System/Policy

Tower collapse takes engineer, pubcast signals

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When terrorists brought down the World Trade Center in an imploding, crumbling crash, they not only destroyed New York City’s highest buildings but silenced eight of its largest TV stations. WNET, the city’s flagship public TV station, was knocked off the air for five days and apparently lost Rod Coppola, a 47-year-old engineer who was working at its transmitter site atop Tower One. The tower also took with it $8 million in transmitter and antenna equipment. Every major station in the city — except for WCBS, which maintained a backup transmitter on the Empire State Building — went down in the crash of the WTC, extinguishing service to one in five households — 7.3 million — that receives TV over the air. Nearly 80 percent of households didn’t notice the interruption.

PBS

Securing the union, pumping up the volume, bowling in a league

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From the opening moments of its 2001 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PBS drew on the city’s role in U.S. history and a series of in-person presentations to foster pride and other warm fuzzies among 1,300 conference attendees. In a spoof of Antiques Roadshow with actors as the founding fathers, APTS President John Lawson presented a letter by Alexander Hamilton to appraisers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. “We must secure our union on solid foundations — it is a job for Hercules,” Hamilton wrote. Lawson feigned amazement when the letter was deemed to be of “immense worth.” For plenary sessions in a convention center ballroom, PBS put on highly produced shows, with musical performances, staged interviews, scripts rolling on multiple teleprompters and program-related stunts replacing many of the clip screenings of past years.

System/Policy

Spending goals, slowdown prompt 60 layoffs at PBS

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Anticipating the rollout of a new strategic plan and budget proposal,
PBS laid off 60 employees March 15. Although the 9 percent cutback of positions was spread across the company,
the programming department saw some of the most significant changes in what
PBS describes as a “strategic realignment” under President Pat Mitchell. Among the team of regional programming execs that Mitchell began hiring
last summer, Jacoba “Coby” Atlas and John Wilson were elevated as co-chief
programming executives. Atlas, PBS’s West Coast exec, now has responsibility
for all primetime and news/public affairs programs. Wilson remains in charge
of children’s content, fundraising and syndicated programs, and scheduling. Pat Hunter, formerly v.p. of programming administration, was promoted to
senior v.p. and assigned project management duties.

Development

Public TV privatization drive falters in Idaho

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The campaign to throw Idaho Public Television out of the state budget seems to have run out of oomph. On Feb. 20 [2001], the legislature’s Joint Finance and Appropriations Committee okayed IPTV’s funding requests almost without change — without raising the privatization issue. And five days earlier, the state Board of Education, licensee of the state network, voted 5-2 to advise the legislature against privatization. “I am fairly certain the issue is dead for this year,” says Jennifer Gallagher Oxley, who reported on the struggle for Boise’s Idaho Statesman.

System/Policy

Intervention by Congress slashes LPFM licensing 80 percent

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Low-power FM? Try nearly no-power. The scope of the controversial noncommercial service shrunk abruptly last month when Congress effectively cut the number of possible LPFM stations by an estimated 80 percent. NPR and other opponents of the service who had worried about LPFM interfering with their stations celebrated their victory, while media activists, former pirates and other microradio supporters accused lawmakers of bowing to pressure from the powerful broadcasting lobby. “We are disappointed that Congress chose to ignore the will of the people,” said Cheryl Leanza, deputy director of the pro-LPFM Media Access Project.

Programs/Content

Forum urges strong role for public TV in education

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If the National Forum for Public Television Executives has its way, public TV will:

raise an additional $200 million a year by loosening underwriting guidelines (notably, by airing 30-second credits), freeing up stations’ funds by making the PBS national schedule self-supporting,
develop educational and local services equal in impact to PBS’s national programming, and
restructure PBS, APTS and its other national organizations under a new board of station managers. The petitions come up Tuesday, Oct. 24 at the third annual PBS Members Meeting, where the Forum will ask all PBS member stations to endorse resolutions to the PBS Board. It’s the conclusion of an annual three-day policyfest. On Sunday, PBS will report to stations on big price increases for Nielsen ratings [story], and the strange new world of personal video recorders, digital cable and electronic “walled gardens” controlled by media conglomerates, according to Executive Vice President Wayne Godwin.

System/Policy

Will Senate loosen definition of ‘educational’ channels?

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Public broadcasters are ramping up efforts to secure support of their position in the Senate after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation that could force the FCC to permit religious broadcasters to use reserved noncommercial educational channels without determining whether they carry educational programs or not. The Noncommercial Broadcasting Freedom of Expression Act, H.R. 4201, passed the House 264-159 on June 20, with six Republicans and 153 Democrats opposed. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Charles W. “Chip” Pickering (R-Miss.) but largely rewritten by House telecom subcommittee Chair Billy Tauzin (R-La.), gives nonprofit organizations the right to hold noncommercial educational (NCE) radio or television licenses if the station broadcasts material the organization itself deems to serve an “educational, instructional, cultural or religious purpose.” The bill notes that religious programming “contributes to serving the educational and cultural needs of the public,” and dictates that the FCC treat it the same way it treats educational programming. Before the legislation’s passage, the House rejected an alternative offered by Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) that would have mandated the reserved channels be primarily educational.

System/Policy

Suit resolved, MPR and PRI maintain ties

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In settling its lawsuit over the ownership of Marketplace, Public
Radio International secured its grip on its most popular programs. The agreement
will let Minnesota Public Radio proceed with its acquisition of the business
show and will extend PRI’s distribution for it and other MPR programs.

“Everybody’s happy that this went away quickly,” said Jim Russell, g.m.
of Marketplace Productions and, now, MPR’s v.p. for national programming. “The public broadcasting industry doesn’t want this kind of dirty linen
washed in public, and it’s not good for the industry. It’s not good for
funders to see this.” The suit’s resolution clears the way for the program’s transfer, to the
relief of the University of Southern California, which sold Marketplace
and The Savvy Traveler, and MPR, which bought them. The settlement,
reached May 25, gives PRI a 10-year distribution deal for Marketplace,
according to MPR, extending it well beyond its 2003 expiration.

Programs/Content

PBS President Pat Mitchell: ‘I think I’ll be learning every day of the year’

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Since she was hired as PBS president early in February [2000], Pat Mitchell has met with 60 or 70 of public TV’s managers, and station board leaders as well, in trips to stations and at the APTS Annual Meeting. To oversee station relations, she hired the network’s former board vice chairman, Wayne Godwin, away from Cincinnati’s WCET (he starts work this week at PBS). And she’s expected to announce further initiatives starting next weekend at the PBS Annual Meeting in Nashville. Mitchell, a longtime producer in commercial TV, was previously head of Time Warner’s CNN Productions, based in Atlanta. She still has yet to pack her household and move to the D.C. area.

System/Policy

Bills seek to protect preachers on educational channels

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Though the FCC backed off quickly, conservative members of Congress are pushing bills to make sure the commission doesn’t try again to restrict religious broadcasters’ use of noncommercial educational radio or TV channels. The problem for pubcasters is that the legislation could make it hard for the FCC to protect education in the reserved channels, opponents say. The House telecom subcommittee expects to mark up legislation in mid-May [2000], says Ken Johnson, spokesman for subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.). The subcommittee gave a friendly hearing to religious broadcasters’ testimony April 13 [2000]. The latest House bill, the Noncommercial Broadcasting Freedom of Expression Act, would forbid the FCC to require the users of educational channels to air certain amounts of programming with “educational, instructional or cultural purposes,” or to determine that religious programming does not meet those purposes.

System/Policy

In fights for noncommercial channels, FCC gives an edge to the locals

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Until recently, it seemed that Simon Frech’s squabble with two religious broadcasters over an FM frequency would never end. In 1995, the FCC stopped considering competing applications from noncommercial broadcasters for radio and television frequencies, leaving Frech and many others in bureaucratic limbo. Adding it up
The FCC’s new point system for choosing among noncommercial broadcasters vying for the same frequency will reward several characteristics:

3 points if the applicant is locally based, which the FCC defines as being physically headquartered, having a campus, or having three-fourths of its board members within 25 miles of the community;

2 points if the applicant owns no other local broadcast stations. An applicant that can’t claim this credit but is part of a statewide network providing service to accredited schools can also claim 2 points;

1-2 points to an applicant whose frequency covers significantly more area and population than the next best proposal. “It’s frustrating,” says Frech, g.m. of KMUD in Garberville, Calif., who was about to launch a campaign to persuade the religious broadcasters to back off.

System/Policy

NPR asks FCC to delay, rethink low-power FM

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NPR took a different tack March 16 in the ongoing assault on the FCC’s controversial plan to license low-power FM (LPFM) stations. Lawmakers and the National Association of Broadcasters have opposed the measure outright, but in a petition for reconsideration and a motion for stay, NPR asked the agency to take another look at some aspects of LPFM and delay implementing the proposal until July 15. Specifically, NPR requested greater protections for translators, radio reading services, full-power stations on third adjacent channels from LPFM stations, and potential digital radio technology. The network says the motion for stay would allow more time for NPR and FCC lab and field tests of interference expected to be caused by LPFM stations. On Feb.

Programs/Content

‘Hasty mistake’ at WFDD prompts talk of ideals

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For the faculty of Wake Forest University, the hush order given to reporters at the university’s WFDD-FM last September came too close for comfort.”I’ve never seen anything rile the faculty on this campus like this did, and I’ve been here 11 years,” says law professor Ronald Wright. “A lot of faculty members identified with those reporters. We’re both in the business of telling the truth.” “What has occurred on our campus violated certain ‘givens’ about what a university should be: a place where freedom of thought and expression thrive,” said this month’s report by an ad hoc committee appointed by the faculty senate. The defense of free speech on the campus in Winston-Salem, N.C., has whipped up antagonisms, uprooted most of WFDD’s news staff, and required lots of long, tense meetings, but the issues may be nearing resolution.

System/Policy

For the first time, a producer leads PBS

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PBS’s new president is Pat Mitchell, departing head of CNN Productions and
Time Inc. Television, whose appointment was ratified by the PBS Board Feb. 4. She is the first producer to take PBS’s top job, and is as comfortable in
front of cameras as behind them, having performed in numerous on-air roles. Her major projects for CNN included the Peabody-winning Cold War,
a 24-part documentary series that she executive produced with Jeremy Isaacs,
and Millenium: A Thousand Years of History, also supervised with Isaacs. A search committee reached an “enthusiastically unanimous” decision to recommend
Mitchell as the best candidate for the post last week, said Wayne Godwin,
committee co-chair and president of WCET in Cincinnati.

System/Policy

FCC OKs noncommercial low-power FM over broadcasters’ objections

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The FCC’s establishment of two low-power FM (LPFM) classes of stations — 10-watt and 100-watt — could populate radio dials with more than a thousand tiny noncommercial broadcasters, assuming the plan weathers possible challenges from Congress and existing broadcasters. FCC officials say the initial LPFM proposal, unveiled a year ago, generated a record volume of public comment, with churches, high schools, minorities, microradio activists and others defending the plan against attacks from established broadcasters. The plan that won approval by a 4-1 vote is more modest than its predecessor. It nixed the idea of commercial LPFM stations — which may allow a boom in noncommercial radio beyond the reserved band. And it dropped the 1,000-watt class of low-power stations, allowing a max of 100 watts — broadcasting about three miles.

System/Policy

WQEX deal wins at FCC, loses in the end

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Seventeen million dollars slipped through WQED’s fingers last week when a partner in its long-delayed deal to sell sister channel WQEX abruptly backed out, even though they had won a go-ahead at the FCC a month earlier. George Miles, president of the Pittsburgh station, paraphrased a newspaper report on the turnabout: “We have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.” Important issues about pubcasting’s reserved channels were at stake in both WQED’s victory and its defeat, but they got little attention as all eyes turned to a couple waves of explosive controversy surrounding the FCC decision:

First, in mid-December [1999], reporters swarmed over the news that Presidential candidate and FCC overseer Sen. John McCain had intervened to hurry up the FCC decision on behalf of Paxson Communications, a campaign contributor that was part of the three-way WQEX deal. Then, at the end of the month, religious broadcasters recoiled and conservative politicians raged when the FCC spelled out its thinking behind its WQEX decision. This week, Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio) and 42 or more co-sponsors will introduce a bill to undo the FCC’s new guidelines for religious broadcasters on reserved educational channels.

Programs/Content

Nonprofits courting DBS for set-aside channels

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A ground-floor chance to secure channel space on direct broadcast satellites is opening up for noncommercial organizations that have the wherewithal to deliver educational or informational public-service programming. DirecTV, the largest DBS system, has set a Sept. 1 [1999] application deadline for prospective programmers to be considered in its initial selection of new channels. PBS, Internews, and Free Speech TV are among the nonprofits vying for the space. DBS services–a once-crowded field of competitors that has merged down to two major players–are under orders from the Federal Communications Commission to allocate 4 percent of their video channel capacity for noncommercial educational programming.

Development

CPB bans list dealings with politicos

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To continue receiving CPB aid, public stations must now certify that they don’t exchange member or donor names with political groups, or sell names to them, or buy names from them. “Our goal is to restore the public’s trust in the work public broadcasting does every day,” said CPB President Bob Coonrod. The new grant rule, issued July 30 [1999], responds to congressional condemnations of the mailing list dealings that apparently involved dozens of public TV and radio stations in recent years. A CPB survey of the 75 largest public TV stations found that 26 had exchanged member or donor lists with political groups and 33 had rented lists from political groups, Coonrod told Congress the week before. Current found that the major stations in the 10 top markets all said they had dealt in swapped or rented lists, though some did it quite infrequently [related story].