Kentucky Educational Television’s Everyday Learning Collaborative today received more than $1.14 million in grants from the Louisville-based James Graham Brown Foundation and the national PNC Foundation. The new partnership among KET, the National Center for Families Learning and Metro United Way will provide resources for early childhood educators and families throughout the state, with a special focus on low-income children. The Brown Foundation’s grant of $818,775 is the second-largest private gift in KET’s history. As part of its Grow Up Great initiative, the PNC Foundation invested an additional $325,000. PNC had provided $150,000 in 2010 that helped launch KET’s Everyday Science for Preschoolers prototype.

New Jersey–based freeform community radio station WFMU will replace The Best Show on WFMU in January with a program hosted by comedian and musician Dave Hill.

Daphne Dowdy Jackson, v.p. of development and marketing at WPBT in Miami, moves in January to assume leadership of the OETA Foundation, the fundraising arm of OETA-The Oklahoma Network in Oklahoma City. The appointment was announced today by James Cook, chair of the OETA Foundation Board. Jackson will replace President Robert Allen, who retires at the end of December. At WPBT, Jackson oversees renewals, direct mail, additional gifts, telemarketing, sustainers, viewer services, on-air fundraising, major gifts, planned giving, grants and marketing. Jackson’s department raises about $9 million annually. From 2004-12, Jackson was g.m. at Basin PBS in Midland, Texas. She led a successful capital campaign to secure a new home and brought the station out of debt while producing several award-winning public television programs, the announcement said.

PBS just lost another executive to Telegraph Media Group. Jon Brendsel, currently v.p. of product development, will join former PBS digital head Jason Seiken at the London-based TMG in January. Brendsel will be group chief information officer, reports The Drum, a British-based marketing and media website. Brendsel has been at PBS since 2008. His past experience includes six years as senior technical director for America Online. He will report directly to Murdoch MacLenann, TMG’s chief executive.

The Columbia Journalism Review calls Localore “an innovative financing model may change the face of public radio” in an article out today. The project, which pairs independent producers with stations and began rolling out in September 2011, is the brainchild of the Association of Independents in Radio. AIR recently partnered with the Independent Television Service for a new round of funding for initiatives including Black Gold Boom. In the CJR piece, AIR Executive Director Sue Schardt said the project is working to transform the funding model for the pubradio system. “Most stations are really hermetically sealed,” she told the magazine.

PBS SoCal is canceling its longtime magazine show, Real Orange, reports the Orange County Business Journal. The positions for hosts Ed Arnold and Ann Pulice will be eliminated, as will one full-time production job and two part-time positions. Other production staffers will be reassigned. The program has aired on the Los Angeles station since 1997. Production ends in December. “We understand it’s a challenging transition for some of our colleagues,” said station spokesperson Stacy Shaffer, “but we do believe it’s the right decision to help move PBS SoCal forward and strengthen the value of the programming that we provide to Southern California.”

The Independent Television Service today announced grants to eight documentaries from its Diversity Development Fund. The annual call for submissions resulted in 114 applications to the initiative, which provides research and development funding to producers of color to develop single documentary programs for public television. Selections include “The G-Force” by Pamela Sherrod Anderson, about grandparents raising grandchildren; “Africa Town” by Kathy Huang, on the migration of Africans into China; and “Metal Road” by Sarah Del Seronde, exploring the historical links between Navajos, traders and the railroads. A full list of films is here.

Joyce Slocum, chief administrative officer at NPR, takes over as president and c.e.o. of Texas Public Radio Jan. 6, the San Antonio-based station announced today. Slocum, a Dallas native, will be only the third leader in the station’s 30-year history. During her five years at NPR headquarters, Slocum also served as general counsel and, for nine months in 2011, as interim president and c.e.o. “We will certainly miss her at NPR,” said Paul Haaga, NPR acting president, “but are thrilled she is staying in the public radio family.” Prior to joining NPR, Slocum served as general counsel at HIT Entertainment, a producer of children’s television programming, and as supervising attorney at Dallas-based 7-Eleven.

Like many Americans of a certain age, WBUR producer Alex Ashlock remembers key details of Nov. 22, 1963, the day when President John F. Kennedy was shot. As an eight-year old boy growing up in Durham, N.C., he recalls being glued to television news coverage of the assassination. “I’m old enough to remember what happened on Nov. 22, 1963,” Ashlock said. “I followed the coverage all weekend long.” Now, 50 years later, Ashlock is planning a special broadcast of WBUR’s Here & Now that will incorporate “close to real time” coverage of the assassination. Since the midday show is produced live during the same window in which the shooting occurred, the Nov.

Nine Network in St. Louis is partnering with the local Feast Magazine on Feast TV, a unique culinary show. Filmed in Producer Catherine Neville’s home kitchen, each program links segments on regional food news with a cooking demonstration that progresses through the half-hour magazine. “This medium lets viewers meet the farmers, the chefs, the brewers and winemakers who make up our culinary industry,” said Neville, also Feast Magazine publisher. Feast TV had been airing on the local Fox affiliate, said Terri Gates, Nine Network spokesperson. “Because it fits in with two of our focus areas — community life and lifestyle and entertainment — we invited the Feast team to move the series to Nine Network.”

WQED and the Allegheny County Airport Authority today announced a partnership to re-launch classical music programming by local artists for the Pittsburgh International Airport and Port Authority subway stations. Content on “Q the Music: Pittsburgh Classical Network” will be provided digitally from WQED’s Oakland studios. It’s an update of the former “Classics on the Move” music programming, which had been funded by PPG Industries through 2010. The Airport Authority will sponsor content for one year, with WQED working to secure additional underwriting later. Similar music programs are rare among airports nationwide, the announcement noted, due to broadcasting rights and other issues.