Community Educators of Orlando Inc. — which has the same mailing address and president as Daystar religious broadcasters — has filed with the FCC to purchase WMFE in Orlando, Current learned today (April 4). Greg Guy, a managing partner at media broker Patrick Communications in Elkridge, Md., confirmed the $3 million price. The FCC application, filed by WMFE licensee Community Communications Inc., can be viewed here.

WHDD in Sharon, Conn., the smallest NPR station in the country, gets its own story in today’s (April 4) New York Times. “In its own eccentric way, in these quite perilous times for public broadcasting, WHDD is not a bad model for what truly public radio might be,” it notes. The station — motto: “Robinhood Radio: Slightly off … but very good” — airs an eclectic amalgam of shows, from segments on language by Nat Benchley, grandson of humorist Robert Benchley and brother of Peter, author of Jaws; to shows on NASCAR racing and Indian music. As one fan put it, it’s “a hybrid between an old fashioned-community radio station and a highbrow NPR station.”

“It would be a shame,” writes New Republic reporter Eliza Gray, “if populists and yuppies, fighting a culture war over tony NPR, ended up taking down PBS in the process” as Congressional budget cuts continue to loom for funder CPB. She contends that “yuppie elites” are focused on saving NPR because “they’re afraid they won’t be able to poach eggs and drink coffee on Sunday morning anymore while listening to This American Life.” None of the GOP criticisms of liberalism apply to PBS, she notes, “whose viewers mirror the demographic makeup of the United States almost exactly, yet its budget still appears to be on the chopping block along with NPR’s.”

Now might not seem like the best time for the public broadcasting system to be pondering philosophical questions of identity and purpose, since its unwanted promotion to high-profile partisan punching bag in Congress. The official ponderers of the system’s Editorial Integrity for Public Media initiative beg to disagree. Now more than ever, they say, public broadcasting must make its case by defining its purpose and identity to the larger world — because if it doesn’t, its critics will. “In this political environment there’s a lot being thrown around about integrity, bias, and ‘just who are these public broadcasting guys, anyway?’” said Tom Thomas of the Station Resource Group, co-director of the editorial initiative.

South Florida’s WXEL-TV/Channel 42 may be purchased by its current management for $700,000, the Palm Beach Post is reporting today (April 1). That’s “a bargain price any way you look at it,” said station President Bernie Henneberg. He said he’d need $1.5 million for both the sale and initial station operating costs. About 15 of 30 invitees showed up at a potential backers’ meeting Thursday. The station went up for bids more than six years ago (Current, Nov. 29, 2004). Current owner Barry University agreed last year to sell WXEL-FM to American Public Media’s Classical South Florida in Broward County for around $4 million.

WMFE, the public TV and radio station in Orlando, Fla., said today (April 1) it’s getting out of the TV business and sticking with public radio. It has agreed to sell its TV operation and filed with the FCC to transfer its channel to a buyer, not yet identified, according to Lorri Shaban, a spokesperson. For WMFE-TV, underwriting revenues are down 68 percent since 2007, and individual giving is down 40 percent, according to the news release, but WMFE-FM reached its pledge goal ahead of schedule, and has had strong audience growth since going all-news in 2009. The decision was different from the choice made at KCET in Los Angeles, which dropped PBS programs, but had one of the same causes: WMFE divides the PBS audience with overlapping public TV stations — in WMFE’s case, WDSC in Daytona and WBCC in Cocoa.

Two longtime pubcasting congressional advocates, Sen. Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.), will receive this year’s Champion of Public Broadcasting awards from the Association of Public Television Stations, it announced today (April 1). The annual honors are presented to members of Congress and other individuals who have had a “tremendous impact on the ability of local public broadcasting stations to meet the most critical needs of the communities they serve,” APTS said. Previously, APTS had praised Cochran for his support for station financial stabilization funds in 2009 (Current, Dec. 14, 2009) and he also received the Ralph Lowell Award, public television’s highest honor, in 2000 from CPB.

Nova’s March 30 episode, “Japan’s Killer Quake,” was watched by some 7 million viewers, based on Nielsen data from 49 metered markets — the series’ largest audience for an original broadcast in five years, according to PBS.

Jon Meacham is leaving the co-anchor’s chair at Need to Know, and Alison Stewart will be the solo host, according to MediaBistro’s TV Newser blog. Meacham is staying on with producing station WNET to lead a new series, Perspectives, to air on TV and online. “I love Alison and the Need to Know team, but I don’t think the broadcast needs me as a co-anchor,” Meacham said.

Newsman Bill Moyers could be be returning to PBS, the New York Times is reporting. The Carnegie Corporation of New York’s board apparently approved a grant to Moyers’ production company of $2 million for a show titled Something Different With Bill Moyers — but then Moyers’ name was removed from the announcement on the Carnegie website. Moyers confirmed to the Times that his production company is in talks on a series. “But,” he said, the announcement “is premature because we are in conversations with other funders which take time to conclude. We have discussed various possibilities with PBS as one potential source of distribution, but have no idea about a possible airdate, if in fact we proceed.”

Pubcasters won 18 of the 39 George Foster Peabody Awards announced this morning by the University of Georgia. PBS led the field of 2010 Peabody winners with ten awards — two of which were presented to American Masters, the documentary series produced by New York’s WNET. Four Peabodys awarded to NPR honor international and investigative reporting, including a collaboration with Youth Radio and the Huffington Post. Three additional winners for pubradio were RadioLab, The Promised Land, and The Moth Radio Hour. Two docs produced by or in collaboration with local stations — “Lucia’s Letter” from WGCU-FM in Fort Myers, Fla.,

South Dakota Public Broadcasting will reduce local programming and educational services and lay off seven of 57 employees as a result of budget cuts exceeding $750,000, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Decisions are still being made, and details cannot be released until staff members are told about layoffs, SDPB Executive Director Julie Andersen said Wednesday (March 30). In the fiscal year beginning July 1, SDPB faces losses of more than $537,000 in state funds and $220,000 in other support, mostly money it has received from the Education Department to run overnight educational programs.

KCET is in negotiations to sell its Sunset Boulevard studios to the Church of Scientology, the Los Angeles Times is reporting. Real estate brokers tell the newspaper that the station plans to move to a smaller location, and officials have been touring potential sites. The historic 4.5 acre site has been assessed at $14.1 million. Both KCET and Scientology officials declined comment to the paper. KCET’s lot is at 4401 W. Sunset Blvd.; the Church of Scientology Los Angeles is four blocks away, at 4810. Meanwhile, LA Weekly’s Media blog quotes a KCET insider as saying that its top execs are “going to leave the station burning and destroyed and walk away with money falling out of their pockets … It’s a scandal … They only thing they’re not dismantling is their own salaries … this is really sad.”

A South Dakota Public Broadcasting video has gone viral with more than half a million views, thanks to a spectacular heave-ho, half-court basketball shot during a fifth-place playoff game between Pierre and Sturgis high schools last week. Yahoo! Sports proclaims that it deserves consideration for “basket of the year” honors.

Sandie Viquez Pedlow takes over as executive director of Latino Public Broadcasting on July 6, according to an announcement today (March 30). In February, Patricia Boero, who led the group for three years, announced she needed to return home to Uruguay this month. Pedlow has been director of station relations for PBS Education since 2004, leading the training of pubTV station staff in the promotion and marketing of PBS online and digital media products and services. She also worked at CPB for 10 years, as director of programming strategies; associate director of cultural, drama and arts programming; and senior program officer.