Currently about 14 percent of the monthly visitors to PBS.org are localized to a station, reports Kristin Calhoun, director of PBS Interactive, on the PBS Station Products & Innovation blog. Localization overlays have been seen by 4,409,464 site visitors, with 453,301 clicking the “Choose My Station” button. “Think of PBS.org as a big prospecting platform for PBS member stations,” Calhoun writes. “More people declaring an affinity for a favorite station means more touch points for a visitor to PBS.org to engage with their local station. They have direct links to station support pages, custom TV tune-in information and access to their local station’s content via efforts like Project Merlin.

The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights has asked NPR to respond to a complaint about a recent report on a sex-abuse trial involving church officials. The web version of Barbara Bradley Hagerty’s May 27 report opens as follows: “A clergy sex-abuse trial in is reaching a crescendo in a Philadelphia courtroom. One defendant is James Brennan, a priest accused of trying to rape a minor, which is not that unusual.” Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic League, took issue with the “not that unusual” portion of that paragraph. “In this day and age when it is considered taboo to make sweeping generalizations of a negative sort about so many demographic groups, it is astonishing that NPR would allow this bigoted swipe at Catholic priests,” he was quoted as saying in a post on the Catholic League’s website.

Mark Pearson, host of Iowa Public Television’s nationally syndicated Market to Market, died unexpectedly Sunday (June 2) at his farm in rural Madison County of an apparent heart attack. He was 54. The Des Moines Register reported that emergency responders were summoned to the residence around 5:30 p.m. Central. “Iowa Public Television lost a friend and a colleague today,” the station said in a statement late Sunday, “and the state of Iowa lost a smart, enthusiastic, and talented agricultural broadcaster with the passing of Mark Pearson.” “For more than 20 years, Mark was Market to Market — reporting on the latest news in agribusiness while providing critical insights for viewers across the nation,” the statement said.

Now on current.org: The recent million-dollar Ford Foundation grant to the Los Angeles Times highlights the heightened competition that public broadcasters now face for philanthropic dollars in a fast-changing media world.

The regal Downton Abbey‘s Emmy-category switch from mini-series to drama could put it up against “American TV’s real aristocracy,” reports Deadline.com, such as Mad Men, Breaking Bad, The Killing and Game of Thrones. “We’re going to be in a whole other orbit,” said Rebecca Eaton, Masterpiece e.p. “We won against some very stiff competition last year from HBO, for which we all remain enormously proud. But in American TV, the drama series track clearly is the faster track. It’ll be interesting to go toe-to-toe with those very different shows and see how we do.” Season 1 of Downton had four episodes; Season 2, seven — exceeding the six that generally define a regular series and prompting the category change.

Former WTTW producer Pat Barey is co-author of a book coming out in August about a little-known aspect of Julia Child’s life: Her love of cats. Julia’s Cats: Julia Child’s Life in the Company of Cats draws on letters and original interviews to reveal the famous pubcasting chef’s love of felines, from the very first, Minette, that arrived at the Childs’ doorstep soon after she and her husband Paul arrived in Paris. Co-author is Therese Burson, Barey’s partner in the film production company Tellens.

Jonathan Ahl, news director of Iowa Public Radio, left his job Thursday (May 31), according to The Gazette in Cedar Rapids. Mary Grace Herrington, c.e.o., declined to say “what led to his departure or whether he was terminated,” the newspaper said. Ahl had joined the station in July 2008. Ahl also submitted his resignation to PRNDI Board president, effective immediately. He was in his second term in the office. George Bodarky, news and public affairs director at WFUV-FM in New York, will serve as PRNDI acting president until the board election June 30. “PRNDI would like to thank Jonathan Ahl, affectionately known as ‘the chief,’ for his strong commitment to the organization over the years,” the organization said on its website.

Paul Bartishevich, head of Finger Lakes Productions International, died June 1 [2012] at his home in Trumansburg, N.Y., of an apparent heart attack. He was 53. FLPI, founded in 1987, produced and distributed daily radio programming to NPR affiliates nationwide as well as more than 120 countries and territories via the Voice of America and American Forces Radio. Popular titles, which reflected Bartishevich’s interest in science, nature and technology, included Bird Watch, Nature Watch, Animal Instincts, Ocean Report, Our Ocean World, EnvironMinute and Microbeworld. In 1998, FLPI launched the Radio Voyager Network (RVN), which became the first English-language commercial radio network to broadcast throughout Europe.

NPR has hired Leila Fadel from the Washington Post as a foreign correspondent based in Cairo. At the Post, Fadel served as bureau chief in Iraq and Egypt, covering the Iraq War and the Arab Spring. She will start at NPR in July; the Post is now looking for her successor, according to a memo on Romenesko. NPR also hired Gregory Warner, a correspondent for American Public Media’s Marketplace, as East Africa correspondent, based in Nairobi, Kenya. And it appointed Corey Flintoff, a former newscaster and a correspondent for NPR’s digital news division, as its Moscow correspondent.

The host of the pubTV show Saddle Up with Dennis Brouse on Thursday (May 31) was sentenced to 10 years in prison by a District Court judge in Iowa in connection with a state filmmaking tax-incentive program scandal that was uncovered in 2009, reports the Des Moines Register. Brouse had been convicted of fraudulent practices in March. The horse trainer “told a state investigator he had never declared bankruptcy, never gambled nor had his wages garnished — all deceptions that backfired at his sentencing for fraud,” the newspaper noted. Brouse’s Changing Horses Productions had been awarded $9.27 million in tax credits for five projects, but a state audit last year reportedly found discrepancies including $2.18 million in expenditures claimed by Changing Horses paid to companies outside Iowa, which wasn’t allowed, and $1 million in expenses not supported by documentation.

Lee Ferraro, g.m. of WYEP-FM in Pittsburgh for 16 years, has announced that he will leave the station after helping its board find a successor. Ferraro told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that the decision was his own and “a difficult one.” Last year Ferraro worked with WYEP’s board and funders to purchase WDUQ-FM from Duquesne University. The station is now Essential Public Radio 90.5 FM. Ferraro said in a press release that he plans to take some time off after leaving WYEP but that he hopes to stay involved with public radio.

The FCC is sponsoring a workshop on June 25 on its plans to reimburse broadcasters for channel reassignment costs following the upcoming spectrum auctions. The 2012 Spectrum Act established a $1.75 billion TV Broadcaster Relocation Fund for those costs. Panelists will discuss issues they feel the FCC should consider when designing the payback, as well as possible models and lessons learned from similar previous programs. Appearing will be Jay Adrick, v.p., broadcast technology, Harris Corp.; Brett Haan, principal, Deloitte Consulting; Jane Mago, e.v.p. and general counsel, National Association of Broadcasters; and Patricia Tikkala, v.p., spectrum, Sprint Nextel Corp. The workshop will run from 2 until 3:30 p.m.

WITF in Harrisburg, Pa., is likely to go to an all-news format on weekdays, dumping the classical music that it now airs during middays, according to Pennlive.com. “We believe there is a need that WITF and NPR’s quality news can help to fill,” said Kathleen Pavelko, WITF’s president. “We also believe that this decision reflects what our listeners want.” WITF’s news programming is twice as popular as its classical music, and a listener survey found a larger appetite for more news programming as well. The station will still air local classical performances on weekend evenings and is launching an all-classical web stream.

Sesame Workshop’s 10th annual benefit gala this week raised more than $2 million, reports the Wall Street Journal. Honoree at the Wednesday (May 30) event at the opulent Cipriani 42nd Street was former President Bill Clinton. “When Elmo started on Sesame Street in 1984 he was 3½ years old and so was Chelsea,” Clinton said, referring to his daughter. “We never missed an episode. Now Chelsea’s 32, and Elmo’s still 3½. Savor it.” Emcee was The Daily Show‘s Jon Stewart, who urged the crowd: “Take out a second mortgage! Do whatever you can.”

The National Film Society, the quirky duo that hosted PBS’s first Online Film Festival, now will have their own video creations featured on the PBS Digital Studios YouTube channel. Don’t miss their video announcement, during which they get a crash course in becoming pubcasters — complete with learning the lingo (“Check your local listings”) and drills to memorize station call letters (hey, nice shoutout to KUFM-TV in Missoula!).