WNED’s popular live WNED Cooks is returning after six years, the Buffalo station says. A new show on “Family Favorites” airs from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Feb. 26, 2011. Viewers submit recipes, and eight will be selected to create the dish in the studio that day. All recipes are compiled in a cookbook. Eileen Koteras Elibol returns as host (Image: WNED). No word yet on whether the episode will grow into a series.

KCET in Los Angeles, which is cutting ties to PBS on Jan. 1 (Current, Oct. 18), announced early programming details to its members through a mailing this week. The Los Angeles Times reports that the station is “relying on a programming schedule that is largely available on DVD, and in some cases is decades old,” in addition to longtime local faves such as Huell Hower’s show and SoCal Connected. There’ll be several English-language shows from Japanese broadcaster NHK including NHK Newsline, a daily half-hour Asian news roundup; Asia Biz Forecast; Journeys in Japan and Your Japanese Kitchen.

Triple-A music’s 11th annual NON-COMMvention will be held next May 19-21 in a new branch of the WXPN-FM-affiliated music venue World Cafe Live, to be opened just seven weeks before in Wilmington, Del. World Cafe Live At The Queen will open April 1 after a $25-million renovation of an old downtown movie house called the Queen. WXPN and a partner opened the original World Cafe Live restaurant/bar/music hall in Philadelphia six years ago. The station, co-presenter of the NON-COMMvention (with TheTop22.com), describes the event as “the music industry conference where contemporary, noncommercial radio stations, artists and music industry professionals from all of the country convene to discover new music and discuss current industry trends.”

Colorado Public News, a nonprofit news project of Colorado Public Television/CPT12 in Denver, has received a $386,250 grant to cover the cost of reporting on healthcare for three years, it announced this week (Nov. 8). The health-oriented Colorado Trust is providing the support, which will cover a full-time health reporter to produce multimedia reports. Colorado Public News supplies weekly coverage to a network of 14 news media on several platforms: television, radio, Internet, print and mobile. Donors fund journalists in particular subject areas, including state government, science, education or the economy.

Cheryl Halpern, who headed the CPB Board from 2005 to 2007, writes about what she sees as “A last chance to save CPB” in Monday’s (Nov. 8) Congress Blog from The Hill, coming at a time of increasing calls to zero out funding for public broadcasting. “The question that Congress needs to address is not whether the national providers of public programming should be shut down,” she writes. “It’s how to reform the legislation that created these institutions, given the changing media landscape.” She said Congress should consider amending the authorizing legislation so public broadcasters are “expected to adhere strictly to measurable and definable standards of accuracy and transparency.”

A study released Monday (Nov. 8) of 54,000 American households shows that between 2001 and 2009, broadband Internet use rose sevenfold, from 9 percent to 64 percent. But “Exploring the Digital Nation: Home Broadband Internet Adoption in the United States” also reveals that significant gaps persist along racial, ethnic, and geographic lines, according to the National Telecommunications and Information Administration. Also, nearly a quarter of households did not use the Internet at home, with most of those respondents citing lack of need or interest. The report is here in PDF format. It was compiled by the NTIA and the Department of Commerce’s Economics and Statistics Administration.

Here’s an interesting roundup on Mashable.com of how various social media sites may have figured into the midterm election results. For instance: Facebook, the world’s largest social network with some 500 million user accounts, reported that in 98 tight races for House seats, 74 percent of candidates with the most Facebook fans won. Looking at 19 Senate races, 81 percent of those with more fans won. The widely read Mashable follows news in social and digital media, technology and web culture.

After trying for years, WQED Multimedia is succeeding in selling its second TV channel, WQEX, the Post-Gazette reported today. Ion Media Networks will buy it for $3 million, the newspaper said. The buyer, which will now have stations in 60 markets, was selected by the WQED Board from “an extensive list of interested parties,” WQED said. Since 2004, the unreserved UHF channel had been leased to Home Shopping Network and then ShopNBC as an outlet for shopping channels; WQED retained three hours a week for the FCC-required children’s programming. But WQED’s attempts to sell the channel were thwarted repeatedly by economic conditions, an unwilling FCC and other factors.

Even in far-flung Fairbanks, Alaska, Red Green pulls in the fans. Nearly 200 lined up Sunday (Nov. 7) at Big Ray’s outfitters store for the chance to greet the popular pubcasting character, reports the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. Green, portrayed by actor and writer Steve Smith, continues nationwide on what may be his farewell tour, “Wit and Wisdom 2010.” The Fairbanks newspaper noted that Smith “arrived at Big Ray’s in a septic truck, dubbed the Red Green Limousine, which was provided by Glacier Point Pumping and Thawing.” If you haven’t had a chance to greet Green in person, you can always join the nearly 340,000 fans of his Facebook page.

Today’s top story in the Daily Caller, the news website founded by former conservative TV pundit and PBS host Tucker Carlson, is headlined “Feeling the Heat.” It reports on NPR President Vivian Schiller’s remarks yesterday at a forum on the future of journalism, convened at St. John’s Episcopal Church near the White House. Acknowledging that the new Republican House majority may make good its campaign season threats to “defund NPR,” Schiller explained that NPR receives very little of the federal aid distributed by CPB. “For small stations, and even for large stations, that’s a big chunk of their revenue,” she said, according to the Daily Caller‘s account.

The Board of Trustees for the Association of Public Television Stations on Sunday (Nov. 7) approved its search committee’s selection of board member Patrick Butler, chairman of the Maryland Public Television Foundation, as APTS president and chief executive officer. Butler formerly was a speechwriter for President Gerald R. Ford, and a special assistant to Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker (R, Tenn.). He served on the National Council on the the Humanities during the Reagan administration. He chaired the public programs committee of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and recommended funding for projects including Ken Burns’s The Civil War.

This morning’s post regarding recently retired PBS Senior Vice President Pat Hunter’s appointment as the new APTS president was incorrect. Current is removing the post, and regrets the error.

Newspaper columnist Charles McDowell Jr., an 18-year panelist on Washington Week in Review and contributor to several documentaries by Ken Burns, died early this morning (Nov. 5) in Virginia Beach, Va. He was 84. For Burns, McDowell appeared in an interview in The Congress, spoke a character’s voice in The Civil War and did voice and consulting work on Baseball. He was a Washington Week in Review panelist from 1978 to 1996. McDowell also narrated or hosted other PBS programs including Summer of Judgment: The Watergate Hearings, Richmond Memories and For the Record. A memorial service is set for Nov.

A comprehensive post-election analysis from the powerhouse Washington, D.C., law firm Patton Boggs is cautiously optimistic that public broadcasting funding will not be zeroed out, despite recent calls by conservatives to end that support. While the furor over the firing of NPR commentator Juan Williams has generated a flurry of demands to end federal financial backing of the pubcasting system, the Patton Boggs analysts expect the controversy won’t significantly endanger that support. Also, the Republican takeover of the House and increased presence in the Senate don’t necessarily signal a cash catastrophe. ” … [W]e do not expect federal funding for NPR or public broadcasting will be eliminated,” especially because the White House strongly opposes those cuts.

The Poynter Institute’s “Finding the Future of Journalism: Social Media Day” is live streaming until 5 p.m. Eastern today (Nov. 5); watch it here (live blog is directly beneath the schedule, takes a few seconds to load). Matt Thompson, editorial product manager for NPR’s Project Argo, speaks from 1:30 p.m. to 2:00 p.m. on “From Stories to Streams: The Evolution of the Beat.” In other Poynter news, the institute announced today that is will collaborate with the Online News Association for training, events and digital content next year. ONA members will receive discounts on training, and Poynter will work with the association and the Newseum to promote and archive the Online Journalism Awards.