System/Policy
Michael Nesmith wins $47 million in video suit against PBS
Almost five years after PBS sued its former home-video distributor, the legal action boomeranged last week, hitting the network with a $46.8 million ...Gore panel endorses adding educational DTV channels
An extra digital TV channel should be reserved in every community for noncommercial educational purposes, the Gore Commission recommended last week in its ...DBS ruling: FCC reserves 4% of channels for education
Direct broadcast satellite companies will have to set aside 4 percent of their video channel capacity for noncommercial educational programming, the FCC ...On to the White House
The House and Senate resolved last-minute differences over public broadcasting’s fiscal 1991-93 authorization bill and late last week passed the three-year, $800 ...High court upholds authority of Arkansas network in debate case
The broadcast decision that embroiled Arkansas ETV in a landmark First Amendment struggle ever since 1992 was “a reasonable, viewpoint-neutral exercise of ...Court gives WFUV fifth victory for its tower plan
New York state’s highest court early this month unanimously upheld WFUV-FM’s right to complete the radio tower on Fordham University’s Bronx campus, ...Minnesota net endows itself with sale of mail-order firm
With the $120-million sale of for-profit sister company Rivertown Trading to Dayton Hudson, Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) gains a secure subsidy while ...Merger: we’re not talking now, but we might be talking later
It may be a simple question–are PRI and NPR talking about a merger?–but that doesn’t mean it gets a simple answer. To ...A rough few months for San Francisco’s KALW
The KALW situation is marked by problems and issues resonant in public radio. Most familiar: distress with institutional licensee.Managers try to form a more perfect union
Austin, Tex. — The Convention of Stations on Nov. 5 [1997] created a Forum for public TV’s national decision-making, opening the way ...Researchers invite others to use Audience 98 data
Public radio audience researcher David Giovannoni this week will present findings from Audience 98, a major study that aims to extend programmers’ ...How reform can minimize politics in presidential appointments
This analysis by the editor and co-founder of Current describes methods used elsewhere to reduce the influence of political favor in naming boards. If ...The emperor’s old clothes:
it’s time to retailor CPBNearly three decades of observing CPB close-up have convinced me that only an essential change in the way CPB Board members are ...C-SPAN steps in as buyer of WDCU in Washington
As the prospective new owner of jazz station WDCU took constant heat over the past month from jazz lovers and public radio ...PTV Weekend: Notes on Questions, Concerns, Strengths and Benefits
James Fellows, long active in public TV’s national leadership and founder of Current, analyzed the PTV Weekend proposal, when it was published in ...
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