PBS will also offer the half-hour show for mobile devices.

Gunderson worked for WGBH for more than 25 years.

Foti was WGBH's director of engineering for 14 years before joining OPB in 2013.

WETA’s board of trustees unanimously authorized the transfer, which does not involve any cash, at a June 17 meeting in Arlington, Va.

WVPB-TV is returning to its roots as the Educational Broadcasting Authority of West Virginia as it shifts production priorities from local programming to digital content for teachers. When Scott Finn took over as executive director in February 2013, the board gave him a mandate to “specifically help pre-kindergarten through 12th-grade educators, parents and students,” he said. “That was clear when I was hired.” Finn has an educational background himself, having worked as a sixth-grade social studies and English teacher. So the Charleston-based station is cutting back longtime weekly shows Doctors on Call and The Law Works to occasional productions and focusing instead on new STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math) interactive videos to help middle-schoolers think about future careers.

Sulinski worked for the station's public-affairs division from 1976 to 1993.

Five public media stations in New York will create a regional newsroom with a $375,000 grant from CPB, announced today. The two-year backing will support Upstate Insight, which CPB called “an innovative model for covering news across a large geographic area.” Principal partners are WXXI, Rochester; WSKG, Binghamton; WRVO, Oswego; and WMHT, Troy. WBFO in Buffalo is an associate partner. In the announcement, CPB said the stations “will develop news data capability and adopt content sharing and communications systems to support connectivity between organizations.” Upstate Insight differs from the Local Journalism Centers previously funded by CPB, which focused on particular subjects rather than geographical regions. 

Philadelphia’s WXPN-FM has received a $360,000 grant from the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage for Zydeco Crossroads, a 15-month project that will include concerts, educational events and a documentary film. WXPN will also use grant funds to launch a zydeco-themed website in September. “The Pew Center for Arts & Heritage has made it possible for us to bring leading Zydeco artists to Philadelphia and expose them to a wider audience, which will help foster a broader understanding and appreciation of this unique American music,” said WXPN General Manager Roger LaMay in a statement. “Our project partnerships with Allons Danser, Philly’s home for Zydeco/Cajun music and dance, the Philadelphia Folksong Society, and the African American Museum in Philadelphia will also access additional audiences who connect to Zydeco in distinct ways.”

WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., will enter the Fredericksburg, Va., market with the pending purchase of 8,000-watt WWED 89.5-FM. WAMU has proposed to buy WWED from the Educational Media Corp., a nonprofit Christian ministry based in Spotsylvania, Va. According to an asset purchase agreement filed with the FCC, WAMU licensee American University will pay $375,000 for WWED and a booster signal in Fredericksburg. WWED and sister station WWEM-FM in Lynchburg, Va., went dark as of Aug. 1, 2013, according to fredericksburg.com. The stations previously aired classical music. Educational Media Corp. is selling WWEM to North Carolina–based Pathway Christian Academy Inc. for $136,000.

Over half of this year’s RTDNA/UNITY Awards went to pubcasters, including a public TV station. WKAR-TV in East Lansing, Mich., won the award for small-market television for a documentary about racial tensions surrounding the 1975 trials of two Filipina Veterans Administration Hospital nurses. In the radio division, Seattle’s KUOW won among large-market entries with its report “Black in Seattle,” while Alabama Public Radio won the award for small-market stations with the  story “Remembering 1963,” produced as part of a civil rights radio project. Public Radio International picked up the award for network radio for its series Global Nation: Stories of a Changing America.

Plus: Voice of San Diego sells sponsored content, and media consultants question NPR's digital strategy.

FCC commissioners got an update Friday on the status of low-power FM applications, six months after the closing of the most recent LPFM application window. The FCC received 2,826 applications for low-power stations during the window, which ran from Oct. 17 to Nov. 15, 2013. As of April, FCC staff had granted permits to more than 1,200 of those applicants. They said Friday at a meeting of FCC commissioners that they expect to approve a total of 1,500 to 1,800 applications. Meanwhile, FCC staffers are working to sort through 6,350 pending applications for FM translators, which will help to guarantee maximum availability of spectrum for use by new LPFMs.

Sack introduced direct-mail marketing to the pubTV system beginning with WGBH, and his methods are still used in the system.

Plus: Miles O'Brien writes a harrowing account of his arm amputation, and a WRAS protester makes a pillow.