WXPR-FM in Rhinelander, Wisc., is moving into a new building next year, it announced Monday (Aug. 29), joining a growing trend of pubcasting stations shifting to downtown locations. A capital campaign, “Hear the Future,” raised more than $400,000, and two local businessmen are donating 75 percent of the building cost. There’ll be space for four studios — a longtime station goal — and a new community features editor. The building has a news history: It used to house the Rhinelander Daily News. WXPR Station Manager Mick Fiocchi says the goal is to start remodeling “after the first of the year.”

MHz Networks is adding two English-language channels from China to its lineup in the Washington, D.C., metro area starting Oct. 1. CCTV News carries headlines, business, money and travel; CCTV Documentary runs cultural, historical, nature docs and more. “The addition of CCTV programming in D.C. opens a full-time window into China for all the residents of the region through free over-the-air and cable TV distribution,” said Fred Thomas, MHz c.e.o, in a press release.

Looking to expand the pool of companies that place underwriting spots on public radio stations, Boston’s WBUR unveiled results from its first-ever study demonstrating that sponsorship credits deliver a return on investment for corporate underwriters. Online surveys by Lightspeed Research, conducted in two waves since October, measured substantial gains for both new and continuing sponsors across 12 different product categories — including banks, supermarkets, health care and auto services. WBUR Station Manager Corey Lewis, who initiated the research, said the results demonstrate that public radio underwriting can compete with and even outperform advertising campaigns on three metrics: influencing customers’ purchasing frequency, perceptions of quality and consideration of a company for future purchases.

WUNC radio in Chapel Hill, N.C., is coping with signal loss at two transmitter sites due to Hurricane Irene: WBUX in Buxton, N.C., is located on the Outer Banks, just off Cape Hatteras; and WURI is at Manteo, N.C., on Roanoke Island, between the mainland and barrier islands. “We cannot even call the transmitters because the phones are out” as of Monday (Aug. 29) morning, Nandini Sen, WUNC director of technologies and engineering, told Current. “We’re just waiting. In the meantime we’re in touch with emergency personnel to figure out when can come in.” Highway 12 south of Rodanthe, where Buxton is located, “looks like it’s part of the ocean” due to flooding, Sen said.

The Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium are the first to use WQED Multimedia’s iQZoo, a QR (quick response) code project that provides visitors with audio clips, PBS videos and information about animals via a free smartphone app. It becomes available to all pubcasting stations in September, reports the Pittsburgh Business Times. WQED Multimedia developed iQZoo in-house, funded by a grant from PBS Interactive, said Jennifer Stancil, who heads up educational partnerships at the station. “We wanted to create something that could be relevant to kids in the moment when they’re asking questions and studying elephants and orangutans and polar bears, and provide the answers through PBS videos in a way never done before,” Stancil said.

A movement against hate crimes called Not In Our Town, spawned by a 1995 documentary on PBS, has come to represent many things. To the executive producer, NIOT is a way to help viewers counter incidents of bigotry and violence. Public broadcasting stations use it to reach into diverse communities in meaningful ways. A media scholar sees NIOT as a laboratory to breed and study methods of engagement. Most importantly, to citizens frustrated by community issues that seem impossible to resolve, NIOT suggests a way to make a difference in the lives of their neighbors. “To me, this is a prime example of public media at its best,” said Michael Isip, v.p.

David Brancaccio will helm Marketplace Index, a new weekday report that will “psychoanalyze” economic trends based on what happens in the financial markets each day. The series, piloted as a four-minute segment, combines reporting, critical analysis and interviews with financial experts and newsmakers. It launches today on Minnesota Public Radio news stations and KPCC in Pasadena, American Public Media’s California affiliate, and is being syndicated to public radio stations nationwide. It will also be distributed as a podcast, available every weekday at 4:45 p.m., from this new website. “No one is in a better position than Marketplace to address rising anxiety about the economy,” said JJ Yore, v.p.

Host Alison Stewart is departing WNET’s Need to Know, reports the New York Times Media Decoder blog, when it switches to a 30-minute format on Sept. 16. The shortened show will focus more on the 2012 election, and Stewart said she decided to bow out. “For a show about politics you have to have someone available and present 110 percent of the time,” and able to travel extensively, she said. Between a book she is completing and her 3-year-old, she said, “I didn’t feel like I was the right person and that it was the right time to continue with the show.”

Here’s a good update from Radio World of news so far on the Federal Communication Commission’s move toward broadcast emergency message delivery via a Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) instead of the legacy Emergency Alert System (EAS). In general, opponents object to the timing of the switch, and say that many stations have had to order new gear even before CAP-EAS system requirements have been finalized. Supporters say CAP it is an improvement over EAS, allowing for better delivery, higher-fidelity audio, text-to-speech, matching audio and text, and other benefits. Included in Radio World’s post are excerpts of comments to the FCC from groups such as the National Association of Broadcasters, Prometheus Radio Project and the Broadcast Warning Working Group.

The latest incarnation of Bill Moyers’ distinctive brand of talk programming will be the hourlong, multiplatform Moyers & Company, distributed by American Public Television. The January debut for the program — provided fully funded to pubTV stations — will mark the first time PBS has not been the distributor of an ongoing Moyers program to public TV stations, dating to his first show in 1972. His most recent series, Bill Moyers Journal, left the air April 30, 2010, when he retired. “Collaborating with APT offers stations flexibility in deciding where a broadcast can best serve their communities and it offers producers greater flexibility regarding the Web,” Moyers told Current in an email.

New England pubcasters are preparing for a major expansion of public radio services in Rhode Island through partnerships with schools that have frequencies but limited resources for running them.

After more than two years of talks, a potential collaboration among Alaska public broadcasting stations that held great promise of potentially coming together has fallen apart, reports the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. The stations, KUAC in Fairbanks, KTOO in Juneau and Alaska Public Telecommunications in Anchorage, were looking to consolidate bookkeeping, engineering and other functions to cut costs. “But after studying a plan to merge many of the administrative functions at the stations, it didn’t become clear those changes would actually result in any savings,” according to the newspaper. Patty Kastelic of Fairbanks, a member of the merger exploration committee, said there also was concern the state’s smaller public broadcasters would lose their local identities to the bigger stations.

Globe-roaming pubcaster Rick Steves has donated $1 million to his hometown arts center — the amount he has saved in tax breaks since President Clinton left office, he said in a press release. “I see it as a civic duty for businessmen like me, who’ve directly benefited from our vibrant communities, to do our fair share,” Steves said. The money goes to support and expand the Edmonds Center for the Arts‘ performances and community programs. A portion also will underwrite all facility costs for the next decade for the Edmonds’ Cascade Symphony Orchestra. Steves also said that to celebrate the donation, he will perform “Rick Steves’ Europe: A Symphonic Journey” with the Cascade Symphony Orchestra on Oct.

In honor of its 50th anniversary, KERA is premiering the documentary Bob Wilson and the Early Years of KERA, focusing on a defining era in the Dallas station’s history, the impact of one of its early chief executives (right), and its national influence on pubcasting. Interviews include KERA veteran Jim Lehrer (Wilson gave him his first TV news job) as well as Wilson. The doc will run in conjunction with a historic episode of the station’s Newsroom series from Aug. 3, 1971, focusing on the federal court order to desegregate the Dallas Independent School District. Both shows air Sept. 21 with a repeat Sept.

OK, Masterpiece “Wallander” fans, here are a few on-location photos of star Kenneth Branagh snapped during filming in Latvia last week. Enjoy.