WTTW is picking up Al Jazeera English programming beginning Oct. 31, the first time the news provider will be seen on the air in Chicago. AJE will run from 6:30 to 7 a.m. and 11 to 11:30 p.m. weekdays on the WTTW Prime multicast channel, and 5:30 to 6:30 a.m. Saturdays on its main Channel 11. Additional time slots for AJE on WTTW11 will be available beginning in early 2012, WTTW said. “Our station has a long history of providing quality public affairs programming,” said Dan Schmidt, WTTW president, “and by adding broadcasts from Al Jazeera English, we are providing a broader perspective on critical global issues.”

Pittsburgh’s WESA is making its first fundraising appeal to listeners since the station changed format and call letters under new owner Essential Public Media. Its $250,000 fundraising goal is less than half of the amount raised in a record-breaking February 2010 drive for WDUQ, as the station was known during its years as a split-format news and jazz station, the Pittsburgh Tribune reports. But back then, listeners who pledged a total of $525,000 were responding to Duquesne University’s decision to sell its public radio station, a transaction that finally closed this summer. After the switch to its all-news format in July, the audience for 90.5 dipped to a 1.4 share of Pittsburgh radio listeners, according to Arbitron data cited by the Tribune.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Public TV broadcasters got some tantalizing details on the long-awaited spinoff of the hit Antiques Roadshow. John Wilson, PBS program chief, said the program, with the working title of Market Wars, will debut in spring 2012 from Roadshow e.p. Marsha Bemko. Wilson said PBS has ordered 20 episodes initially, “at a very effective production cost per hour.” In the show, two rotating expert appraisers will drop into a community for a friendly competition: Each begins with a set amount of money, hits flea markets and auctions to find interesting objects, and the one with the best net wins.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Patrick Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, told attendees at the National Educational Telecommunications Association conference this morning (Oct. 19) that he doesn’t want the public to get the impression that “public broadcasters are eager for the day when federal funding will go away.” He was reacting to a question from the breakfast crowd about Louisville Public Media’s “Campaign for Independence” radio pledge drive, going on now, that aims, according to its website, to help the station “become independent from unreliable funding streams.” “This attitude is not really helpful to us,” Butler said.

There’s been another setback for KCPW in Salt Lake City, the NPR News station that’s struggling to pay off a $250,000 private loan from National Cooperative Bank by Oct. 31. The Salt Lake City Council authorized the city’s redevelopment agency last week to provide a six-month loan to help the station meet the payment, but the loan offer has been withdrawn, according to the City Weekly. “Lawyers for the RDA say they did not have the authority to make the loan as they originally had thought, and the city is now pursuing other avenues to help the station,” reports Bryan Schott, former KCPW news director.

KPCC’s Susan Valot and KCRW’s Kim Masters were recognized among best journalists in Los Angeles. Valot, a reporter who covers Orange County for Pasadena’s KPCC, was lauded by Press Club judges for producing “well-rounded reports with an authoritative, informed tone” and making great use of sound. Masters, a former NPR correspondent who now covers Hollywood for KCRW in Santa Monica, was named top entertainment journalist. Judges cited her voicing and thorough, substantive reporting on L.A.’s entertainment business. KPCC’s newsroom won top recognition in four categories of the radio division: for feature reporting by Madeleine Brand and Kristen Muller; entertainment reporting/criticism by Larry Mantle; use of sound by Kevin Ferguson; and the talk/public affairs program Airtalk with Larry Mantle.

NPR social media specialist Andy Carvin received a Knight-Batten Award for innovation in journalism. Carvin, whose job as the network’s senior social media strategist this year evolved into round-the-clock tweeting of Arab Spring protests, received a Knight Batten Award of Special Distinction honoring his pioneering use of Twitter in newsgathering. The Knight-Batten awards panel chose Storify as this year’s Grand Prize winner and honored three other innovators with Special Distinction Awards. The panel selects winners for innovative uses of new technologies in newsgathering and civic engagement. Carvin and his “Twitter community” were both cited for the award. “By using his Twitter account as a newsgathering operation, he has demonstrated how reporting can be done remotely, and created a highly engaged community of more than 50,000 Twitter followers,” said J-Lab in its award announcement.

New Hampshire Public Radio was cited for outstanding performance in fundraising. NHPR, based in Concord, ranks among the most efficient public radio outlets in converting listeners into givers, and it raises more net underwriting revenue per listener-hour than peer stations, according to DEI’s Benchmarks analysis, which evaluates fundraising performance across the public radio system. The New Hampshire network’s achievements in major-gift fundraising are especially impressive, according to Joan Kobayashi, g.m. of KMFA in Austin, Texas, who announced the award this summer during DEI’s Public Media Development and Marketing Conference in Pittsburgh. NHPR’s program for soliciting donations of $1,000 and higher has increased its revenues 60 percent over the past five years.

KJZZ, WBEZ, WBGO and KLCC led the annual contest among local pubradio newsrooms. Each took three or more first-place PRNDI awards in a competition among peer-group stations. PRNDI groups stations into tiers based on the number of full-time news staffers they employ. In division A, comprising stations with the largest newsrooms, KJZZ in Phoenix and Chicago’s WBEZ each received three top prizes. All three PRNDI awards to WBEZ recognized Inside and Out, a special series on juvenile justice that aired across a six-month period in 2010. WGBO, a news and jazz station in Newark, N.J., won six first-place awards in division B, including stations with three or four full-time journalists.

PBS Kids unveiled last week its largest offering of math-skill games for preschoolers — a cache of 40 games that can be played on computers, mobile devices and interactive whiteboards. “As the nation’s children continue to fall behind, we need to embrace new technology to help them learn,” said Lesli Rotenberg, PBS’s senior v.p., children’s media. Games include Monkey Jump from Curious George, which has kids hop along with George and count as they fill a toy-store bin with bouncing balls; Hermit Shell Crab Game from The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That!, in which players help the Cat, Nick and Sally fit hermit crabs into shells of corresponding sizes and patterns; and Carnival Count-off from Fizzy’s Lunch Lab, which teaches children how to estimate added sums and count by fives and tens.

Oregon Public Broadcasting will produce and provide to NPR and PBS stations exclusive coverage of a Republican presidential debate from its Portland studios March 19, 2012. The 90-minute debate “will come at a critical time in the campaign” before anyone sews up the GOP nomination, OPB President Steve Bass predicted in a memo to stations. “Super Tuesday is on March 6, but delegate counts indicate that it will not be possible for the nomination to be won by any candidate by then. Political observers believe that the nomination contest could very likely go into the late spring.” The Republican National Committee has officially sanctioned the debate, which “virtually assures the participation of the front-running candidates,” Bass said.

Producers of the progressive pubradio/TV news program Democracy Now! are receiving $100,000 to settle their federal lawsuit against police authorities over their arrests while reporting on demonstrations outside the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn. Host Amy Goodman and producers Nicole Salazar and Sharif Abdel Kouddous sued the cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul and the U.S. Secret Service for violating their constitutional rights to gather news independently and to be protected from unlawful search and seizure. In their 2010 suit, they also sought compensatory and punitive damages for medical expenses and damaged equipment. In addition to the cash payment, the settlement includes an agreement by the city of St.