Among other gadgets to be unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show, the San Jose Mercury News previews a new HD Radio media access technology that NPR plans to introduce at CES. UPDATE: Here’s the official news release describing the initiative and today’s live demonstration at CES.

WAMC in Albany, N.Y., agreed to drop its bid to build a new full-power radio station in territory already served by North Country Public Radio, according to the Albany Times-Union. The proposal, one of three vying at the FCC for the 91.7 frequency in Lake Placid, would have bumped NCPR’s translator service to the town.

A couple of blog postings about the marketing of HD Radio prompted vigorous debates about the viability of the nascent broadcast technology. Consultant Fred Jacobs critiques the concept behind the new ad campaign created for HD Radio Alliance stations, prompting a pre-holiday venting about all that is wrong with HD Radio. And Mark Ramsey, who predicted two years ago that HD would die on the vine without a better marketing plan, comments on the lackluster sales of HD Radio units [Via PRPD].

PRX’s three Public Radio Talent Quest finalists completed their pilot episodes last month and posted them to the PRTQ website. Listen and review Al Letson’s State of the ReUNION, Rebecca Watson’s Curiosity Aroused and Glynn Washington’s Snap Judgment. The trio are competing for CPB series funding with each other and three aspiring pubradio hosts recruited by a separate team of producers.

A Sacramento Bee feature on Capital Public Radio’s KXJZ describes a respected, nonsensational news source with a growing local news staff (seven going on nine, plus four regular contributors) that placed fourth in 25-54 morning audience this spring.

DirecTV and APTS said today the satellite broadcaster will carry local high-definition feeds of public TV stations starting next year, along with PBS video-on-demand programming and two national standard-def pubTV channels. The deal was approved yesterday by the APTS Board and faces votes by the PBS Board and the stations. DirecTV’s lineup includes 265 channels, includng more than 80 in HD. (News release via TVPredictions.com.)

The filmmaker and New Hampshire resident said he’s disappointed in Hillary Clinton’s negative tone and speculated she’s getting bad advice, AP reported.

“Jihad: The Men and Ideas Behind Al Queda,” a documentary funded by CPB’s America at a Crossroads initiative, is one of four pubcasting programs to win 2008 duPont-Columbia Awards. During an awards ceremony to be held Jan. 16, the competition’s silver batons will also be presented to This American Life for a report by Alix Spiegel on the discrimination faced by a Muslim family after 9/11; NPR and Daniel Zwerdling for investigative reporting on the treatment of Iraq War veterans suffering from serious psychiatric post-traumatic stress injuries; and to producers of “Through Deaf Eyes,” a PBS documentary on the deaf community in the United States.

North Country Public Radio and WAMC in Albany, N.Y., are feuding over their competing applications to operate a full-power station in Lake Placid. For 21 years, NCPR has broadcast to the community on a translator on 91.7, the only frequency available in Lake Placid for a full-power station. During the FCC’s October filing window for new noncommercial FM stations, WAMC applied to take over the channel. The Daily Gazette of Schenectady first reported on the dispute, but the Albany Times Union reported earlier on WAMC’s plans to expand into the service areas of other regional pubcasters. The Adirondack Daily Enterprise reports on negotiations between NCPR and WAMC for the frequency.

‘PBS gives everyone the opportunity to explore new worlds” — this is the meaning that station communications to viewers and donors should evoke, the network says. PBS plans to test new messages with stations and make a new round of spots for its “Be More” brand campaign based on new research about language that moves people to donate to pubTV. The network’s goal is to create more consistent messaging across the system, says Judy Braune, v.p. of strategy and brand management. “When we set out to do the research,” she says, “we were looking to answer the question, ‘How can we position PBS stations as a cause that people want to support for the long haul?’”

A newly formed consortium of Latino public broadcasters is calling for public radio to expand its service to the nation’s growing Hispanic population by creating multiple program services and strengthening Latino-controlled public radio stations.

Most listeners to classical music radio decide whether or not to listen based primarily on the sound and the emotional impact of the music, not on technical or musicological aspects of the music.

The Midday Classical Music Testing Project, presented by Public Radio Program Directors at its conference in September [2007], is fundamentally flawed in two ways, casting serious doubt that programmers could draw any useful conclusions from it.

Oregon Public Broadcasting’s decision to buy an AM radio station in Eugene, hometown of NPR News and music station KLCC, prompted a spirited discussion on Oregon Media Insiders. KLCC, which has a longstanding news partnership with OPB to fund a news bureau in Salem, has endorsed the purchase.

Public Radio International said Wednesday that it received a three-year, $5 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to produce and distribute journalism on global health and development issues. PRI said more of its Our World Initiative remains to be announced.