCC’s spectrum incentive auction order filed last week. NAB said it had no alternative but to file the lawsuit because the order as written could leave broadcasters footing the bill for tower relocation and other expenses when the spectrum is repacked. NAB also aims to have the court direct the FCC to drop a study that it plans to do ahead of repacking to determine broadcasters’ coverage areas. NAB said following the study, which would use a different methodology from previous surveys, could harm its members. “Under this new methodology, many broadcast television licensees, including NAB’s members, will lose coverage area and population served during the auction’s repacking and reassignment process, or be forced to participate in the auction (and relinquish broadcast spectrum rights),” the lawsuit reads.

System/Policy

How stations can stay relevant as listeners go elsewhere for NPR content

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The public radio economy is built on $432 million in annual listener contributions to local public radio stations. Each year nearly 3 million listeners and their families recognize the value of a station brand in their lives, and they voluntarily give that station money. We’ve known since the 1980s that listeners give out of enlightened self-interest, not altruism. The primary motivation for donating to a public radio station is nearly universal — they recognize that the programming they hear via the station brand is personally important and that they would miss it if it were to go away. This finding has been confirmed through multiple studies over decades and more than 1,000 donor surveys conducted over the past nine months by Emodus Research, which I founded last year to learn more about the emotional connections that motivate audiences to listen and donate to public stations.

System/Policy

Applying for a station job? Do your homework

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Back in the day when young writers were pitching magazines to publish their work, there used to be a common complaint by magazine editors: “Some of the writers have never even seen our magazine! Don’t they realize how rude and disrespectful it is to pitch us stories that we would never publish, because they’re just not us!”

I have been working on recruiting a journalism staffer for a major public radio station. And, frankly, after sitting through a bunch of interviews and reading even more applications, I am stunned that almost none of the applicants have taken the time to do basic homework. This would include:

Familiarity with the station. Knowledge of the job they’re applying for.

Tech

Changes to FCC rules ease requirements for tower owners, tenants

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Pubcasters who own broadcast towers are about to get regulatory relief thanks to a FCC decision that closes the books on a lengthy effort to revise rules governing tower safety and maintenance. At an open meeting Friday, FCC commissioners approved the changes while decrying the long road their predecessors took to get there. “This issue was first raised in 2005 during the Commission’s 2004 biennial rule review,” said commissioner Michael O’Rielly. The question that has to be asked is, why did it take the commission nine years?”

Though the Part 17 rules apply to all owners of “antenna structures” (FCC-speak for towers), the Commission’s Wireless Telecommunications Bureau promoted the changes as a boon to cellular and data services, which depend on hundreds of thousands of smaller towers across the country to meet ever-growing demand from consumers. By eliminating a requirement that tower owners conduct quarterly physical checks of the monitoring systems at all of their towers, the FCC “will save antenna structure owners millions of dollars annually,” said WTB representative Michael Smith.

Programs/Content

NPR delays implementing new program clocks until at least November

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NPR will postpone implementing new clocks for its flagship newsmagazines until at least November after hearing concerns that an earlier transition could interfere with stations’ fund drives and coverage of midterm elections. The network initially proposed starting the new schedules for Morning Edition and All Things Considered Sept. 22. But stations and the board of the Public Radio Program Directors Association asked for more time. When setting the initial date for implementation, NPR “did a good job of trying to find a time not in the middle of fundraising,” said PRPD President Arthur Cohen.

People

“Steve was my hero”: a remembrance of a radio rebel

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Steve Post, legendary New York radio personality for more than 50 years, died Sunday. He was 70 years old. Steve was the acerbic host of Morning Music, heard on WNYC-FM for 25 years. Every morning Steve read his version of the news. When Mayor Ed Koch had a stroke, his doctors announced that he had “the brain of a 12-year-old.” Ever after Steve referred to His Honor as “him with the 12-year-old brain.”

Weather reports were called “the weather lies.” Steve delivered news of leaks from nuclear reactors, always ending with the line, “No significant amount of radiation was released,” whether in the wire copy or not, read absolutely straight with an incredulous voice.

System/Policy

In spectrum auction, FCC should protect public TV’s coverage

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The FCC recently released the entire text of its Report and Order detailing rules for the upcoming broadcast spectrum auctions, making it clear that it intends to make no effort to preserve public TV signal coverage. The 484-page report, “Expanding the Economic and Innovation Opportunities of Spectrum Through Incentive Auctions,” rejects the proposal supported by CPB and other leading broadcast organizations to preserve at least one station per geographic market. If you dive into this ponderous document, I recommend paragraph 367 and footnote 1090 (unfortunately, not a typo — there really are over 1,000 footnotes). In paragraph 367, the FCC states that it declines to “restrict acceptance of such bids based on the potential loss of television service or specific programming.”

The FCC further states that any such restrictions “could reduce the amount of spectrum available” to carry out the auction and undermine the “goal of allowing market forces to determine the highest and best use of spectrum.” The long and short of it is that if the entities that hold America’s 289 UHF public TV licenses decide to sell their underlying spectrum in the forthcoming “incentive” auction, that spectrum will be lost to noncommercial television forever. It need not be so.

System/Policy

Incentive auction threatens over-the-air public TV service, says CPB report

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Though the FCC’s incentive auction next year might give a short-term financial boost to a handful of public TV stations, it could erode the field’s ability to provide over-the-air signals to all of the nation’s homes, according to a new CPB white paper that outlines policy implications for local decision-makers. “Narrow financial calculations cannot measure the value of serving the educational needs of the nation’s children, providing trusted news, reliably delivering emergency alerts, presenting diverse viewpoints that would not otherwise be heard, and numerous other benefits provided today and in the future by the nation’s public media stations through over-the-air broadcasting,” says the report, “Facing the Spectrum Incentive Auction and Repacking Process,” released Thursday. “Unfortunately, while the spectrum incentive auction and repacking process would address one problem (the need for more spectrum for wireless broadband), it would likely do so at the expense of public media’s ability to meet the mandates of the Public Broadcasting Act — undermining communities’ ability to address the policy dilemmas they face as well as the nation’s need for universal service and local content and diversity of programming in an increasingly consolidated media environment,” the report added. CPB commissioned the white paper in April 2013 to help provide background and a policy framework for local pubcasters as they approach decisions about how and whether to participate in the FCC’s incentive auction, a voluntary proceeding that will be disruptive for broadcasters and TV viewers alike. Though stations can choose whether to participate in the auction, the FCC may move them to another channel during a process called “repacking,” which may require some stations to relinquish channels assigned to TV translators.

People

Masterpiece leads PBS slate of 34 Primetime Emmy nominees, and more awards in public media

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Downton Abbey and Sherlock: His Last Vow each picked up 12 primetime Emmy nominations July 10, earning the lion’s share of the 34 nominations for PBS programs.

Downton Abbey, a co-production of Masterpiece and Carnival Films, was nominated for outstanding drama series and outstanding directing for a drama series, while Michelle Dockery, who plays Lady Mary Crawley in the period drama, was nominated for lead actress in a series. Four additional cast members are vying for Emmys: Maggie Smith and Joanne Froggatt, both nominated for supporting actress in a drama series; Jim Carter, nominated for supporting actor in a drama series; and Paul Giamatti, a contender in the category guest actor in a drama series. Downton Abbey also received nominations for five craft awards: art direction for a period series, costumes for a series, hairstyling for a single-camera series, music composition for a series and sound mixing for a comedy or drama series. Sherlock: His Last Vow, the third installment in the series presented on PBS by Masterpiece Mystery, was nominated for best television movie. Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Sherlock Holmes, was nominated for lead actor in a miniseries or movie; and Martin Freeman, who plays sidekick John Watson, was nominated for supporting actor in a miniseries or movie.

Development

Stations retool pledge drives to account for rise in sustainers

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DENVER — An increase in sustaining memberships has provided a welcome source of stable income for some public radio stations, but it has also prompted some to rethink their strategies for on-air fund drives. Under a sustaining membership, a donor sets up automatic monthly contributions to a station instead of giving on an annual basis. That reduces the pressure during on-air fund drives to convince listeners to renew their memberships, and stations are responding by redoubling efforts to enlist new members during pledge campaigns. Executives from two stations described their approaches in a July 10 panel discussion here at the Public Media Development & Marketing Conference. “Our drives are no longer a renewal machine,” said Jacquie Fuller, on-air fundraising manager for Minnesota Public Radio.

Development

Pubmedia stations foresee decline of on-air pledge drives, cite need for new tactics

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With analysis from Richard McPherson

Individual contributions to local public broadcasting stations are the single largest revenue stream coming into public broadcasting. According to CPB’s latest report on system finances, gifts from members and major donors provided $871 million in gross revenues to public radio and television stations in 2013. That pool of money was nearly evenly divided between radio and television. Public television’s share, $439 million, was flat from 2012 revenues; radio’s $432 million was 5 percent higher than 2012. This river of financial support from individual donors is far larger than the $497 million in federal monies that CPB channeled to local stations in 2013.

Programs/Content

Proposed NPR clocks would add morning newscasts, longer underwriting credits

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A proposed revamp of NPR’s newsmagazines would allow for longer underwriting credits, expand the number of morning newscasts, and incorporate American Public Media’s Marketplace Morning Report as a baked-in segment within Morning Edition. NPR is announcing the changes today to staff and member stations after working with stations on the revisions for more than a year. The network will solicit and review feedback from stations over the next two weeks, aiming to implement the changes by Sept. 22. “These changes give Member Stations new flexibility to meet local audience needs while ensuring that Morning Edition and All Things Considered remain vibrant national programs that continue to fuel the public radio economy,” NPR said in a memo to stations.

System/Policy

In radio appearance, ‘Citizen Koch’ filmmakers allege self-censorship in public TV

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The filmmakers behind a new documentary briefly discussed their “deeply troubling” experience with public TV in an appearance on public radio’s On Point Wednesday. Tia Lessin and Carl Deal directed Citizen Koch, now hitting theaters after vying for grant funding and a broadcast commitment from PBS’s Independent Lens. The film examines the influence of wealthy conservatives such as David and Charles Koch on Republican politics. A May 2013 article by the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer suggested that ITVS, Independent Lens’s producer, backed away from the film due to pressure from New York’s WNET, where David Koch sat on the board. Appearing on On Point, Lessin and Deal said ITVS asked them to remove content related to the Kochs from their film and to change the name.

Quick Takes

Tuesday roundup: Pubmedia inspires poetry volume; ESPN prez responds to Kirk’s “whining”

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• I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! Granted, that’s probably not among the verses in The Liberal Media Made Me Do It!, a new collection of poems based on public broadcasting stories and shows. But the book does contain pubmedia-centric contributions from more than 50 poets who were inspired by Radiolab, Performance Today, A Prairie Home Companion and other fare. “For me, the greatest delight in receiving these pieces has been to recognize the stories I have heard on the radio, with the added dimension of another’s perception added in,” writes editor Robbi Nester. “This brings home the truth that each of us could start with the same raw material and yet produce finished products that resemble one another only in incidental ways.”

The book is now available from Lummox Press.