American Graduate and Youth Speaks, a nonprofit that focuses on empowering youth through creativity, hope to include more young people in conversations about high-school dropout rates with Raise Up, a hip-hop and spoken-word contest that will culminate with a performance this month at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and a radio special. The organizations paired up this spring to encourage teens to submit original raps and poems related to the high school dropout crisis. By June 30, Raise Up had received over 750 video submissions, many filmed with webcams and smartphones. Twelve finalists were chosen for the contest’s next round.

The Senate approved three members of the CPB Board Thursday, one returning and two new. The three were nominated by President Obama earlier this year. New to the governing body for a term expiring in 2016 is David Arroyo of Brooklyn, N.Y., s.v.p. for legal affairs at Scripps Network Interactive. From 2008-12 Arroyo chaired the Board of Latino Justice, formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. He also was recognized by the Imagen Foundation as one of the most influential Latinos in entertainment in 2012. Retired dentist Judith Davenport of Pittsburgh is the other new CPB director. She is a co-founder and director of Sheridan Broadcasting Corp.,

PORTLAND, Ore. — Chicago’s WFMT announced Wednesday a deal with New York–based WQXR to distribute the 2014 season of Carnegie Hall Live. Entering its fourth season, Carnegie Hall Live kicks off Oct. 1 with a broadcast featuring the Berliner Philharmonker. The show is recorded and hosted by WQXR staffers in partnership with Carnegie Hall and was previously distributed by Minnesota-based American Public Media. WQXR is operated by New York Public Radio. “We’re very pleased and honored to be associated with this institution,” said WFMT General Manager Steve Robinson at the Public Radio Programmers Conference here. “Carnegie Hall is in a class by itself.

PORTLAND, Ore. — This week’s Public Radio Programming Conference is giving attendees a chance to prepare for Nov. 17, the day when new clocks for NPR’s newsmagazines take effect and both stations and the network’s news staffers will need to adjust to the revised formatting. Wednesday’s proceedings featured two opportunities for discussion. At the first, NPR representatives fielded questions from station programmers, with Chris Turpin, acting senior v.p. of news, laying out changes in store. Once the new clocks kick in, the newsmags will probably feature more shorter pieces, Turpin said. That’s partly because some show segments, such as the first segment in each hour of Morning Edition, will be longer, allowing for more pieces kept to shorter lengths.

Michael Jones, PBS’s chief operating officer since January 2009, is moving into an advisory role as executive vice president. In a Sept. 9 memo detailing several changes within PBS’s top ranks, President Paula Kerger announced that Jones will continue to report to her, serving “as a chief adviser working closely with me on a series of critical projects.” Those include management of an upgrade to public TV’s interconnection system and issues related to the upcoming television spectrum auction. PBS is currently conducting a national search for a new COO, Kerger said. It’s unclear how PBS has adapted its reporting structure for its senior executives during the search.

American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, CPB’s dropout prevention initiative, has awarded another $6.2 million in grants to 33 stations, this time supporting students from the beginning of their academic careers. The funding, announced Aug. 27, targets communities where the high school graduation rate is especially low among students of diverse races, ethnicities, incomes and disabilities, and where students struggle with limited English skills. Under the new grants, stations will work toward developing long-term solutions that begin with early education. “When we started this work, much of the initial focus was on middle- and high-school students,” said Jack Galmiche, president of Nine Network in St.

Also: New NPR President Jarl Mohn talks to On the Media.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Addressing the nearly 500 attendees of the Public Radio Program Directors conference, NPR CEO Jarl Mohn reassured attendees Tuesday that he would renew the network’s focus on radio programming and challenged them to take part in a systemwide experiment to boost listening to NPR’s newsmagazines. “If we don’t get the radio part right, if we don’t get the terrestrial part right, if we don’t get broadcasting right, the rest of it isn’t going to make a difference,” Mohn told the crowd. “So you’re going to see from us, and from me, a renewed focus on the broadcasting side of the business.”

Public stations in Connecticut and San Mateo may be at the leading edge of a mass sell-off of public media assets in next year’s FCC spectrum auction. These stations have entered into agreements with LocusPoint Networks, a subsidiary of the private equity firm Blackstone Group, whereby LocusPoint shoulders the stations’ operating costs until the auction and then takes a significant share of the auction revenue after the station has sold its spectrum to wireless bidders. These deals have to be disclosed to the FCC, but their details do not. When the spectrum is auctioned, stations  may receive tens of millions of dollars for their spectrum, especially in congested coastal areas.

Plus: PBS is added to Amazon Fire TV, and NPR's Bob Boilen shares concert tips.