Masterpiece has a new national corporate sponsor, Ralph Lauren. It’s the first time the American design firm is underwriting a pubTV program. Sponsorship messages will begin on Sept. 30 on Upstairs Downstairs. The company is planning to create unique spots for the various titles in the Masterpiece series. “To have Ralph Lauren choose Masterpiece as their first TV sponsorship is an incredible tribute to our series,” said Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton at WGBH Boston. David Lauren, e.v.p. of advertising for Ralph Lauren Corp., said they are “proud to be associated with Masterpiece and public television.” Masterpiece lost its longtime underwriter, Exxon Mobile, in 2004.

The FCC is circulating internally its framework for upcoming spectrum auctions, with a vote on the recommendations expected at its Sept. 28 public meeting. Chair Julius Genachowski said in a statement that the commission “is poised to take an important step toward pioneering the world’s first incentive auctions and freeing up significant spectrum for mobile broadband.” Congress approved giving the FCC power to conduct the auctions early this year (Current, Feb. 28) to clear bandwidth for the growing number of mobile devices. Each television station may choose among three options: give up entirely its license to broadcast on a TV channel of 6 MHz bandwidth, keep only part of its 6-MHz channel and share the rest with another station, or swap its UHF channel (which wireless companies would want) for a VHF channel (less desirable for digital transmissions).

WUSF Public Media in Tampa, Fla., has acquired Health News Florida, an online nonprofit daily news service that covers health issues statewide, the station announced on Sept. 10. Former Wall Street Journal reporter Carol Gentry founded the site in 2006. Gentry also covered health and medicine for the St. Petersburg Times (now the Tampa Bay Times) and the Tampa Tribune. “This is such a significant milestone for WUSF Public Media,” said JoAnn Urofsky, WUSF general manager, in the announcement. “Health News Florida will position us as a leader across the state when it comes to reporting on healthcare.

The Association of Public Television Stations and NPR have assumed co-management of the 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting website, which organizes grassroots support for public broadcasting funding. APTS President Pat Butler told the CPB Board at its meeting Monday (Sept. 10) that the two hope to “super-size” the effort by reaching out to other organizations. The site, launched in December 2010, has helped generate hundreds of thousands of emails and calls to Congress to save federal aid for pubcasting. Its original co-managers were APTS and American Public Media. APM told Current in a statement: “APM, APTS and NPR have agreed that NPR and APTS — the national organizations responsible for representing member stations — will now co-lead 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting.

CPB’s financial analysis on alternative funding sources for public broadcasting, prepared by consultants at Booz & Co.  and delivered to Congress in June, has had little impact on lawmakers’ views about continuation of CPB’s annual federal appropriation to date, CPB staff reported during a Sept. 10 board meeting  in Washington, D.C. In the report, analysts for Booz examined a range of options for replacing CPB’s federal aid — from selling commercial advertising to tapping spectrum auction proceeds or selling pay-channel subscriptions, among others. They concluded that withdrawal of federal aid would have a “cascading debilitating effect,” starting first with stations serving rural areas and ultimately leading to collapse of the public broadcasting system.

Did you hear the one about how This American Life host Ira Glass gave an Oregon Public Broadcasting reporter $101 for asking him a question during a Sept. 9 appearance in Portland? Well, there’s a bit more to it than that. The Oregonian has an explanation here.

Israel “Izzi” Smith signs on at NPR in November as director of programming. His predecessor in the job is Eric Nuzum, who was promoted to v.p. of programming earlier this year. Smith has worked as a pubmedia consultant for almost 15 years, helping to introduce and manage programs such as Radiolab, PRX’s The Moth Radio Hour and State of the Re:Union. “Izzi is a true ‘connector,’ always trying to link good ideas, people and stations to serve audiences in bigger, more inclusive ways,” Nuzum wrote in a Sept. 5 memo announcing the hire to NPR staff. Smith’s primary responsibilities will be working with programs as well as on-air fundraising and promotion teams.

An infusion of CPB funding is allowing the Independent Television Service to add more features to OVEE, the online engagement tool that ITVS calls “the world’s first fully functional social screening platform.”