A $12 million capital improvement project is nearly complete at dual-licensee WHYY in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Inquirer says. The Dorrance H. Hamilton Public Media Commons adds 8,000 square feet to WHYY’s 60,000 square feet of studio and office space. The biggest part is the 4,100-square-foot Lincoln Financial Digital Education Studio, which doubles as a studio and auditorium. Two new media training rooms provide would-be filmmakers with classes in audio, video, digital editing and studio lighting. WHYY President William J. Marrazzo told the paper that a primary goal is to get more station members and community residents — both young and older — into pubcasting via digital production.

Two of NPR’s top technologists recently back from the NAB Show share the microphone to weigh the pros and cons for stations that might boost their digital signals to improve listeners’ reception of HD Radio. Dennis: Digital radio broadcasting is a reality now in most American communities, though adoption is still modest. About 2.5 million receivers have been sold, but assuming multiple receivers for early adopters and counting methodologies, household penetration might be roughly 2 percent — about as many households as in  a market the size of Washington. Public radio has aggressively invested in digital radio transmission. Some stations, such as WAMU in Washington, have also made significant programming investments in new channels.

When Duquesne University declined to accept bids for WDUQ-FM by its staff and supporters, an alliance of Pittsburgh foundations stepped in to put the sale on hold May 4. Adding an unusual time-out to the high-stakes playbook of colleges divesting broadcast properties, the foundations acquired a 60-day option to develop plans recasting the station with a stronger focus on news and information. “The foundations’ goal is to give the community time to put forward the best possible bid” and not to purchase the station, said Grant Oliphant, president of the Pittsburgh Foundation. Local foundation leaders want to explore possibilities for a “much more aggressive news and information focus” for WDUQ, he said.

WWOZ in New Orleans will broadcast live on May 16 from Gulf Aid, a benefit concert to provide financial relief to Gulf Coast fishermen affected by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Performers scheduled to appear on two different stages at Mardi Gras World River City include Allen Toussaint, Kermit Ruffins, Ani DiFranco, Lenny Kravitz, Soul Rebels Brass Band, and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band with Mos Def and Terence Blanchard. The concert, a ticketed event that kicks off at noon CT tomorrow, is the brainchild of Susan Nash, a public relations rep who has promoted Louisiania’s seafood industry; WWOZ recruited musicians to the cause and partnered with business sponsors to present the concert and establish the nonprofit Gulf Relief Foundation to process donations and distribute funds to fishermen and wetland recovery efforts.

MiND, the recent web-and-broadcast reincarnation of Philadelphia’s pubstation WYBE (Current, April 21, 2008) is devoting the month of June to special programming for and about the local LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender) community, reports the Philadelphia Gay News. Five-minute, viewer-created pieces dominate the indie pubchannel’s format. MiND is soliciting those short video submissions from the gay community for special one-hour shows on June 23 and June 26 on its Channel 35, as well as a presentation June 30 at the Piazza at Schmidt’s, a popular open air plaza in the city. MiND reformatted earlier this year to focus on a different theme each month, such as Earth Day in April and volunteerism in May.

“We don’t celebrate failure and we should,” writes the thought-provoking pubmedia guru Rob Bole in his Public Purpose Media blog. “We always blame a lack of communication of successes, but I am beginning to believe it might be a lack of communication about failures that is the true culprit.”

More than half of the state public broadcasting grants in Kansas will be gone if Gov. Mark Parkinson signs the 2011 budget just okayed by the legislature, reports the Wichita Eagle. The proposal cuts $900,000 of the $1.6 million in funding. If the governor approves, “2011’s operating budget for most public broadcasting stations in Kansas looks grim,” noted the paper. Especially hard hit would be Smoky Hills Public Television in Bunker Hill, which receives 15 percent of its budget from the state. At High Plains Public Radio in Garden City, a 10 percent cut. Wichita’s KPTS counts on 12 percent of its $2.7 budget from the state.

Pubcaster/blogger John Proffitt (see item below), who departed Alaska for KETC in March, has left the St. Louis station. He’d worked there as director of digital engagement, “but from the get-go I had several intuitions things weren’t quite right, at least for me.”

“I have nothing technically against mobile DTV,” writes pubcaster John Proffitt on his Gravity Medium blog. “It’s a significant achievement in that sense. But I can’t see how it makes it big in this mediasphere. The stars are aligned against it. It’s Dead On Arrival.” People out-and-about use video in limited ways, he says. Spectrum savings are meaningless. Technology is changing to quickly for mobile DTV to keep up. After making his argument he adds: “Given this analysis, all I can do is hope public TV people out there avoid spending too much time or money on this distraction.” Meanwhile, the Open Mobile Video Coalition, which includes public broadcasters, launched its consumer trial earlier this month in Washington, D.C.

Public television has 52 Daytime Emmy nominations, more than any other broadcast or cable network. Nominees for the 37th annual honors were announced today by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Perennial fave Sesame Street was the most nominated children’s show with 14 nods, and swept the outstanding performer in a children’s series category. Others with multiple nominations: The Electric Company, eight; Design Squad, four; Fetch! With Ruff Ruffman, three; WordGirl, three; Between the Lions, two; Sid the Science Kid, two; APT’s Avec Eric, two, and Biz Kid$, two. Last year, PBS programs had 47 nominees and 13 wins.

This just in: Photographic evidence of PBS President Paula Kerger with her jaunty PBS hat powering toward the finish line of the Kinetic Sprint triathlon in Spotsylvania, Va., last weekend. Her strongest event was the 18-mile bike ride, in which she finished 41st of 252 women with a time of 1:11:18. Kerger also swam 750 meters and ran 5k. All in one day. In 2:14:38, actually. And what did you do last Sunday?

Steve Smith, who plays the title character in The Red Green Show, never expected it to last more than one season. And here it is, Season 15 and still popular on pubcasting stations nationwide, the longest running Canadian program in American TV history. “We did the show just to make ourselves laugh,” he tells the Woodinville Weekly in Washington State. The show’s success “has been a total shock and surprise to us. Even when we stopped doing it five years ago we thought it would just die, but it kept on being renewed.” Although production ended after 300 episodes, his character lives on in a one-man traveling show he calls “The Wit and Wisdom Tour.”

Tom Shales, the Washington Post’s vaunted TV columnist, is one of the few (if only) mainstream media writers so far to critique WNET’s new pubaffairs show Need to Know. And to say that he does not care for the show is a huge understatement. Excerpts: — “PBS promises that this dreadful Need to Know show, which supplements vacuous televised drivel with fancily designed Web-page graphics, ’empowers audiences to “tune in” anytime and anywhere.’ Meaning that you are free to supplement inadequate broadcast material with unsatisfying Internet material whenever you inexplicably get the urge. Oh boy, what a boon!” — The show “.

A white paper on the future of public media will help shape the discussion at the Free Press Summit, which kicks off at 10 a.m. on May 11 at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. The paper analyzes several options for financing a trust fund that would increase the field’s funding six-fold and eventually end its reliance on congressional appropriations. It also calls for changes in the system for appointing the board of directors of Corporation for Public Broadcasting and proposes new standards of community service at CPB-funded stations. For a live webcast of the first four hours of the summit, tune your browser here.

In case you missed it, Saturday Night Live managed to parody both PBS and NPR programming within the first 30 minutes of last weekend’s show, which was hosted by actress Betty White, still hilarious at 88 years old. Opening the show was a Lawrence Welk sketch (complete with PBS logo in the bottom corner of the screen) and later came a new “Delicious Dish” segment, a cooking show a la those smooth-talking NPR hosts.