KTXT-FM in Lubbock, Texas, one of the nation’s most powerful college radio stations, closed Dec. 10 due to financial constraints. Since then, a Facebook page supporting its return has more than 4,000 members, according to an Associated Press story in the Houston Chronicle. The 35,000-watt, noncommercial station operates under an educational license and is supported by Texas Tech University. The school’s media department, which ran the station, spent about 40 percent of its budget on items including the transmitter, building and antennae over the last four years. The transmitter needs $16,000 in repairs. KTXT has been broadcasting since 1961.

NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard answers questions about the budget cuts announced by NPR last week and reports on reactions among NPR staff: “Many, but not necessarily all, NPR employees seem to accept the rationale that big cutbacks were needed to ensure the company’s long-term financial health. Assertions by senior executives that the layoffs were not targeted at getting rid of specific individuals have not been as widely accepted, however,” she writes. Meanwhile, Save Day to Day, a Facebook Group established last week that now has 667 members, asks fans of the soon-to-be canceled show to send $50 to NPR.

Education levels within a market are the best predictor of classical music station performance, according to the latest report [PDF] from Grow the Audience, a CPB-backed project of Station Resource Group that is examining options for future pubradio audience growth. The report, published by SRG and Walrus Research, analyzes the performance of the entire field of all-classical stations, including the few remaining commercial outlets, and identifies stations that are over- and under-performing. It also predicts the performance of all-classical stations in Houston, Atlanta and Tampa, three top markets that lack the format. The project website recently added commentaries on audience growth strategies by former NPR News chief Bill Buzenberg, research consultant Mark Ramsey and Latino Public Radio director Florence Hernandez-Ramos.

The Maine Public Broadcasting Network, which provides public television and radio services to the state, closed last fiscal year with a $2 million deficit and is convening town hall meetings to gather public input about its future. Cuts in state funding, reductions in federal aid from CPB and declining member contributions have taken a toll on the state network’s bottom line, according to this news account of last night’s public forum. MPBN President Jim Dowe told attendees that it’s premature to talk about staff or programming cuts, but “MPBN will cut wherever necessary and some of it will be ‘painful,'” the Morning Sentinel reported.

Kevin Klose, president emeritus of NPR, will visit with faculty and students of the University of Maryland’s journalism school on Tuesday. He is the only candidate now under consideration to become its dean, and officials may extend an offer if they are pleased after his visit to College Park, Provost Nariman Farvardin told the campus newspaper, the Diamondback.

The three-decade former anchor of NJN News gets an hourlong primetime special on Friday, “Kent Manahan: Anchoring a Legacy,” with excerpts from her past programs plus recent interview segments, the state net announced today. And a week earlier the state Public Broadcasting Authority appointed her acting executive director. Predecessor Elizabeth Christopherson quit NJN in November and old Current she will join a foundation.

WLVT-TV in Bethlehem, Pa., will likely raise about $100,000 less during its current pledge drive than it did last year, but there are no plans yet to cut jobs or local programs, says Pat Simon, president. The station is also waiting on state funding, which usually comes in July. Like many stations, WLVT is slashing its travel and ad budgets. WVIA in Wilkes-Barre has fared worse — last week the station announced it was laying of five employees, axing two programs and reducing salaries to make up for a $200,000 shortfall. 

Behind last week’s headlines of NPR show cancellations and journalists losing their jobs, NPR eliminated Next Generation Radio, a training program created and managed by veteran producer Doug Mitchell. “What ‘NextGen’ (as it was known) did was to find young people from various backgrounds and give them the sense of wonder about radio journalism in all its forms,” writes Jeffrey Dvorkin, former NPR ombudsman, on his blog. “Doug taught these kids about sound and story-telling and taking risks.” Dvorkin describes the decision to let Mitchell go as a “huge loss for the company,” and so far 159 Facebook users have endorsed this view by joining the group “Save Doug Mitchell’s job.”

The FCC has approached the American Radio Relay League (ARRL), an association of ham radio operators, for assistance with the upcoming digital TV transition. The commission would like members ” to provide technical educational assistance to their communities,” according the league’s website. A spokesman for the organization says the FCC is letting ham groups nationwide decide how to best handle the task in each community. ARRL members will not be making house calls, the spokesman stressed, but handing out technical information and FCC materials on the transition.

KVIE-TV in Sacramento, Calif., laid off seven staffers this week, reports the Sacramento Bee. The cuts amount to 10 percent of KVIE’s staff. General Manager David Lowe said a drop in viewer donations prompted the belt-tightening.

“[W]e didn’t want to cut across the board,” NPR News chief Ellen Weiss says in this NewsHour interview about the budget cuts and lay-offs announced on Wednesday. “We didn’t want to say, ‘You know what? Try to do the same quality, try to do the same amount of journalism, try to have the same reach nationally and internationally, but try to do it with less money.'” Efforts to diversify and grow the audience through News & Notes and Day to Day, two cancelled shows targeting African American and younger audiences, are no longer “just something we do through one program or even two programs,” but have to go across “everything NPR does,” from radio programs to web-based content and mobile services.

The first permanent StoryCorps booth outside of New York City will be installed in Atlanta next year — located temporarily in a studio at Public Broadcasting Atlanta’s WABE-FM until 2011, when it moves in the city’s new civil rights museum, the Center for Civil and Human Rights, the station announced today. “WABE is family to us,” said project founder Dave Isay in the release. “There is no other station in the country that’s dearer to our hearts that cares more about StoryCorps and public broadcasting.” While New York now has the only permanent StoryBooth, San Francisco is hosting one through next October, and a mobile booth is patrolling Alaska through April.

Tonight’s NewsHour with Jim Lehrer includes a segment on the NPR job cuts. The Washington Post‘s Marc Fisher is a confirmed guest. NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard may also participate. Correction: The NewsHour‘s Jeffrey Brown will interview Ellen Weiss, NPR senior v.p. of news. Fisher and Shepard will not participate, according to a producer.

An online petition to save News & Notes challenges NPR’s official explanation for the show’s cancellation: “several staff members report a different reason given to them . . . which had nothing to do with audience levels or funding,” writes journalist/blogger Jasmyne Cannick, a News & Notes commentator and L.A.-based political consultant. She asks News & Notes fans to write NPR execs to express support for “one of the best national radio newscasts dedicated to African-American news and views.” Baratunde Thurston, a blogger and News & Notes commentator, also questions NPR’s decision to cancel the show: “In the grand, new age of Obama, this is happening?

The Independent, an online (previously print) publication about independent film, reports that some filmmakers are unhappy with how the Independent Television Service (ITVS), a CPB-backed organization that funds independent productions, control films’ content and “plays hardball” during contract negotiations. In more than a dozen interviews with sources who remain mostly anonymous, the publication found that “the organization can at times be a difficult partner, placing unnecessary demands on filmmakers … shrouding the collaborative process in secrecy, and at times stifling the independent, creative spirit of the very filmmakers it is designed to support.” Many producers came to ITVS’s defense, but apparently, some felt pushed to make their films more journalistic and “balanced” even though they didn’t regard their film as journalism.