NPR announced today (Nov. 2) that Audie Cornish will spend one year as co-host of All Things Considered, as Michele Norris steps down while her husband works for President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. Cornish will move from her Weekend Edition Sunday hosting gig to ATC in early January — a spot she recently took over from Liane Hansen, who retired in May. NPR is conducting an internal search for a one-year host for Weekend Edition Sunday. In a note to staff Nov. 1, acting Senior Vice President of News Margaret Low Smith said: “While it was a tough decision to move Audie (albeit temporarily) from a program she has quickly made her own, her skills and experience make her the ideal person to step in.

Bluegrass Underground, the unique public TV show recorded live 333 feet below ground at Cumberland Caverns in McMinnville, Tenn., has caught the attention of  The Associated Press (via Huffington Post). Radio broadcasts from the venue have aired since 2008 on Nashville’s country music stalwart WSM-AM. Now PBS is distributing concerts in HD video and Surround Sound, produced by a partnership of the production company Loblolly Ventures, PBS member station WCTE in Cookeville, Tenn., and Emmy-winning producer Todd Jarrell. The series is recorded in the Volcano Room, a 500-seat venue carved by water over the past 3.5 million years. The series strays somewhat from purist bluegrass, with Season 1 acts including Ricky Skaggs & Kentucky Thunder, Darrell Scott, 18 South, Mike Farris and the McCrary Sisters, Cherryholmes, Justin Townes Earle, Mountain Heart, Will Hoge, John Cowan, Monte Montgomery and the Farewell Drifters.

As Chicago’s WBEZ works on plans to double its output of original local news programming, proposed scenarios for scaling up production have fueled speculation over the future of its local flagships Eight Forty-Eight and Worldview. Crain’s Chicago Business cited unnamed sources in reporting that Eight Forty-Eight will go on extended production hiatus as its format is reviewed, but WBEZ chief Torey Malatia says those decisions are weeks – and possibly months – down the road. “The idea here is to add hours — not to take away hours,” Malatia tells veteran Chicago media critic Robert Feder. “Over a period of time, we want to add hours and do more live, original talk during the day.

Funding for OETA — The Oklahoma Network is in a state lawmaker’s bulls-eye for elimination. Rep. Leslie Osborn (R-Tuttle) said she will introduce a bill next year to reduce state aid to the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority 20 percent annually over the next five years. She discussed the plan Tuesday (Nov. 1) before the state House Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee on Education, reports the Oklahoman newspaper. “As long as the public dollars are being put in there, there is no reason for the privates to step up,” Osborn said. “It’s not a matter that this is not a worthy agency, that this is not a worthy program.

Could transparency become as important as objectivity in public media newsgathering? That was part of the discussion last week when a group of public broadcasting leaders, academics and journalists met last week in Madison, Wisc., as part of ongoing work on the Editorial Integrity for Public Media initiative (background, Current, April 4, 2011), writes CPB Ombudsman Joel Kaplan. Among some of that working group’s recommendations are to post entire interviews when an interview is edited for broadcast; to webcast story meetings twice a year so that audiences can gain a sense of the station’s decision-making process; and to disclose all of the grant funding sources on its website.

President Obama has nominated Ajit Pai and Jessica Rosenworcel to serve on the Federal Communications Commission. “Filling one Republican vacancy and one Democratic vacancy-to-be won’t change the balance of the commission,” notes Broadcasting & Cable, “which will go from a 3-1 Democratic majority to a 3-2 majority.” Rosenworcel, Senate Commerce senior communications counsel, and Pai, a former FCC adviser, had been considered the top candidates for seat left open by Republican Meredith Attwell Baker and the vacancy coming at the end of this year with the departure of Commissioner Michael Copps.

Congressman Doug Lamborn (R-Colo.), an outspoken opponent of federal funding for public broadcasting, appears in a new fundraising video for Rocky Mountain PBS, alongside the station’s president, Doug Price. “We don’t see eye to eye on everything about public broadcasting,” Price says to Lamborn, “but I know you and your family have supported Rocky Mountain PBS with an individual gift.” “Yes, that may surprise some people,” Lamborn replies, “because as you know I don’t support federal funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But I do know that Rocky Mountain PBS has a vital role in the marketplace of Colorado media.

Fresh off of public radio pledge-drive season, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution examines compensation packages of top execs of Georgia’s largest pubcasting stations, Public Broadcasting Atlanta and Georgia Public Broadcasting, the statewide public TV and radio network. With a raise that recently boosted his compensation to $280,000, WPBA chief Milton Clipper is the highest paid among them, and four members of his executive team made more than $180,000 in fiscal 2009, according to AJC. GPB’s Teya Ryan receives a base pay of $180,000, but with bonus incentives could earn much as $210,000. Three additional GPB execs earn six-figure salaries. “In its review, the AJC found that Public Broadcasting Atlanta pays its top executives more than GPB does, although GPB is a statewide system with twice the budget,” writes reporter Richard Halicks.

In a reorganization of the University of Houston’s pubcasting stations, top managers John Proffitt of KUHF-FM and John Hesse of KUHT-TV will depart on Dec. 31, according to the Houston Chronicle. The shake-up, announced as commercial broadcasting exec Lisa Trapani Shumate prepares to sign on as c.e.o. of the recast Houston Public Media, was announced yesterday. Proffitt and Hesse, both veteran pubcasters, have been reassigned to special projects until their departure at year’s end. Shumate is a former TV news reporter who most recently directed programming for Houston’s CBS affiliate KHOU. She was appointed last month to lead the pubcasting stations through the merger.

Tom Keith, who created the sound effects for Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion radio show for decades, died Sunday (Oct. 30) after collapsing at his Woodbury, Minn., home. He was 64. The cause of death has not been determined, a spokesperson for the show told Minnesota Public Radio. “The Minnesota Public Radio family is shocked and saddened by the sudden loss of our friend and colleague, Tom Keith,” APHC producer MPR said in a statement. “Tom was beloved by everyone who had the pleasure of knowing and working with him. We will sorely miss his humor, his amazing talents and his friendship.”

America in Primetime, which premiered on PBS Sunday night (Oct. 30) carries underwriting spots for Unilever’s Dove brand produced by the Documentary Group, the team that created the program, and are shot in a style similar to the content, reports the New York Times. “Such crossover producing is increasingly common in commercial television,” the newspaper noted. Creators, writers and actors behind primetime television shows are interviewed in the series, which examines how character archetypes have evolved through the years. Unnamed Dove marketing and public relations executives are interviewed in the 30-second underwriting spots, discussing how the brand strives to relate to changing consumers.

KIXE-TV in Redding, Calif., is launching a television version of the On The House home-improvement AM radio call-in show. KIXE General Manager Mike Quinn tells the local Record Searchlight that the new show, set to debut in January, likened the project to a West Coast version of This Old House, originally produced by WGBH in Boston. Heard on around 200 stations, On The House offers advice from the Carey Brothers, James and Morris, experts in home building and renovation. Their first projects for the KIXE television version will be a remodel of the station’s Redding studio and construction of its new satellite studio in Oroville, Calif.

The free downloads of World Cafe artists and newcomers celebrating the WXPN production’s 20th anniversary may be welcome in some quarters, but in terms of lasting impact on our little planet, you’d have to give props to the return of program host David Dye to craft brewing, which he virtually invented. As recalled in this parody video, Dye was back with his old beer magic this weekend, cooking up a few vats of Broadcaster Brown Ale for the program’s anniversary at Philadelphia Brewing Co. Another gift to fans — a live two-hour anniversary concert today, (Oct. 30) 2 to 4 p.m.,

A freelance web producer for The Takeaway, a co-production of WNYC Radio and Public Radio International, has been fired for her reported participation in the Occupy Wall Street protests. Brooklyn, N.Y.-based Caitlin E. Curran wrote a first-person piece Friday (Oct. 28) on the Gawker website detailing what happened during an Oct. 15 protest in Times Square, and her subsequent termination. Curran’s plan was to have her boyfriend hold a sign, and she would observe reactions to its message and post reports on her personal Twitter account. When her boyfriend “developed sign-holding fatigue” Curran wrote on Gawker, she “took over momentarily.”

Here’s a probable first for the pubcasting system: Live roller derby! KXLL-FM/Excellent Radio in Juneau, Alaska (“Public Radio That Will Melt Your Face Off”), will stream the matchup between two local teams, the Kilkats and the Raven Lunatics, on its website, for later broadcast on the statewide 360 North channel. Tonight’s (Oct. 29) bout, “Night of the Living Derby,” will be hosted by In DeKline of KXLL and Money Honey of the Juneau Roller Girls. Check out all the excitement online at midnight Eastern, 8 p.m. Juneau time.