The FCC has delayed decisions on two transactions involving sales of public TV stations to Daystar Television Network to examine whether the religious broadcaster meets its criteria for localism and educational programming by noncommercial broadcasters. The scrutiny scuttled a deal involving WMFE in Orlando, pending for nearly a year, and held up a decision on KWBU in Waco, Texas. Daystar, a Texas-based religious network, has been in the market for public TV stations since at least 2003, when it paid $20 million for KERA’s second TV channel in Dallas. It most recently bid on KCSM in San Mateo, Calif. The WMFE sale fell apart after the FCC sent queries to the local entities that had been set up to operate the Orlando and Waco stations.

The merger of PBS member station WTVI in Charlotte, N.C., with Central Piedmont Community College was approved March 20 by Mecklenburg County commissioners in a 6–3 vote, saving the station from going dark. Like a number of other troubled stations, WTVI’s broadcast area is overlapped by other PBS outlets — in this case, South Carolina ETV as well as North Carolina’s UNC-TV network. The county will provide $357,000 to finalize the deal and $800,000 over the next four years for equipment upgrades. The college will use WTVI as a base for journalism and videography courses and develop a digital media curriculum.

PBS has agreed to consider “alternative scheduling options” for the independent production showcases Independent Lens and POV, which lost carriage and audience after the network moved their shared time slot from Tuesday to Thursday nights. By late last week, several hundred producers had signed an online petition started by Chicago-based Kartemquin Films after Current reported March 15 [2012] on negotiations over scheduling of the series. The petition concludes: “We are deeply concerned that PBS’ poorly considered decision could jeopardize both the meeting of public broadcasting’s mission and . . . the innovation that is crucial to the future of public broadcasting.”

American Public Media will begin distributing the BBC World Service to U.S. pubradio stations July 1 [2012], ending the British network’s 26-year distribution relationship with Public Radio International. A five-year BBC-PRI contract is expiring, but the two networks will still collaborate on their co-productions such as The World and The Takeaway. Portions of the World Service air on 521 stations in the U.S. “BBC World Service radio has been enjoying record audiences in the U.S., and we are delighted to be working with American Public Media to ensure that more U.S. listeners have access to the BBC’s impartial international journalism and programming across public radio,” said Richard Porter, controller, English, for the BBC, in a statement to Current.

The Jefferson Public Radio Foundation is headed to mediation with the pubstation’s licensee, Southern Oregon University, according to the Mail Tribune in Medford, Ore. A recent university audit cited a potential conflict of interest in Ron Kramer’s role overseeing both the station and its fundraising group. It also said the foundation’s debt ratio was “twice as high recommended,” the newspaper reported, and that the foundation’s $7 million project to restore several buildings in downtown Medford could strain its resources. The foundation board met in a two-hour executive session Friday night (March 23) before voting to enter into mediation with the university, which SOU President Mary Cullinan had requested.

In an essay on their Public Affairs Television website, veteran pubTV newsmen Bill Moyers and Michael Winship discuss the importance of the diverse voices on Independent Lens and P.O.V. to the PBS programming schedule. Since the network shifted the shows from Tuesdays to Thursdays, Independent Lens has suffered ratings and carriages losses. Moyers and Winship are encouraged that PBS has signaled it is willing to consider other timeslots for the programs, and that the network told the New York Times it is “fully committed to independent films and the diversity of content they provide.” “That can quickly be demonstrated,” the two write, “by reversing a bad decision and returning to a national core time slot the independent documentaries created — often at real financial sacrifice — by the producers and filmmakers whose own passion is to reveal life honestly and to make plain, for all to see, the realities of inequality and injustice in America.”

New York philanthropist Henry van Ameringen is donating $1 million to In The Life Media to honor of the 20th anniversary of pubTV’s longtime gay newsmagazine In The Life, he writes in a column today (March 23) on Huffington Post. He writes of first seeing the program in 1992: “At the time, the show was more focused on entertainment; it wasn’t until a few years later that it became a newsmagazine. The simple fact that there was a television program, airing on public television stations around the country, that represented LGBT people in such a genuine and accurate manner was stunning, and even more so that it had been produced by a tiny staff on a threadbare budget.”

Peters D. Willson, longtime friend of Current founder Jim Fellows and the executor of his estate, has penned a tribute to the paper’s outgoing Managing Editor Steve Behrens, and notes: “Now more than ever public broadcasting needs Current’s independent news perspective and the public forum it offers for sharing and debating opinion and commentary about the future of public media.” In 1977, Fellows persuaded Behrens to join him at the National Association of Educational Broadcasters to design and launch Current.

Apparently This American Life host Ira Glass is no fan of the PBS hit Downton Abbey. In an interview with Duke University’s Chronicle, Glass says he watched three episodes of the Edwardian costume drama on Masterpiece, “and wanted to punch someone in the face for the complete and utter bulls**t that it is. It’s the most romantic, y’know, romantic piece of tripe, it just made me want to kick somebody.”

An Oregon University System audit of Jefferson Public Radio and its fundraising organization is citing a potential conflict of interest in having Ron Kramer as executive director of both JPR and the JPR Foundation, according to the Mail Tribune in Medford, Ore. Jim Beaver, SOU spokesman, said university administrators agree with the recommendation to have two separate executive director positions and hope to have a plan in place to do so by the end of June. Kramer denies there is a conflict, and told the paper that his oversight of the foundation was a condition of his employment with SOU. Kramer also questioned the timing of the audit and its conclusions.

The BBC has selected American Public Media as the exclusive distributor of its World Service to pubradio in the United States, ending its distribution relationship of more than 20 years with Public Radio International. The BBC told Current today (March 23) that the new five-year contract begins July 1. “I appreciate the support that Public Radio International have given to BBC World Service in the U.S. over the years,” said the BBC’s Richard Porter, controller, English, in a statement, “and we will continue to work with them on our co-productions, including The World.”