System/Policy

CPB plans meetings to inform public TV execs about spectrum auction

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CPB will convene two meetings about spectrum over the next two months, working to craft guidelines for public TV stations to use in deciding whether to participate in the upcoming auction, as well as exploring wider policy and technology issues. Broadcasters face several options as the FCC works to clear bandwidth for the growing number of wireless devices. A station can sell all its spectrum and get out of broadcasting completely, sell part of it and share a channel with another broadcaster, or opt out of the auction altogether. The auction is set for mid-2015. CPB is approaching spectrum issues in a “very measured” way, CPB President Pat Harrison told the board at its April 8 meeting in Washington, D.C. “We’re hearing that stations need more spectrum, not less,” for public-service oriented projects.

Tech

WNYC’s new feature lets listeners create, download playlists

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New York Public Radio’s WNYC recently beefed up its mobile app with a personalization feature allowing users to generate playlists of news content that can be downloaded for listening on the subway or places where their phones go offline. The “Discover” feature of the WNYC mobile app lets listeners curate stories about topics that interest them — such as technology, pop culture or movies — into playlists of lengths ranging from 20 minutes to three hours long. The app pulls both local and national news stories, downloading batches of segments for later listening. The feature was designed to target the city’s subway riders, said Thomas Hjelm, chief digital officer at New York Public Radio. “It started with the thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was an app you could use for a 30-minute subway trip?’”, he said.

Tech

Houston Public Media launches new site combining TV and radio offerings

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Houston Public Media unveiled a new website this week as part of its ongoing effort to converge its radio, TV and digital operations. The site launched March 1 alongside a six-month marketing campaign that combines billboard ads and direct mail, aiming  to raise awareness of the pubcaster’s multiple offerings under one brand. The website was developed by outside consultants and provides an online portal to HPM’s television and radio stations, including news/talk 88.7 FM and classical 91.7 FM, all owned  by the University of Houston. The Houston stations were managed separately until a 2011 reorganization that adopted  a converged pubcasting model along the lines of Cleveland’s ideastream and San Diego’s KPBS. With the March 1 site relaunch and promo blitz, HPM consolidated its branding and marketing, offering memberships and selling underwriting for Houston Public Media rather than the three individual stations.

System/Policy

FCC hews to mid-2015 time frame for spectrum auction

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The FCC affirmed today that it plans to hold the spectrum incentive auction for television broadcasters in mid-2015 and will issue the awaited report and orders this spring. The announcement is in line with a December statement by FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler that delayed the original target date of holding the auction this year. Gary Epstein, the FCC’s Incentive Auction Taskforce Chairman, assured FCC commissioners at today’s open meeting that the auction will not take place until auction software is thoroughly tested and stakeholders are made aware of the process. FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai emphasized the importance of outreach to ensure that broadcasters participate in the process and testing. To increase participation, broadcasters must get an idea of what the potential payoff could be for selling spectrum, he said.

Programs/Content

$2.5 million in grants will help rural stations complete DTV transition

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced six grants totaling more than $2.5 million Wednesday as part of its Public Television Digital Transition Grant program. “These investments will help public television stations serving substantially rural communities make the transition to digital broadcasts,” said USDA Deputy Under Secretary for Rural Development Patrice Kunesh, who announced the grants in Bethel, Alaska. The FCC required all broadcasters to convert full-power transmitters to digital signals by June 2009, but stations have until 2015 to convert repeaters and low-power TV signals. The largest grant, $750,000, goes to the West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority. The network will convert its television production studio in Charleston from analog to HD digital.

Tech

L.A.’s KLCS to participate in nation’s first TV channel-sharing pilot

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Two Los Angeles television stations, one commercial and the other public, will pilot the first television channel-sharing project in the country, CTIA — The Wireless Association announced today. The noncom KLCS, licensed to the L.A. Unified School District, and bilingual KJLA are voluntarily participating in the experiment. CTIA, an international organization representing the wireless communications industry, is supervising the initiative in conjunction with the Association of Public Television Stations. “APTS has been involved in the development of this pilot in support of our member station KLCS,” Lonna Thompson, APTS c.o.o., told Current. “We support this pilot project because we think it will provide valuable information to our member stations considering whether to engage in their own channel-sharing effort.”

The FCC is offering a channel-sharing option to stations as part of the upcoming voluntary spectrum auctions, which will free bandwidth for use by the growing number of mobile devices.

Tech

“f gwenifill”? Former pubmedia consultant’s Twitter mistake results in bizarre messages

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Several news organizations’ Twitter accounts, including some public media accounts, emitted a deluge of cryptic messages reading “f gwenifill” today. The tweets trace to social media strategist Kate Gardiner, who has consulted for public media and nonprofit news organizations and has access to many of their Twitter accounts through TweetDeck, a Twitter client. Gardiner initially tweeted that she had been hacked but told Current that the tweets were a mistake on her part, caused when she was “cleaning up” her TweetDeck account. “f gwenifill” was a test tweet she had created for PBS NewsHour when she worked for the program as its first social media desk assistant, and she accidentally sent it via all the accounts she still has access to. In Twitter’s early days, mobile phone users typed “f” to follow another user. Affected accounts included that of New York’s WNYC and several of its individual programs,  the NewsHour and its specialized Twitter feeds, and the Poynter Institute.

Programs/Content

NPR drives forward with dashboard delivery

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Having faced the disruptive threats posed by cassette tapes, CDs, satellite radio and even the iPod, public radio strategists are increasingly looking for a beachhead into the emerging “connected car” and its Internet-powered suite of entertainment options. Gains in auto technology were a highlight of last week’s 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas: Carmakers, including General Motors, Jaguar, Tesla and Audi, unveiled new or beefed-up versions of dashboards that use broadband Internet to power apps offering news, music, weather and other services to motorists. Both NPR and American Public Media announced new partnerships that will get their content into these “connected cars.”

“This is huge, and it’s essential for radio broadcasters to be players in this space,” said Fred Jacobs, longtime radio researcher and analyst who’s now in the business of developing apps for the digital dashboard. He has followed the development of connected car technologies and documented its growth through his research projects, including the Public Radio Technology Survey. For decades, radio operators could throw up a tower and launch a broadcast service confident that listeners would be tuning in from their cars.

Programs/Content

Supreme Court to decide fate of Aereo’s Internet broadcasting service

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Television broadcasters, commercial and noncommercial, succeeded in securing a hearing before the U.S. Supreme Court in their bid to strike down Aereo, the startup service that allows subscribers to view and record television broadcast programs via the Internet. The court will hear the case later this year after granting a writ of certiorari Friday in the case of American Broadcasting Companies, Inc., et al., v. Aereo, Inc. To date, broadcasters have been unable to secure an injunction against the company that uses banks of dime-sized antennas to capture broadcast signals and convert them into streaming video distributed over the Internet. Subscribers “rent” the antennas and have the option to watch TV programs live or on demand via a device similar to a digital video recorder. Broadcasters appealed to the Supreme Court after the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request in July 2013 to revisit its earlier decision not to impose an injunction on Aereo. In April 2013, the 2nd Circuit upheld a lower court’s July 2012 decision to allow Aereo to continue operating despite the pending litigation.

Programs/Content

Chevy’s upcoming in-dash app selection to include NPR

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General Motors announced Monday that the NPR News app will be featured in the inaugural suite of in-car apps the automaker has slated for select 2015 Chevrolet models. 

The announcement was made in conjunction with the 2014 Consumer Electronic Show, which kicks off tomorrow in Las Vegas. GM is including OnStar 4G LTE connections in 2015 models of the Chevy Corvette, Impala, Malibu and Volt. An LTE connection makes a vehicle a WiFi hotspot and allows drivers to download apps to the dashboard including NPR, The Weather Channel, Priceline.com and Slacker Radio. According to NPR, the new app will use GPS to find a local NPR station and designate it as a “primary favorite.” The app will announce the station and play hourly news and the station’s live stream. Users can add other stations to the app as well and find member stations using a search function. Upwards of 30 programs will be available on-demand, including Morning Edition and All Things Considered. NPR said the app will also allow drivers to create automated playlists focused on topics such as politics and technology.

System/Policy

Virginia stations signal intent to hop on joint master-control bandwagon

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Virginia public broadcasters WCVE and WVPT are the latest stations to come together to form a joint master control. Starting as early as February, programming for WVPT-TV in Harrisonburg, Va., will be transmitted from a joint control at WCVE, a dual licensee about 120 miles to the southeast in Richmond. The arrangement is a win-win: the service provides WCVE with a new source of revenue, and WVPT rings up savings by avoiding an expensive refresh of its outdated equipment. Execs at both stations said they’ll use the extra cash to produce more content. “We are at end of life for most if not all of the equipment in our current master-control facility,” said David Mullins, WVPT president.

System/Policy

CPB Board hears troubling predictions for spectrum auctions and repacking

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CPB Board members got an ominous preview Monday of the corporation’s upcoming white paper about spectrum issues in public broadcasting. At a meeting at CPB’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., Harry Hawkes of Booz & Co.’s media and technology practice told board members that if the FCC goes ahead with plans to clear 120 MHz of spectrum for use by mobile devices, 110 to 130 pubcasting stations will need to shift due to repacking even if their operators don’t participate in the auction. “That means that one-third of the system could have to change channels,” noted Vincent Curren, CPB’s c.o.o. “This will likely be more disruptive than the digital transition. This will be a major undertaking for our industry over the next several years.”

CPB commissioned the white paper, due out early next year, to inform policy discussions within the system about spectrum issues. The FCC announced last week that spectrum auctions will be conducted in mid-2015; repacking of the remaining bandwidth is expected to occur soon after.

Tech

CPB gives $1 million to build and expand emergency communication services

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Five pubcasting stations are receiving a total of $1 million in grants from CPB to expand emergency alert and communications services. CPB announced the grants today to WSKG in Binghamton, N.Y.; Maine Public Broadcasting Network; Vegas PBS in Nevada; WGBH in Boston; and Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, Minn. Each will work with community partners and other pubmedia entities to acquire or develop digital wireless technology to assist first responders, emergency-management agencies and the public during disasters. Using pubmedia digital broadcasting technology, officials can send emergency information through text, audio and video.

Tech

Start the presses: WHYY releases “print edition” of NewsWorks web site

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To promote its online local news platform NewsWorks, Philadelphia’s WHYY developed an unconventional campaign mimicking over-the-top advertising techniques and the limitations of news published in print. A team of designers and editors created a “print edition” of the online news site and used various tactics to distribute more than 36,000 copies to Philadelphia residents.  Beginning Oct. 22 commuters could pick up copies as a handout offered at public transit stations and temporary newsstands. In addition, residents of some neighborhoods received copies that were delivered to their doorsteps.

Programs/Content

NPR tweaks Composer 2.0 software for classical stations

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NPR Digital has altered the latest version of its Composer software used by stations for tracking playlists and scheduling programs. Composer 2.0, which replaced the earlier Composer Pro product, rolled out in beta this spring. The changes respond to feedback from classical-music stations, who said the new version, as well as its predecessor, didn’t fit their needs. The software couldn’t accurately track scheduling of symphonies and extended performance credits, according to St. John Flynn, p.d. of Classical 91.7/Houston Public Media and president of the Association of Music Personnel in Radio. Composer’s developers plan to adapt the software by revamping the user interface for classical music and adding new playlist entry fields, said Stephanie Miller, director of station relations for NPR Digital Services.

Programs/Content

Public TV connects to feds’ new emergency alert system

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A $56.8 million technology project equipping public television stations to help deliver geo-targeted emergency messages to mobile devices has reached an important milestone. PBS WARN (Warning Alert and Response Network) connected to the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s alert aggregator on Aug. 6.

Tech

Knell’s departure stalls discussions about expanding NPR’s Code Switch

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Talks between NPR and CPB about expanding the network’s Code Switch to a local and regional level are on hold as NPR President Gary Knell departs for his new job. A CPB draft business plan for 2014, released last month, said that the corporation “is considering building on the success of the NPR Code Switch initiative by extending it to local stations as a regional initiative.”

The cross-platform production aims to examine issues of race, culture and ethnicity, and spark discussion on social media platforms and NPR’s website. It launched in May with a $1.5 million, two-year grant from CPB. Discussions about expanding Code Switch beyond its current operations are now in a holding pattern, however, as NPR looks for a new chief executive. “We’ve been talking to NPR and PBS about a national-down-to-local diversity initiative,” said Michael Levy, executive v.p. of corporate and public affairs at CPB.