Of all the public TV stations facing steep cuts in state funding this year, Idaho Public Television is among those in “greatest immediate danger,” CPB Senior V.P. Mark Erstling tells Stateline.org. Idaho Gov. Butch Otter has proposed to zero-out the state network’s funding over four years. For a station broadcasting to sparsely populated areas, there’s no way to make up the difference with corporate underwriting or member donations. “You can really see a potential loss of service,” Erstling says. “We don’t have enough funding to bail out all the stations that are coming to us asking for help and saying they’re in financial distress.”

PBS talk host and activist Tavis Smiley may have recently ended his annual State of the Black Union events, but this month he’s once again bringing together African Americans to press the case for a “black agenda,” reports the Associated Press. Smiley told the AP he felt compelled to organize the discussion after statements from some black leaders downplaying the need for President Barack Obama to specifically help the African-Americans community. Scheduled to speak during the March 20 panel discussion at Chicago State University are advertising pioneer Tom Burrell, professors Michael Eric Dyson and Cornel West, Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, the Rev.

Columbus Neighborhoods, an engagement-focused website just launched by WOSU Public Media and the Columbus Metropolitan Library, invites visitors to explore and share stories, photos and videos of life in central Ohio. Inspired by WOSU-TV’s documentary series on local history, the site mainly features archival photographs of thirty different neighborhoods and suburbs. Next week, WOSU debuts “Short North,” the next installment of its TV documentary series, previewed here.

Kachingle, an online service designed to make it easy for online media consumers to leave thank-you gifts, officially began operation with 75 sites participating, including the Center for Investigative Reporting, the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting and Cyberjournalist.net, the company says. Others are “queued up” to go live, including the Center for Public Integrity. Newspapers in Boulder, Colo., and Sioux City, Iowa, also have signed up so far. Their slogan has evolved from “Sprinkle change on the content you love” to “Crowdfunding sites you love” and now “Social cents for digital stuff.” See Current’s article and the Kachingle website.

Public Radio Player Version 2.1, an upgrade of the iPhone app developed by Public Radio Exchange last year, is now available for downloads in the iTunes App Store. PRX rewrote the code to improve the app’s performance and added features such as a sleep timer, alarm clock and the ability to bookmark your favorite listening selections. There’s something else very different about the latest player: PRX is introducing national banner ads on top-level pages. “CPB has encouraged us to find ways to sustain the project beyond grant support so this is our first foray into mobile advertising,” explains Executive Director Jake Shapiro on PRX.org

A few PBSers will return to the action in the National Adult Baseball Association (NABA) league this spring. KCET President Al Jerome formed the California Blue Jays in 2002, recruiting diamond stars such as the strong double-play combination of shortstop Lloyd Wright (president of WFYI in Indianapolis) and second baseman Andy Russell (senior v.p., PBS Ventures). Mel Rogers of KOCE in Huntington Beach, Calif., and Jeff Clarke of San Francisco’s KQED have also played for the team. The far-flung players practice on their own using local batting cages and, no doubt, family members drafted into playing catch. The Jays gather for a week each year to compete.

PBS today announced a new senior vice president of development, who will also head up the PBS Foundation. Brian Reddington will help expand fundraising efforts to generate new revenue for stations and content, PBS said in a statement. He will help PBS raise money from individual donors, foundations, corporations and other sources, and oversee creation of individual-giving programs and online fundraising initiatives. Reddington comes to PBS after four years as director of institutional advancement at the Smithsonian Institution, where he directed all external functions in the Central Office of Development.

Vocalo.org has hired Silvia Rivera as executive director. Rivera, former g.m. of Chicago’s Radio Arte, is chair of the Latino Public Radio Consortium board. She played a key role in the drafting of LPRC’s 2007 “brown paper.” At Vocalo, she succeeds Wendy Turner, who was promoted to v.p. at Chicago Public Radio, Vocalo.org’s parent station. Rivera began her public media career in 1998 at Radio Arte, a Chicago public radio station and media training program serving Latino youth. She rose through the ranks to become g.m. in 2006. “I look forward to helping realize the potential of Vocalo.org,” Rivera said in a news release.

Remember when policymakers referred to the Internet as the “information superhighway?” The analogy is being adapted to describe an NPR-proposed “public media platform” feeding stations’ websites and other online outlets with web-friendly content from both public TV and public radio, including NPR and three other major pubradio program distributors, stations and other producers. In this case, however, it’s not just highways but a complex, flexible road system, said Bruce Theriault, CPB’s senior v.p. for radio. “It allows us to move things around, has all the rules of a highway, with merges, exits, speed limits and business rules. Everybody — no matter what kind of vehicles they own — can drive on it.”

Los Angeles now has a full-time Triple A music station. KCSN, the 370-watt noncommercial station operated by California State University at Northridge, dumped its daytime classical music schedule today and reintroduced itself as the only L.A. radio station broadcasting contemporary music 24/7. “We’ve researched what is the best public radio format to reach the broadest audience and we’re convinced this is it. This format serves the musical interests of listeners in our region,” said Karen Kearns, interim g.m. and associate dean of the university’s college of arts, media and communication, in a news release. The station has struggled for viability in the crowded L.A.

East Tennessee Public Television co-sponsored an interesting event over the weekend: A Missing Medals Recovery Program. Veterans and their family members turned out for help identifying medals, military patches, ribbons and badges, reports the Knoxville News-Sentinel.

Loni Ding, 78, a filmmaker who brought issues of Asian American identity to the surface, and to PBS, and helped win legislation backing independent producers, died Feb. 20 in a hospital in Oakland, Calif.

The third PubMedia Chat will focus on impact measurement. The ongoing Twitterfests give practitioners and supporters of public media a way to interact and brainstorm. Jessica Clark of the American University’s Center for Social Media will host beginning at 8 p.m. Eastern. Follow @pubmedia to participate. In case you missed it, here are highlights of last week’s Tweets.

... National Public Radio requested CPB aid to begin technical and business planning of a shared web platform with American Public Media, Public Radio International, Public Radio Exchange and PBS....CPB is reviewing NPR’s proposal but Theriault predicts it will announce a grant within weeks....

An upcoming BBC strategic proposal signals “an end to the era of expansion” for the British broadcaster, reports the Times of London. The review, scheduled for public release next month, will announce closures of two radio stations, the shuttering of half its website and a 25 percent cut in funding for American program imports. The Times story said that Mark Thompson, the Beeb’s director general, will reveal in the report that the moves are due in part to the corporation becoming too large.