New York’s WNET will not air a controversial panel discussion that was scheduled to run April 17 after the doc, The Armenian Genocide, the Associated Press reports (via Newsday). The forum has been criticized by Armenian-American groups and community leaders for including scholars that deny that the early 20th century killing of more than 1 million Armenians by Turkish forces qualifies as a genocide (earlier post). Activists protested the follow-up panel outside WNET Saturday, but a station spokeswoman said yesterday’s choice to 86 the add-on was “an editorial decision.” An online petition urging PBS to pull the panel discussion has received more than 15,000 signatures.

Public radio can’t blame competition from satellite radio for its recent audience slump, according to the latest installment of the Radio Research Consortium’s Audience 2010 study (PDF). The study also suggests that public radio has little reason to withhold NPR’s flagship newsmagazines from broadcast on satellite. Pubradio consultant John Sutton agrees. “To remain a significant media choice, NPR needs to have its best programming available in real time on all delivery platforms,” Sutton writes. “This is a sacrifice stations will have to make.”

Attendees at this year’s Public Broadcasting New Media Conference are blogging about the conference here.

The Palm Beach Post reports and editorializes on the Florida State Board of Education’s unanimous vote yesterday approving the sale of local pubcasting stations WXEL-TV/FM.

Nine more stations have added American Public Television’s Create, a digital multicast channel featuring cooking, travel, painting and other how-to programming. This brings the total number of stations carrying Create to 157 (controlled by 84 licensees), reaching nearly 64 percent of US TV households.

“[W]e strongly feel that debating the Armenian Genocide is akin to arguing about the Jewish Holocaust in order to project a sense of balance,” says an online petition circulated by Armenian-Americans who object to PBS’s decision to pair the April 17 debut of The Armenian Genocide, a documentary by Andrew Goldberg, with a follow-up panel discussion. More than 11,000 individuals from around the world have signed the petition. NPR’s Scott Simon moderates the half-hour follow-up show, in which scholars debate the Turkish government’s role in the deaths of Armenian civilians during and after World War I, a sensitive topic in U.S.

“[I]n the 17 months since he jumped to pay radio, Edwards has displayed more range and reportorial chops than some at NPR had given him credit for,” writes the Washington Post‘s Marc Fisher about Bob Edwards and his XM Radio show.

Minnesota Public Radio is suing Al Gore’s television channel over the name “Current,” reports the New York Sun.

An FM station in Berlin will soon become the first programmed overseas by National Public Radio.

CPB isn’t covered by the Freedom of Information Act, so nonprofits probing Ken Tomlinson’s period as chairman continue trying to use FOIA to spring CPB-related documents from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, a U.S. panel Tomlinson still chairs. Common Cause, Center for Digital Democracy and Free Press yesterday appealed [PDF] BBG’s rejection of their Nov. 22 FOIA request. Their lawyer, David L. Sobel, requested e-mails, phone logs and other records relating to Tomlinson’s CPB work, particularly communications with the White House. BBG official Martha Diaz-Ortiz told them in January that the documents would be “personal records” beyond FOIA’s reach.

A warm reception among critics at the Berlin International Film Festival has made the film realization of A Prairie Home Companion a contender for a prestigious award, reports the Guardian.

“With [Bill] Marimow taking over as vice president of news this week, the print guys may have completed their takeover” of NPR, writes Harry Jaffe in the Washingtonian.

Newsman Dan Rather will be on hand today in Marfa, Texas, to help launch KRTS-FM, a new public radio station serving the small town and its sparsely populated surroundings. “There’s probably a big part of the population here that has never heard of NPR,” says a resident in the New York Times. (More coverage in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.)

NPR will soon start broadcasting to Berlin on a frequency recently vacated by Voice of America. It’s the first station the network has ever operated on its own. Never fear, Berliners: there will be no pledge drives.

NPR reports on a Class D high-school station in Massachusetts trying to protect its license from takeover by a California religiocaster.