In a lawsuit filed yesterday, CBS contends that Janet Jackson’s “wardrobe malfunction” during the 2004 Super Bowl was an “unscripted, unauthorized and unintended long-distance shot of Ms. Jackson’s breast for nine-sixteenths of one second.” The Los Angeles Times reports that the network is challenging the FCC’s $550,000 fine for the incident, which was broadcast to an estimated audience of 90 million and was deemed indecent by the FCC.

Gather.com announced last week that it raised $10 million from Hearst, McGraw-Hill and other investors, reports Red Herring. (Current article about Gather.)

A psychology professor who has analyzed NPR’s “This I Believe” essays has found “that Southerners, men and people older than 65 were the most likely to talk about religion,” says a New York Times article about the series.

“Why is former MTV VJ Adam Curry better at building community than radio and television stations that depend on the community for their very existence?” asks a blogger at LostRemote. “Public broadcasting online should be the ultimate long tail of user-contributed content, with a natural geographical cross matrix linking the affinity groups.” (Via Technology360.)

“[I]t’s unfair and bad statistical analysis to blame news for the diminishment of classical and jazz music and, worse, for the diminishment of civic engagement in our culture,” writes Dennis Haarsager in his response to the National Endowment for the Arts study of classical music on public radio.

Last week’s Frontline documentary examining the downfall of former Spokane, Wash., Mayor Jim West prompted complaints of factual errors by the editor of Spokesman-Review, whose own journalistic ethics and investigative tactics came under scrutiny in the program. Frontline rebutted the newspaper’s criticism on its own discussion page. Producer Rachel Dretzin fielded questions about the documentary in an online chat.

Nielsen Media Research will begin offering video-on-demand ratings in December, the New York Times reports (via mediabistro). Rentrak, a company based in Portland, Ore., already tracks VOD viewing but it only releases data that cable companies approve. If VOD viewing habits hold steady through December, more than two billion on-demand programs will be watched this year, based on Rentrak data.

The Phoenix City Council yesterday okayed planning for a building on Arizona State University’s downtown campus that will house pubTV station KAET and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, the Arizona Republic reported yesterday. Construction would begin next spring and the building would be occupied by fall 2008.

PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler revisits the firing of PBS Kids Sprout host Melanie Martinez last summer and finds a story rich with “irony and hypocrisy” on the actress recently selected to replace her.

President Bush yesterday reappointed former CPB Chair Kenneth Tomlinson to his other federal post, chair of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, overseer of Voice of America and other overseas radio and TV services, the AP reported. The State Department’s inspector general criticized Tomlinson on several matters in August but did not seek a criminal investigation; Tomlinson’s defenders downplayed the accusations. He quit the CPB job after a report by CPB’s inspector general. Just last month the BBG named a new VOA director, Dow Jones and Wall Street Journal veteran Danforth Austin, and a new director of VOA-TV, Russell Hodge, head of the Maryland production company 3 Roads Communications.

WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., launches a digital channel today that carries programming from WTMD-FM, an noncommercial Adult Album Alternative station in Towson, Md. The channel can be picked up only by listeners with digital radios.

Unionized technicians at Northern California Public Radio (formerly KQED) in San Francisco have voted to authorize a strike, reports the San Jose Mercury News. The 130 employees are frustrated with the slow pace of contract negotiations, says a spokesman with the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians.

A study by the National Endowment for the Arts criticizes public radio for favoring news programming over classical music in recent years, writes Marc Fisher of the Washington Post. “We work in a complicated media environment,” says Ken Stern, c.e.o. of NPR, in response to the report. “We have to fish where the fish are.” UPDATE: Here’s a link to the study (PDF).

The Dallas Morning News profiles Fair Game, the new weeknight show of news and humor from Public Radio International. “This show is proof that public radio is not humor-impaired,” says Jeff Ramirez, radio p.d. for KERA-FM in Dallas.

According to the New York Times, former NPR v.p. for news and (briefly) ombudsman Bill Marimow, hired yesterday as editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer, expressed interest in the job as far back as August. Marimow officially takes the reins in Philly Nov. 27.