Facing an operating deficit of $2.6 million this fiscal year due to a shortfall in corporate sponsorship income, NPR is stepping up efforts to cover the gap with additional gifts, grants and underwriting. These measures are being taken rather than “cutting deep into NPR,” a spokesperson told Current last week, after the Washington Post reported that the network had considered cutting Tell Me More, the daily newsmagazine aimed at people of color. The Post’s report cited anonymous sources describing internal discussions. NPR President Gary Knell later told media outlets that there were no plans to cancel the show. NPR hit a record high in corporate sponsorship income last year but is now struggling, with a variety of factors contributing to the slowdown in sponsorship revenue.

Wisconsin Public Radio has developed a website to accompany its upcoming broadcast of the “Open Goldberg Variations,” which is the “first fan-funded, open source, and completely free recording” of Bach’s “Goldberg Variations,” according to the Boing Boing website. WPR’s site will display the score, enabling listeners to “see” the music as it plays from 12:30 to 2 p.m. Central June 24, “a first-ever event, proving bleeding edge technologies,” said Robert Douglass, who launched the Kickstarter project behind the production. Partnering with WPR is MuseScore, a free music composition and notation software.

The family of Chris Ulanowski, the longtime news director of WRVO-FM in Oswego, N.Y., is speaking out about his suicide in a story in the Post-Standard at the one-year anniversary of his death. “Most people didn’t know that the confident professional they heard on the air struggled with a severe mental illness called borderline personality disorder,” the newspaper noted, “which causes unstable moods, behaviors and personal relationships. One in 10 people who have it commit suicide — more than 50 times the rate in the general population — and more than half attempt suicide at least once.”

The FCC has yet to approve the sale of University of San Francisco’s KUSF-FM, which was announced 16 months ago, reports the Bay Citizen. “It’s extremely unusual,” said Michael Couzens, an Oakland, Calif., communications attorney and former FCC staffer. “The mentality of the staff is shaped by the fact that commercial entities lose their financing if they dink and dunk around for months and years.” And because the deal isn’t finalized, federal rules prohibit KDFC from airing pledge drives, “a huge loss as it attempts to remake itself as a nonprofit,” Bay Citizen notes. “The KUSF delay has definitely impacted us, and we hope the FCC will come to a decision soon,” said Brenda Barnes, president of classical music giant KUSC.

A recent Ford Foundation grant to the Los Angeles Times highlights the heightened competition pubcasters face for philanthropic dollars in a fast-changing media world. The $1.04 million two-year grant to the newspaper, a subsidiary of the Tribune Company media conglomerate, marks the first time Ford has directly supported a major for-profit daily. The money will be used to hire staff members to cover new and expanded beats, including immigration and California’s prison system. The decision to pay for additional reporters, Ford spokesman Alfred Ironside explains in an email, resulted from the grantmaker’s exploration of “new models for sustaining quality, independent journalism that reaches more people at a time when newsrooms are under stress.”

KPCC.org, the website for the Pasadena, Calif., pubradio station, has relaunched with a responsive web design that automatically adapts to viewing on smartphones, tablets and desktops — an especially useful feature for the 17 percent of its audience that accesses the content on mobile devices. The site also features a new section specifically for video reports, a daily rotation of featured comments, and redesigned navigation and audio player. “Content silos are one of the toughest problems many news organizations face,” wrote Sean Dillingham, the station’s senior user experience designer, in a post announcing the redesign. “KPCC was/is no different: we produce radio stories, blog posts, program segments, events, videos, and more.

Sesame Workshop, parent company of Sesame Street, has laid off around 12 people, the entertainment news website Deadline Hollywood is reporting. “So far the big cuts have been in the Digital Media department,” the site said. The Workshop declined to answer specific questions on the layoffs from Current, but emailed this statement: “As a result of our FY13 strategic planning process, we have shifted some resources to better align with our strategic priorities and new opportunities. Unfortunately, this has resulted in the elimination of approximately a dozen positions.” Gary Knell, Workshop c.e.o. for almost 12 years, announced last fall that he would take the helm at NPR in January (Current, Oct.

Three high-profile organizations have announced a campaign to urge PBS and WGBH to drop the sponsor Chick-fil-A from the children’s show Martha Speaks. In a joint statement Wednesday (May 23), the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Public Citizen and Corporate Accountability International said that in 2011, 56 million Chick-fil-A Kids’ Meals were distributed in Martha Speaks co-branded bags, and those meals “can contain as much as 670 calories, 29 grams of fat, and 25 grams of sugar.” The groups also said the Chick-fil-A sponsorship “marks the first time advertising before and after a PBS children’s show has run simultaneously with an in-restaurant promotion.”

Julie Philipp, news director at WXXI in Rochester, N.Y., got out from behind her desk last week — to dangle off the side of a downtown building for an “Audio Postcard.” The adventure was part of the local Boy Scout Council’s 21 Stories for Scouts fundraising event. Participants collecting more than $1,000 get to rappel down 309 feet, or 21 stories, from the roof of the First Federal Building. The council invites members of the media to participate the day before. “I thought it would be a unique way for WXXI News to highlight the commitment we’ve made to covering issues related to at-risk youth in our community,” Philipp told Current.”I

Broadcasts of Saint Paul Sunday, a weekly classical pubradio offering from American Public Media, are ending after 32 years. The last new episode was produced in 2007. APM notified client stations that the last show would air June 24. In its memo, APM said the program was launched in 1980 “on a very simple premise: we wanted to give listeners intimate access to how music was created at the very highest level.” Host Bill McGlaughlin introduced listeners to “the classical world’s absolute top talent,” APM said, including Renée Fleming, the Emerson String Quartet, Chanticleer and Anne-Sophie Mutter. The program earned a George Foster Peabody Award in 1995.

In an interview with Time magazine, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney once again targets PBS for funding elimination. His comments echo previous statements last December. “I’ve laid out a whole series of areas that I will reduce spending,” the former Massachusetts governor tells Time reporter Mark Halperin. “And I’m going to eliminate some programs that I think are duplicative and unnecessary. I’ve talked about Amtrak subsidies, subsidies to PBS, subsidies to the endowment for the arts, to the endowment for the humanities.” “I like PBS,” Romney says. “I’d like my grandkids to be able to watch PBS. But I’m not willing to borrow money from China, and make my kids have to pay the interest on that, and my grandkids, over generations, as opposed to saying to PBS, look, you’re going to have to raise more money from charitable contributions or from advertising.”

KVCR President Larry Ciecalone, who had been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation in March, has resigned, reports the Press-Enterprise in Riverside, Calif. Ciecalone has led the dual licensee serving San Bernardino and Riverside counties since 2003. His resignation is effective May 31. In late March, Ciecalone had been placed on leave pending investigation of an undisclosed matter. “No reason was given for Ciecalone’s paid leave last March, nor his reasons for resigning,” the newspaper noted.

WASHINGTON — A competition that gives middle- and high-school students a taste of what it takes to develop educational video games awarded more than $80,000 in prizes to top contestants in the second annual STEM Video Game Challenge. In a crowded auditorium full of proud parents and jubilant children, a series of distinguished speakers congratulated winners during the May 21 awards ceremony and spoke about their personal connections to video games and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) education. Youth winners await their turn on stage. “Everybody should be proud of these young people,” said Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), who serves on the “E-Tech Caucus” in Congress, which advocates for educational software.