Reinvention Stories, part of pubmedia’s Localore initiative, is the recipient of one of nine grants totaling more than $1 million announced today by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. The project, from producers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert’s Community Media Productions, received $80,000 for its documentary, pubradio series and collaborative website about how Dayton, Ohio, is adjusting to a post-industrial economy. Also, Chicago doc house Kartemquin received two grants totaling $240,000 for films on the impact of natural disasters on poor communities and an alternative high school in rural North Carolina with a focus on digital technology. Filmmaker Barbara Kopple (Harlan County) got $250,000 for her Betrayal of the American Dream, exploring the country’s widening income gap and its impact on the middle class.

Idaho Public Television General Manger Peter Morrill is retiring, the state Board of Education announced today. “Peter has been an exceptional leader, and our state has been truly fortunate to have a person of his caliber at the helm of Idaho Public Television,” said Don Soltman, acting board president. Morrill told Current the timing is right for the announcement: A state legislative committee is recommending a 9 percent hike in funding, station fundraising is solid and local content has received 53 national and regional awards this year. “Public broadcasting has been part of my life since I was 18 years old,” Morrill said.

The Supreme Court has declined to review a 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals decision upholding an injunction against the streaming television provider ivi, reports Broadcasting & Cable, effectively ending the service. The Seattle-based ivi launched in September 2010, when it began selling worldwide access to 28 broadcast signals including those of pubcasters WNET in New York City and KCTS in Seattle — without asking for permission or even informing the stations. The controversial firm captured and encrypted TV stations’ signals for distribution through a web app to subscribers who paid $4.99 a month. WNET and WGBH were among 11 stations that sent ivi cease and desist letters soon after its launch; PBS was also part of a lawsuit against the startup.

After a season of bad press following PBS’s much-maligned 2012 decision to move its flagship independent documentary program POV from Tuesday nights to Thursdays, the show will move to Mondays for its 26th season, which premieres June 24. POV announced the lineup for its new season today. The program is also building off another recent round of good news: a $1 million grant from the MacArthur Foundation on Feb. 28. Its premiere episode will be Homegoings, a documentary about Harlem undertakers that was selected as part of the New York Museum of Modern Art’s 2013 Documentary Fortnight. The lineup, with 15 national broadcast premieres and two encore presentations, will also include the Oscar-nominated Palestinian film 5 Broken Cameras on Aug.

The first of four men who late last year accused former Sesame Street puppeteer Kevin Clash of sexual improprieties filed another lawsuit on Monday. Sheldon Stephens had previously recanted his accusations against Clash, who resigned from Sesame Workshop in November 2012. In this complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Pennsylvania, Stephens alleges a years-long sexual relationship beginning when he was 16 years old, and accuses Clash of drug use. Stephens also claims that as a minor, he did not have the capacity to consent to a sexual relationship and “suffered physical, psychological and emotional damages.” In a statement to USA Today, Clash’s attorney calls the lawsuit “meritless.”

Season 3 of the Masterpiece Classic hit Downton Abbey scored a 7.7 average rating and average season audience of 11.5 million viewers, according to Nielsen and PBS. Those figures topped Season 2 by 64 percent and 65 percent, respectively. The numbers are also comparable to the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes and Fox hit American Idol for the week of March 4. The Downton Season 3 finale on Feb. 17 garnered an 8.1 national rating and an average audience of 12.3 million viewers, making it the top-rated show of the night, beating all broadcast and cable competition in primetime. In all, 24 million viewers watched Season 3 of Downton Abbey, 7 million more than Season 2, making it the highest-rated drama on PBS ever.

WGBH News’ Jared Bowen received the Commonwealth Award recognizing “exceptional achievement in the arts, humanities and sciences.” Bowen is an Emmy-winning reporter with WGBH-TV’s Greater Boston with Emily Rooney; host of the weekly TV show Open Studio with Jared Bowen; and a regular contributor to Morning Edition and WGBH’s Boston Public Radio. “Jared’s coverage takes him from breaking news to politics to arts and culture. In his cornerstone arts reporting, Jared covers the latest in the Boston area’s theater, art, music, dance and film scenes,” the Massachusetts Cultural Council stated in its awards announcement. “I’m beyond astonished and grateful to receive the Commonwealth Award,” Bowen said.

“Looks like we have a ways to go in local public radio and television. Like the rest of the media, women are underrepresented in our newsrooms,” writes Michael Marcotte, longtime pubcasting analyst and the Donald W. Reynolds Chair in the Ethics of Entrepreneurial and Innovative Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno. In a blog post, Marcotte takes a deep dive into a February study, The Status of Women in the U.S. Media 2013, by the Women’s Media Center, an advocacy and press monitoring organization based in New York City. Reports filed by public stations to CPB reveal the gender composition of the local pubmedia news workforce in positions including executives, editors, producers and senior producers, managing editors, news directors and hosts.

In honor of St. Patrick’s Day, MHz Networks launched the Today’s Ireland channel in the Washington, D.C., market on March 17, with select programming running nationwide on its Worldview service, it announced March 15. Content comes from Irish broadcasters RTÉ, TV3, TG4, and Northern Vision Television, and features independent productions from Northern Ireland and regional specialty programming. It kicks off with six hours of daily programming beginning at 3 p.m. Eastern, and will grow to a 24-hour channel by the end of the year. Select programs from Today’s Ireland will be showcased on MHz’s national channel, MHz Worldview, available in 38 million American households nationwide, mainly through public broadcasters.

Audiences for public radio and television news continue to spend less time with legacy broadcast platforms as they transition to digital listening and viewing, according to the State of the News Media study from the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, released today. The 10th annual report examines all broadcast, digital and print media. NPR’s average weekly broadcast audience fell 3 percent from 2011 to 2012, dipping to 26 million from 26.8 million, according to the report. The weekly number of listeners to American Public Media programs also shrank 2 percent, to 15.2 million. (The report did not detail specific numbers for another major pubradio distributor, Public Radio International.)

The 90-minute feature was produced and directed by Joe Brewster and Michèle Stephenson, a married couple who traced the education of two African-American boys — their own son and his best friend — at a private school in Manhattan from 1999 through 2012. “All American families want to give their children the opportunity to succeed. But the truth is, opportunity is just the first step, particularly for families raising black boys,” said Stephenson. “We hope American Promise shines a light on these issues.” The film had its world premiere at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah, Jan. 21 and received the award Jan.

Two Los Angeles–area public TV stations won Golden Mikes. KCET won three awards in Division A (for stations with 50 or more full-time news staff members): topping the category of news/public affairs program and investigative reporting with SoCal Connected. It also won for entertainment reporting. PBS Southern Cal (KOCE-TV) won for best documentary in Division B (comprised of TV stations with 49 or fewer full-time news staff) for Be Brave: Samantha’s Story and for best news public affairs program. In the radio contest, KPCC/Southern California Public Radio won 10 Golden Mikes in Division A (stations with six or more full-time news staff members): individual writing, sports reporting, live coverage of a news story, news public affairs program, news reporting, serious feature reporting, light feature reporting, news special, entertainment reporting and use of sound.

This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. PBS is ending production of Market Warriors, the much-anticipated series that premiered in July 2012 as a partner program to longtime ratings hit Antiques Roadshow, according to a March 14 WGBH internal memo to employees. Marsha Bemko, executive producer of both programs, today told Current the decision was PBS’s and declined further comment. The demise of the series triggered several layoffs. The memo said that Field Producer Rebecca Donahue and Editors Peter Hyzak and Sean Sandefur left WGBH the week of March 4, while Senior Producer John Kalish, Associate Producer Joey Toppan, Production Assistant Rebecca Taylor and Assistant Editor Jim Fetela departed on Friday.

The Writers Guild of America, West’s prize in the children’s–episodic and specials category went to Christine Ferraro for writing Sesame Street’s “The Good Sport.” Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria won the award in the documentary–current events arena for writing the first episode of the Frontline four-part series “Money, Power and Wall Street.” And in the documentary–other than current events category, Randall MacLowry won the award for writing “The Fabric of the Cosmos: The Illusion of Time” for Nova. Founded in 1933, WGAW is a labor union representing writers of movies, television, radio and Internet programming, including news and documentaries.