DENVER — The Public Media Platform is moving into the next phase of its CPB grant, shifting its focus to developing a sustainable business plan and more ways for public media stations to access the content. PMP Executive Director Kristin Calhoun announced the project’s next phase July 9 during the “Digital Day” conference leading up to the Public Media Development and Marketing Conference in Denver. CPB’s five-year, $8 million grant to PMP provided $6 million for the nearly completed build-out and $2 million for the “operational phase,” which winds down on an incremental basis through 2016, according to Michael Levy, CPB executive v.p.

The money will go toward the long-term production of the investigative pubradio show.

The end of the so-called net neutrality era poses risks to every organization that relies on the Internet, including pubmedia, according to media advocates who appeared during a July 8 briefing on Capitol Hill.

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.

DENVER — Three public media projects aimed at developing new audiences, revenue and content will each receive $250,000 from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The grants to the investigative series Frontline, Boston’s WBUR and the Public Media Co. were announced Thursday morning at a Knight breakfast that’s kicking off a CEO symposium sponsored by the Contributor Development Partnership. The event is running concurrent with the Public Media Development & Marketing Conference. “In this day and age we’re competing with Game of Thrones, Candy Crush and Reddit,” said John Bracken, director of journalism and media innovation for Knight, in announcing the support.

Plus: An NPR reporter's social media mishap, and alt.Latino celebrates four years.

“Neither journalism nor public life will move forward until the public actually rethinks and reinterprets what journalism is: not the science or information of culture, but its poetry and conversation.” — James Carey, “The Mass Media and Democracy,” Journal of International Affairs, June 22, 1993 Since 2009, CPB has provided approximately $23.2 million to establish more than 40 journalism partnerships at public broadcasting stations. These included Project Argo, a collection of topically focused local blogs produced by NPR and 12 public radio stations; and the Association of Independents in Radio’s Localore, a cross-platform radio and television content partnership that paired indie producers with 10 stations.

• Pubcasting fulfillment company Forest Incentives is launching Forest Music Express, an experimental sustainer premium service for pubmedia stations. The service will allow stations to offer legal music downloads to sustaining members. Forest Incentives is working with major music labels to offer more than 20 million songs to stations, according to a press release. The company has piloted the service with Philadelphia’s WXPN and KPLU in Tacoma, Wash. • PBS Kids’ favorite monkey Curious George is taking on a new role, as New York City’s official family ambassador. He’ll encourage family travel with kid-friendly NYC travel materials, guides to its beaches, zoos, aquariums and museums for children and outdoor areas such as Central Park.

Rocky Mountain PBS in Denver has restructured its management team. “It is critical that we have leaders at the helm of our ship who can help shape the future of public media for all of Colorado and beyond,”said Doug Price, c.e.o. of the Rocky Mountain Broadcasting Network, in an announcement. “We have made tremendous strides over the past year with the merger of Rocky Mountain PBS, KUVO jazz public radio and I-News, our public-service journalism team, and I look forward to continued growth and success up ahead.” The organizations joined forces in January 2013. Harris Ravine, network c.o.o.,

Plus: Steve Inskeep visits Charlie Rose, and a Mister Rogers statue gets refurbished.

In an experiment signaling public TV’s resolve to address concerns about the long-term effects of transactional pledging on its donor base, PBS plans to test whether fundraising around regularly scheduled signature series can convert more viewers into loyal members and donors. Though traditional fundraising programs generate more cash for stations, many development professionals believe that pledging around core programs could yield better-quality donors who are committed to public TV’s mission. Stations such as Maryland Public Television and PBS SoCal in Orange County, Calif., have successfully pledged series from PBS’s National Program Service, as well as popular British dramas and comedies acquired from other distributors.

The cancellation of NPR’s Tell Me More is leaving pubradio program directors struggling to fill the gap left by the show, which presented diverse viewpoints that some programmers say will be difficult to replace. Program directors still have a month to come up with an hourlong replacement. Tell Me More goes off the air Aug. 1, a victim of budget cuts at NPR and its limited reach through carriage on 136 NPR stations. Its core constituency within NPR’s membership consists of stations licensed to historically black colleges and universities and other stations seeking to reach minority listeners. According to fall 2013 audience data released by NPR, Tell Me More had an average–quarter-hour audience of 161,000 and a weekly cume of just over 1 million listeners.

Three days after Georgia Public Broadcasting took over daytime programming on Georgia State University’s WRAS-FM, Atlanta’s other public radio station, WABE, released an open letter criticizing the channel-sharing agreement. Dr. Louis Sullivan, chair of the board of directors at Public Broadcasting Atlanta, which owns and operates WABE, called the deal between GPB and GSU “bad public policy.” The agreement, which took effect June 29, gives GPB control over the 100,000-watt station’s programming between 5 a.m. and 7 p.m. on weekdays and 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. on weekends. The arrangement also provides GPB with a presence in on Atlanta airwaves for the first time.

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.