The Federal Communications Commission has launched an inquiry into Arbitron’s Portable People Meter, the ratings methodology scheduled to roll-out in the top 50 markets by next summer. The commission is responding to concerns of “broadcasters, media organizations and others” about how the PPM methodology affects ratings of stations targeting minority audiences, according to the notice of public inquiry released yesterday. “I want to emphasize that this proceeding is not about preserving the status quo or inhibiting technological progress,” said Michael Copps, FCC acting chairman, in a statement posted here. “To the contrary, Arbitron should be commended for trying to improve its ratings methodology and for committing significant resources to that effort.”

Marie Antoon has announced plans to retire as executive director of Mississippi Public Broadcasting. “Everything is going so well, it’s a great time to make a change,” she told the Jackson Clarion-Ledger. “I believe I’ll take a little mental break and see what happens next.” Under her leadership since 2002, MPB has taken on co-production of the award-winning children’s series Between the Lions, beefed up production of local television and radio programs, and expanded its radio news operation. The MPB Board aims to hire a successor before Antoon’s departure in August.

In the latest Independent, the online mag covering the indie film community, David E. Simpson discusses the challenges of filming overseas. The producer, director and editor’s latest project, the doc Milking the Rhino, was filmed on location in Africa. The film, currently airing on Independent Lens, recently screened at the Boston International Film Festival, and has been winning praise at festivals from Honolulu to Jerusalem.

Kids (well, adults too) will soon be able to interact with Sesame Street characters in video segments thanks to a partnership announced today between Sesame Workshop and Yoostar. According to a press release, the Workshop is the first major children’s content franchise licensed by Yoostar, which allows users to appear in movie and TV scenes with the original actors and share those clips online. The $169.95 system was introduced at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show.

NPR’s Dick Meyer, editorial director for digital media, recently wrote a column listing what he sees as the top 100 English-language novels. Now a Los Angeles Times blogger points out that only three were written by women. It’s “truly astonishing,” writes Carolyn Kellogg, that Meyer’s list overlooked works by luminaries including Flannery O’Connor, Margaret Mitchell, Isak Dinesen, Gertrude Stein, Joyce Carol Oates and Eudora Welty.

The “three nons” (nonpolitical, nonsectarian, noncommercial) have been creating discussion in the system lately–especially the “nonsectarian” point–since the PBS board sent the Station Services Committee’s membership recommendations back out for comment in April. Now The Washington Post is reporting that D.C. pubcaster WHUT has told the Archdiocese of Washington that it is dropping “Mass for Shut-Ins,” which has run Sundays since 1996. The Mass has continuously run on some D.C. station for 60 years. “It’s kind of a shock to us,” said Susan Gibbs, archdiocese spokeswoman. “They’ve been great partners of ours for a long time. . . . The Mass is a very local programming that provides a community service.

After a nationwide contest to invent a new character, a little girl who uses a wheelchair and plays a mean game of basketball will be joining the PBS Kids’ show Arthur. A sketch (right) by Minnesota six-grader Connor Gordon was selected from some 8,500 entries. The producers were so impressed with Lydia they decided to write the character into the show instead of having her just visit. “The drawing is fabulous,” Arthur senior producer Jacqui Deegan told The Pioneer Press. “And she just has that spirit of creativity and positive energy. We also love the idea of her being able to play wheelchair basketball.

Pubradio’s Marketplace has altered its music for “The Numbers” segment of the business program, during which listeners learn if the stock market is up or down. If it’s down, it’s “Stormy Weather.” If it’s up, it used to be “We’re in the Money.” But even when the market is up, who’s really in the money these days? So a composer was commissioned for a new version, which, according to the show, “better reflects the ‘cheeriness’ investors may be feeling when the markets tick up only a few points at a time when the Dow is hovering around 7,000 points.” Hear both versions here.

In September pubTV stations will have access to Healthy Minds, an award-winning show on mental health from WLIW in New York. The American Psychiatric Foundation has announced it will contribute $50,000 to fund national distribution of the 13-episode 2008-09 season, and three episodes from the show’s first season. “My hope for the show is to encourage people who may have a psychiatric condition to seek help and not to suffer in silence,” host and psychiatrist Jeffrey Borenstein told Psychiatric News. “I end each show by saying, ‘With help, there is hope.'” The show has won several Tellys and a Folio Award.

Chicago’s WBEZ is asking its listeners to make donations of $20 in an innovative fundraising campaign running on WBEZ20.org. The website combines goofy videos, half-serious quizzes, and donor testimonials–along with a great big orange button soliciting contributions. Videos starring Carl Kasell, Peter Sagal, and Kai Ryssdal predict dire outcomes if individuals who don’t pony up, with titles such as, “Without your $20 . . . Carl Kasell’s voice is wasted on youth.” The campaign, created to help the station meet its fiscal-year-end fundraising goals, is designed to keep pledge drives and program interruptions to a minimum, says WBEZ’s Cindy Hansen.

Online fundraising among 32 nonprofits is up 26 percent over 2008. That’s the good news. The not-so-good news is the average donation decreased by 21 percent. So says the 2009 eNonprofit Benchmarks Study, co-authored by M+R Strategic Services, a nonprofit advocacy group, and the Nonprofit Technology Network. Other findings: Email response rates held steady this year, compared with previous declines. The average online gift was $71, down $15. And email lists continue to grow, but more slowly.

NPR News chief Ellen Weiss has reassigned members of her senior management team to adjust for recent job losses in the newsroom, according to a memo leaked to Mediabistro. “The painful cuts and sacrifices by everyone at NPR have sharpened our focus on how best to secure NPR’s and public radio’s future in terms of journalism, audience and revenue,” Weiss says in the memo. “And News plays a central role: our ability to create and present the highest quality journalism and storytelling on all platforms is what defines NPR’s distinctive value. To support these priorities I am restructuring the senior leadership of News.”

CPB is requesting quotes for a person or group to compose a final report summarizing the activities and outcomes of its Ready To Lead in Literacy initiative. Anyone intending to submit proposals must notify CPB by May 22, deadline for proposals is June 5.

PBS leads the network pack in Daytime Emmy nods, announced today in Los Angeles by the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. PBS has 56; ABC, 50; syndicated programming, 49; CBS, 30; and NBC, 20. Included are PBS nominations for Sid the Science Kid, Gourmet’s Diary of a Foodie, Equitrekking, This Old House and Mama Mirabelle’s Home Movies. Also, Sesame Street will receive a special Lifetime Achievement Award for its 40 years on the air. See a complete list of nominations here.

Now is the time for NPR to think about “becoming our own disruptor,” said President Vivian Schiller during a webinar on how media companies can and must adapt to the dissolution of their traditional business models. During a one-hour talk and Q&A hosted today by the Microsoft-sponsored blog FASTforward, Schiller pointed to the big audience gains that NPR booked last fall as the reason for an aggressive push into the digital media sphere–“this is exactly the time you’ve got to think about cannibalizing yourself”–and said it’s no longer good enough for NPR.org to be a companion to the NPR radio news service.