Caryn Mathes, g.m. of WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., will assume the same post at KUOW and Puget Sound Public Radio in Seattle on Jan. 2, 2014, licensee University of Washington announced today. Mathes replaces Wayne Roth, who announced his retirement in May. WAMU licensee American University also released a statement today, saying that under Mathes’s leadership, the station expanded to seven radio stations and four Internet streams and enhanced its news coverage and original programming. She inherited a $9 million operation in 2005 and grew it to $22 million. Mathes also led WDET in Detroit from 1984-2005, and served as assistant vice president of university communications at Wayne State University, also in Detroit, from 1989-91.

New York’s WFUV has expanded its music mix and dropped NPR newscasts, with a goal of enticing more listeners to become members. Starting this month, the Triple A station broadened its playlists and added more local music to its lineup. Listeners might now hear musicians such as Prince, the Clash and Arcade Fire in close proximity, while classic artists such as Aretha Franklin, Queen, and Hall and Oates are still represented. WFUV is also featuring more new music as it aims to buttress its reputation for introducing listeners to up-and-coming artists. Program Director Rita Houston and her colleagues were happy with recent growth in WFUV’s audience, from an average–quarter-hour share of 0.2 in spring 2012 to 0.4 a year later.

The FCC has set a new deadline for applicants seeking licenses for low-power FM stations, agreeing to keep its filing window open until 6 p.m. Nov. 14. After the federal government resumed operations last week, several organizations that assist low-power FM radio stations appealed to the commission to extend its window for accepting LPFM applications. They sought to adjust the time frame to accommodate aspiring licensees who had been hindered in preparing their applications by the government shutdown. The FCC initially planned to accept LPFM applications Oct. 15–29, but the shutdown postponed the window’s opening until Oct. 17. An extension would provide time “for advocates and volunteers to communicate the new deadline to the public,” wrote the low-power radio advocates in their Oct.

Programs produced by Chicago’s WBEZ, New York’s WNYC and Miami’s WLRN won awards from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, handed out Oct. 20 at the organization’s Filmless Festival in Chicago.

Local USA, a 13-part documentary series focusing on “story, character, region and place,” premieres today on the World Channel. The half-hour series, a co-production of WTTW in Chicago and World Channel, showcases stories from pubTV stations nationwide, as well as independent productions. Each episode may contain multiple short segments, or just one or two films. One episode, “Death and Dying,” profiles a respectful embalmer in Toledo, Ohio; a dying woman in Brooklyn who is planning her final dinner party; and an urban philosopher in Memphis. The stories “build on one another to provide not only a better understanding of the overall topic, but also of what unites the U.S.

Online-news nonprofits and public broadcasters took home multiple awards from the annual Online News Association conference, held Oct. 17–19 in Atlanta.

WESA-FM in Pittsburgh is marking the 75th anniversary of the infamous War of the Worlds radio broadcast with a live performance of the H.G. Wells story — this time, set in its own city. The pubcaster is partnering with local theater troupe Bricolage for the event, at 9 p.m. Oct. 30. On that date in 1938, an episode of the CBS Radio series The Mercury Theatre on the Air, directed and narrated by Orson Welles, created panic among listeners who believed the U.S. was under really attack by Martian invaders. The Bricolage performance will feature WESA’s Paul Guggenheimer, host of the newsmag Essential Pittsburgh.

Following legal pressure from another public media outlet, Twin Cities Public Television is rebranding its younger-viewer outreach initiative five months after its initial launch. Andi McDaniel, manager of TPT’s Open Air project, announced Oct. 15 on the project blog that the network would be changing the name, citing “the fact that there are other public media brethren entities using the name” as one of the reasons behind the change. In July, Colorado Public Radio filed a trademark infringement and violation suit against TPT in federal court over use of “Open Air,” which is also the name of a Denver-area Triple-A music station that CPR has operated since 2011.

Management at KPBS in San Diego is discouraging staffers from unionizing with SAG-AFTRA, the San Diego Beat reports. The alt-weekly newspaper reported that KPBS employees petitioned management last month to recognize representation by the union. In a statement, the union said an “overwhelming majority” of KPBS workers who produce, host, report and present local and national programming have signed a petition asking management to recognize their representation by SAG-AFTRA, which was formed by the 2012 merger of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. In a response last week, the newspaper reported, management told employees in a memo that said it “strongly believes that a union is not in the best interest of our employees or the future of KPBS.”

The Pacifica Foundation is seeking another nonprofit organization to help operate WBAI, its financially struggling station in New York. In a Request for Proposals (RFP) issued this week, the foundation specifies that it intends to retain ultimate control over WBAI programming under a Public Service Operating Agreement. It plans to employ two members of the station’s staff, one of whom would have managerial responsibilities and report solely to Pacifica. The RFP outlines costs that prospective co-operators would be expected to cover, including the two employees’ salaries, studio expenses and rent payments for its lease on the Empire State Building, where WBAI’s transmitter is located.

A group of some 80 pubcasters will gather Friday night in San Francisco to celebrate the return of KQED Newsroom, that title of a groundbreaking early public TV series that has been revamped as a multiplatform production. Many attendees worked on past versions of the program, which debuted during a 1968 newspaper strike. KQED Newsroom was the first nightly news series to be produced and broadcast by a public television station. It preceded The Robert MacNeil Report, a national news show that debuted in 1975 and was later renamed The MacNeil/Lehrer Report. KQED Newsroom aired for nine years, backed by a $750,000 Ford Foundation grant.