WKAR-TV in East Lansing, Mich., will make content from a weekly state politics and public affairs show available via a mobile app funded by a grant from the Investigative News Network. The scope of WKAR’s proposed app helped it stand out among a pool of 48 applicants, said Kevin Davis, c.e.o. and executive director of INN. “What made it unique was that the app was focused more on a program rather than on general content,” Davis said. “It was quite niche.” (Disclosure: Current is contracting with INN for web development services.) The weekly show, Off the Record, has provided coverage of Michigan affairs for 43 years, aided in part by WKAR’s location near the state capital.

When the Public Radio Regional Organizations presented Mike Starling with its annual PRRO Award last month, the former director of NPR Labs shared a poem he’d written for his sendoff. The award recognizes behind-the-scenes “heroes” whose work advances public radio. Starling had worked in NPR’s technology divisions since 1989 until taking a buyout earlier this year. He’s now starting a low-power FM station in Cambridge, Md. The following are his remarks delivered at the Public Radio Super-Regional conference in Las Vegas Nov. 19. That was a very nice introduction — I’m so fortunate to have the opportunity to attend my own eulogy.

Plus: Jacobs talks radio trends, and Wolf Hall keeps the codpieces small.

CPB is set to receive its full requested appropriation in the spending bill nearing passage in Congress, which will fund the government through next September. The 1,603-page bill, already passed by the House of Representatives, includes the full $445 million appropriation for CPB in fiscal year 2017. CPB traditionally receives its appropriation two years in advance to help facilitate production pipelines. Ready to Learn will also receive its requested funding of $25.7 million if the bill passes as written. No critics of public media have surfaced to call for zeroing out CPB funding, said Patrick Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations and public TV’s chief lobbyist on the Hill.

Plus: MoJo's nonprofit mojo, and Judy Woodruff's biscuits.

After hearing statements of dissent from its two Republican commissioners, the FCC approved on a party-line vote Wednesday the release of a notice requesting comment on the nuts and bolts of the upcoming broadcast spectrum auction. The notice, which will be issued later this week, considers complex specifics of the auction of interest to broadcasters, such as calculations to determine opening bid prices and the process for reassigning television channels. It builds on the commission’s Incentive Auction Report and Order and Mobile Spectrum Holdings Order adopted in May, which set basic rules. Congress asked the commission to conduct the voluntary auction to clear bandwidth for mobile devices.

INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY ASSOCIATION Independent Lens took home four wins from the 30th annual IDA Documentary Awards. The public TV documentary series won the award for best curated series for the second year in a row, along with the Humanitas Documentary Award, ABCNews VideoSource award and Emerging Documentary Filmmaker Award. The Humanitas Documentary Award recognizes films that, according to the IDA, explore what it means to be human when facing differences in “culture, race, lifestyle, political loyalties and religious beliefs” that create barriers between people. Thomas G. Miller’s film Limited Partnership, about the struggle of a legally married same-sex couple fighting for U.S.

Jerry Blumenthal, a founding partner of Chicago documentary house Kartemquin Films (Hoop Dreams, The Interrupters), died Nov. 13 after battling cancer. He was 78. “Jerry was my filmmaking partner for over four decades,” said Kartemquin co-founder Gordon Quinn in a statement. “His sense of story, people, politics, and art and artists, will be missed. With Kartemquin we went through good times and bad, but with Jerry we always found time to laugh.” Blumenthal had worked at Kartemquin since the production of its first documentary in 1966, Home for Life, an examination of two older adults adjusting to life after arriving at a nursing home.

Plus: Collaborations in pubmedia, and a poet's Pacifica show.

Frontline has hired two investigative reporters and promoted a digital specialist to create its first desk producing original investigative journalism across platforms. The Enterprise Journalism Group, announced Wednesday, consists of new hires James Jacoby and Anya Bourg, who previously produced for CBS’s 60 Minutes. Frontline’s senior digital reporter, Sarah Childress, was promoted onto the team. The group is supported by an $800,000 grant from the Ford Foundation, announced in June. Over the next two years, the journalists will report major projects via text, video, photos, audio and graphics across Frontline’s platforms. Raney Aronson-Rath, deputy executive producer, said journalistic flexibility is driving the project.

Colorado Public Radio and the Colorado Symphony have ended their 15-year relationship after a disagreement over the value of the symphony’s performances to the station and a demand for editorial control over coverage of the ensemble. CPR stopped airing symphony performances as of Nov. 30, ending an arrangement that had been in place since 1999. Colorado Symphony CEO Jerome Kern said that in addition to providing performances to CPR free of charge, the symphony had bought underwriting on the station, to the tune of about $91,000 in the last fiscal year. In the symphony’s eyes, it was giving CPR not only valuable content but cash as well, Kern said.

The show will be hosted by founding producers of This American Life and Radiolab.