Jennifer Lawson has returned to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, this time as senior vice president of television and digital video content. Lawson, currently g.m. of WHUT/Howard University Television in Washington, D.C., will work with PBS, pubTV stations and independent producers to develop content. She recently ended her term as vice chair of the PBS board of directors. Lawson originally was hired by CPB in 1980, working as associate director of the fund’s drama and arts program and later television program fund director. She left for PBS in 1989 as executive vice president for national programming and promotion (Current, October 1989), back when Congress ordered CPB to work more closely with PBS to determine how to improve the national production funding process.

Movie critic Roger Ebert has Tweeted that his new show, Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies is being picked up in 192 markets and the Armed Forces Network. Debut is January.

Two public radio stations are receiving their first Community Service Grants from CPB. KCNP-FM in Ada, Okla., licensed to the Chickasaw Nation, gets $104,813. It began broadcasting in 2009. It covers the central and southeastern regions of the state with tribal, local and national news and issues; cultural programs; and music and talk shows. WSGE-FM, in Dallas, N.C., signed on in 1980. It will receive $69,875. Its motto: “Your Eclectic Music Station.”

The first general manager of Hawaii Public Radio, Cliff Elben, died Dec. 11 in Honolulu. He was 86. Eblen arrived in Hawaii in January 1966 as program manager for ETV, Hawaii’s first public television station, which launched that April. That ultimately became KHET-TV, now PBS Hawaii. Eblen and ETV colleague Bob Miller often discussed Hawaii’s need for a pubradio station, so Elben quit KHET-TV in 1980 to give that a go. KHPR-FM, with a startup budget of $7,000, signed on in November 1981. Eblen also was active with Hawaii theater groups and played a recurring role as an FBI agent in early episodes of the original Hawaii Five-0.

On average every month, 170 million Americans go to television, radio, online services and in-person events offered by public media. That crowd amounts to more than half of the country’s population. Surprised? That’s just what the slogan writers are hoping for. The line “170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting,” debuting today (Dec. 13) on a new website — 170MillionAmericans.org — is intended to help defend public broadcasting from potentially dire funding cuts looming in the new year. The site is sponsored by nine national public TV and radio organizations and co-managed by two of them, the Association for Public Television Stations and Minnesota-based American Public Media.

Some 140 projects are listed in Current’s annual Pipeline survey, including its one-time addendum in December. Among the programs are noninstructional public TV projects one hour or longer in various stages of planning, fundraising and production that will debut nationally in January 2010 and beyond. For space reasons we excluded sequels and episodes of ongoing series that are 60 minutes or shorter. Winter ’11 After the Hunt with Chef John Folse Producing organization: Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Distributor: APT. Episodes: 26 x 30 (HD). Status: postproduction. Major funders: Baton Rouge Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.

In June 2007, when conservative publisher Rupert Murdoch purchased the venerable Wall Street Journal, actor and philanthropist Paul Newman was upset. Wary of Murdoch’s reputation for buying up and sensationalizing news outlets, Newman sensed trouble ahead for American newspapers. Soon after, Newman called his local PBS member station, Connecticut Public Television. He had a positive relationship with CPTV: President Jerry Franklin says the station once received a donation check written on Newman’s personal account for $300,000. But this time, Newman had a programming idea — and with it, a stunning offer. “Paul thought the Wall Street Journal sale was the beginning of the end of journalism,” says Franklin, who had an ongoing telephone friendship with Newman.

Idaho Public Television has hired Megan Griffin as its new director of development. She will manage a team of 10, including director of membership, director of major giving and director of corporate sponsorship. From 2005 to ’09 she was a program director and director of development at the Children’s Home Society of Idaho, where she created a program that raised more than $3 million.

KPCC President Bill Davis will chair a task force of public radio programmers, researchers and news execs analyzing programming opportunities and economics for NPR, Board Chair Dave Edwards announced today. “[T]here are some dayparts that have traditionally underachieved in their ability to attract an audience,” Edwards wrote in his Dec. 13 memo to NPR member stations. “The economics of new program development also remain a challenge.” Another role for the task force will be to articulate “the role that NPR and stations can play” in programming opportunities. “This work will be very helpful in guiding the NPR Board on future investments in programming,” Edwards wrote.

The controversial online TV provider ivi, which sells worldwide access to broadcast signals, announced today (Dec. 13) that it has added Chicago channels to its lineup. A rep for ivi told Current that the new stations include pubcaster WTTW/Channel 11. ivi, which launched in September, captures and encrypts TV stations’ signals and distributes them through a web app to subscribers. It says stations are paid for the content through the U.S. Copyright Office. PBS, WNET.org, WGBH and 22 other plaintiffs disagree, and filed suit in U.S. District Court in New York on Sept. 28, saying in part: “The defendants are nothing more than publicity-seeking pirates” (Current, Oct.

Should NPR have accepted a $1.8 million reporting grant from the Open Society Foundations, given the antagonism that political conservatives and Fox News has for their founder, philanthropist and financier George Soros? “In retrospect, knowing what I now know, would I rather that the first money had come from somewhere else? Probably yes,” says Oregon Public Broadcasting President and NPR Board member Steve Bass in Politico‘s lengthy Dec. 12 report on how the grant exacerbated the controversy over NPR’s dismissal of news analyst Juan Williams. Politico’s Keach Hagey reveals that the grant, which backs start-up of an NPR news initiative to strengthen enterprise reporting in state capitols, was approved in mid-August after months of discussions.

Current is likely to have a new publisher in January — the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. Details of the contract transferring the print/web publication remain in negotiation, but the governing boards of the university and of Current’s longtime publisher, New York’s WNET, have approved the deal in principle. Approval by the WNET Board, Dec. 9 [2010], prompted coverage in a New York Times blog Dec. 12. WNET accepted responsibility for publishing Current in 1983, after the collapse of the paper’s founding parent, the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. The editor and staff will keep their jobs; and the paper will continue to cover public media.

The big audience statistic reveals for the first time a comprehensive estimate of public media users across all platforms.

Current is likely to have a new publisher in January — the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. Details of the contract to transfer the print/web publication remain in negotiation, but the governing boards of the university and Current’s longtime publisher, New York’s WNET, have approved the deal in principle. The unanimous approval by the WNET Board, Dec. 9, prompted a story in a New York Times blog Dec. 12. WNET has published Current since 1983, for most of its 30 years. The editor and staff will keep their jobs, the publication will continue to cover public media, and the School of Communication has said Current will be editorially independent.

One year ago, on Dec. 10, 2009, Curtis Monk had a heart attack. Monk, president of Commonwealth Public Broadcasting, which operates Virginia’s Community Idea Stations, doesn’t remember anything about that day after his wife called 911. But his rescuers, paramedic Julie Anderson and emergency medical technician Desirée Myers, spent the year wondering how he was doing: They had to shock his heart three times to bring it back to life, and soon after turned Monk over to the hospital. On the anniversary of his rescue, the Richmond (Va.) Ambulance Authority reunited Monk and his lifesavers, as part of an employee appreciation day.