The former accounting manager at WGBH-TV in Boston is facing charges of embezzling nearly $500,000 from the station. Philip McCabe, who worked at the station from 1987 to 2007, allegedly used the station’s money to pay personal bills over a nine-year period. He is charged with two counts of making false entries in corporate books and two counts of larceny over $250, according to the state attorney general’s office.

RGV Educational Broadcasting Inc., in Harlingen, Texas, may lose the $700,000 annual grant it receives to run KMBH-TV and KMBH/KHID-FM. William Gillette of the CPB Inspector General’s office told the board of directors on Jan. 26 that in more than 20 years in operation, it hasn’t formed community advisory groups, a federal requirement for PBS and NPR stations. The IG’s office also said that Monsignor Pedro Briseño, KMBH’s president, CEO and g.m., had been signing documents for years stating that the stations were complying with federal laws. For background, see Current’s May 2008 story.

President Barack Obama’s $800 billion-plus economic stimulus package has passed the House. The bill includes around $6 billion funding for broadband improvement and building-out projects. Senate passage could come as early as next week.

The House has voted down a bill that would have delayed the DTV transition date until June 12, The Associated Press reports. The vote, 258-168, fell short of the two-thirds threshold needed for passage. GOP legislators contend a delay would confuse consumers as well as trouble wireless companies and public safety agencies waiting to use their incoming spectrum. The Senate unanimously approved the bill on Jan. 26.

CPB has canceled its annual National Leaders Meeting after hearing that many of the invited professional and lay leaders would not be able to attend in March because of fiscal problems. “Clearly, it is not the time for ‘business as usual,’” CPB President Pat Harrison wrote to invitees. CPB will go online to achieve some of the meeting’s objectives, she said. Participants in a two-hour online “dynamic inquiry” will discuss how public service media can most effectively serve the public. The meeting had been scheduled for March 18-20 in Washington, D.C.

PBS has purchased a 10 percent equity share in National Public Media, the national on-air and online corporate sponsorship rep whose clients include NPR, Pbs.org and public radio and TV stations across the country. Formerly known as National Public Broadcasting, NPM was established in 2007 when WGBH and NPR bought NPB. NPR owns 80 percent of the company,  and WGBH owns the rest. As part of the new agreement, PBS President Paula Kerger will be seated on the board along with Vivian Schiller, president of NPR, and Jonathan Abbott, president of WGBH.

Colorado Public Radio has scaled back its plans for Colorado Matters, a 30-minute weekday news show that was slated to expand to one-hour and be paired with a local call-in. Since purchasing an FM channel to serve as the broadcast home of KFCR, an NPR News outlet serving Denver, CPR has been unable to sell 1370 AM, the outlet that until last year was the primary CPR news service in the market, according to the Denver Westword blog. In addition, CPR’s listener-sensitive revenues are starting to soften. Programming veep Sean Neathery says CPR now plans to expand Colorado Matters to a one-hour show that airs four days a week, with the call-in airing in the same timeslot on Fridays.

Too many public radio stations rely on subsidies from government and/or their university licensees, writes pubradio marketing consultant John Sutton, offering WMUB-FM in Oxford, Ohio, as a case in point. Miami University can no longer afford to operate WMUB as an independent station and on Jan. 22 announced a pending agreement to convert the outlet into a repeater of Cincinnati Public Radio’s NPR News service. “Maybe this is the future of public radio,” Sutton writes on his blog. “The consolidation of costs by having fewer independent operations is an option.” If localism is as important to the future of public radio as many say it is, then more stations need to “back away from the subsidy trough” and take steps toward financial “self-sufficiency,” Sutton writes.

Lorry Lokey, consistently one of America’s top donors, answered questions from nonprofits in a Chronicle of Philanthropy online chat Jan. 27. Lokey, who committed $45.7 million to nonprofits in 2008 alone, answered questions such as: How can a nonprofit best prove it is most worthy of a corporate donation? And, what is the biggest mistake development officers make when first meeting a new prospect?

Natalia Almada, director of the upcoming P.O.V. film El General, won the directing award for U.S. documentary at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. Her film–a co-production with Altamura Films and ITVS in association with Latino Public Broadcasting–looks at the legacy of Almada’s great-grandfather, former Mexican President Plutarco Elias Calles. Almada’s film El Otro Lado, about drug traffickers and musicians on the U. S./Mexico border, aired on P.O.V. in 2006.

This American Life will again stage a national video telecast to hundreds of specially equipped theaters this spring. Tickets to the April 23 event (8 p.m. Eastern time plus a delayed feed at 8 Pacific time) were offered at a discounted price to stations, PRI announced. Tickets go on sale to the public March 6. The net said that more than 35,000 fans turned out for the show’s first live-to-theaters telecast last May 1.

Attorney Lawrence Sidman, a longtime telecom advocate, is the new APTS president. Sidman has been involved in the industry for decades, serving in the late 1980s as chief council of the Telecommunications and Finance Subcommittee of House Commerce and Energy under longtime pubcasting advocate Edward Markey (D-Mass.). Most recently, Sidman has been chairman of the government affairs group of the law firm Paul, Hastings, Janofsky and Walker’s DC office. In 2003 he was named one of the 10 top telecom lobbyists by Telecommunications Reports. Sidman replaces John Lawson, who departed for Ion Media Networks in March 2008. Sidman takes over Feb.

The Senate — on a voice vote — has approved moving the DTV transition date from Feb. 17 to June 12. The House bill is up for consideration Jan. 26.

Putting off the DTV transition from Feb. 17 to June 12 could cost pubcasters $22 million, PBS head Paula Kerger estimates. The White House is seeking the delay because the fed program providing money for converter box coupons is out of money. Kerger said she announced the figure so lawmakers might keep in mind the financial hardship for stations. She added that PBS is not aligned with either side in the ongoing debate over the date.

Here’s a new fundraising idea: Milwaukee Public TV is selling some 400 wedding gowns and other formal dresses at its studio and warehouse on Feb. 7. An area bridal shop closed and donated its leftover inventory to the station, which is pricing the dresses at $10 to $40.