How much progress has public radio made toward its goal of growing its audience by 50 percent by 2020? There are bright spots in the first follow-up to Station Resource Group’s 2010 report that laid out aspirational goals and tactics for increasing the use, reach and diversity of public radio listenership, but also some set-backs. “In 2010 more people tuned in a public radio station in a typical week and more people used public media’s online services than ever before,” write Terry Clifford and Tom Thomas, SRG co-directors and co-authors of the CPB-backed research project. “But the amount of listening – the average audience at any one time – declined significantly, principally due to changes in measurement methodology.

Mykalai Kontilai, whose controversial past stoked headlines when he bought Nightly Business Report last August, has hired Paramount Media Advisors to explore options “from selling a minority stake up to selling the entire company,” the New York Times is reporting. Sources familiar with the situation says Kontilai’s company, NBR Worldwide, is exploring a strategic alliance with a bigger partner through a minority investment, although a sale of Nightly Business Report “would also be considered.”

Is NPR’s “complete lack of a strategy to save itself” in the current crisis what’s actually doing the most damage to the network? Media analyst Howard Kurtz explores that possibility for Newsweek today (Sunday March 20). He said that NPR staffers flown in for a recent meeting in Washington “groaned when executives said it would be too risky for them to aggressively defend NPR, and that perhaps they should get media training for Joyce Slocum, who took over on an interim basis after the firing of CEO Vivian Schiller” (Current, March 9). This American Life host Ira Glass also criticized NPR’s reaction — or, rather, the lack of it.

Bob Davis, editor of the Anniston (Ala.) Star, undertook an experiment to determine if the “enlightened” broadcasting content that President Lyndon Johnson envisioned when he signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 is being provided by commercial radio, thus eliminating the need for NPR. “Friday morning, I probed this idea by randomly scanning the radio dial, something my family can attest is a specialty of mine,” Davis said. What he found may not be surprising, but it is amusing.

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s decision last week to replace the entire seven-member Educational Television Commission has pubcasting supporters worried, reports The State newspaper. “What worries me is if people go in there thinking they know what ETV means, thinking it’s just Masterpiece Theater, and they make decisions without being educated,” Caroline Whitson, president of Columbia College and the fundraising ETV Endowment Board, told the paper. “They could make decisions that long-term have very detrimental effects on this state without realizing what they’ve done.” ETV, created in 1960, operates a statewide network of 11 television stations, eight radio stations and a closed-circuit telecommunications system used by schools, government agencies and businesses, the paper said.

A stream on NPR Music “carries as much cultural weight as an appearance on Saturday Night Live or the cover of Rolling Stone,” according to today’s (March 18) Washington Post. Bertis Downs, manager of R.E.M., told the paper, “When we sit around thinking, ‘How do we get attention?’ — they’re at the top of the list.” Downs recently helped the legendary alt-rockers get their new album streamed on the site. “We know that’s where the audience is,” he said. Traffic on NPR Music has quadrupled since it launched in 2007, the Post notes, and it currently accounts for about 14 percent of the eyeballs visiting NPR.org.

March Madness? Bah. Here’s Masterpiece Madness, in honor of the PBS icon’s 40th anniversary. Yes, brackets pitting popular characters against one another. New matches will appear daily for three weeks, voting lasts 24 hours per match. One first-round throwdown: Inspector Lewis vs. Kurt Wallander? Whew, this is tougher than we thought.

Nova and Channel 4 in the U.K. are commissioning London’s Pioneer Productions to produce “Japan’s Killer Quake,” an original one-hour documentary on the ongoing disaster Japan, to air at 9 p.m. Eastern on March 30. The production company also produced “Emergency Mine Rescue,” another quick turnaround project, on last year’s Chilean mine disaster. Nigel Henbest will produce the film. Howard Swartz, Nova executive producer, will oversee the project for WGBH/Nova; commissioning editor for Channel 4 is David Glover.

In addition to banning use of federal funding for NPR programming, H.R. 1076, which passed the House Thursday (March 17), also prohibits stations from using that money to purchase shows from other distributors, including Public Radio International and American Public Media. Here are their statements in reaction to the bill’s passage. From Public Radio International Public Radio International is appalled by the passage of H.R. 1076. Not only will this bill inhibit stations’ ability to serve local audiences and stifle producers’ development of new content, it will also limit public access to global news and information that US citizens demand. By being prohibited from using federal funds to purchase content from PRI, millions of listeners will no longer have access to BBC World Service, PRI’s The World, Studio 360, This American Life and dozens of other programs that offer a diversity of perspectives on and insights into our increasingly connected global society.”

 Len Downie Jr. and Robert Kaiser “are concerned that, in the heat of the debate, members of Congress may not realize the changing role that public radio stations, working with NPR, play in informing citizens in their communities,” the two write in today’s (March 18) Washington Post. Downie, a former Post editor, and Kaiser, an associate editor at the paper, are also co-authors of  The News About The News: American Journalism in Peril. The two detail the growing importance of the pubcasting system in reporting local news, citing CPB’s local journalism centers (Current, April 5, 2010).

The House bill approved Thursday (March 17) to keep pubradio stations from spending federal money for NPR dues and programming are “unlikely” to go anywhere in the Senate, the National Journal reports. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the White House are both opposed. “I listen to NPR every day,” Reid said in a statement National Journal Daily. “Like many Americans, my children and I have benefited from the educational and news programs public radio provides every day of the year. Public radio and the top-notch journalists it employs are valuable resources to people of all ages across the country and I can’t understand why Republicans would want to take that away from them.”

Conservative muckraking videographer James O’Keefe has released a third video from his recent NPR sting, which Media Matters for America notes “instantly falls apart.” On his Project Veritas website, O’Keefe says “the public will learn for the first time that George Soros’s Open Society Foundation has donated to NPR in the past, starting as many as 15 years ago.” As Media Matters points out, that’s long been public information — because NPR has issued press releases about the grants. Plus, they’re all listed on NPR’s tax documents.

NPR issued this statement after the House voted today (March 17) to keep stations from spending federal money on dues or programming: Today, NPR expressed grave concern about the impact of the approval of H.R. 1076 on the entire public radio system – hundreds of stations, dozens of program producers and the communities that rely on them every week. The bill is a direct effort to weaken public radio that would ultimately choke local stations’ ability to serve their audiences. Many small-budget stations would be placed in a serious financial bind. They would no longer be allowed to purchase any programming with federal funds.

The president’s Executive Office of Management and Budget just issued this statement on the House’s decision to ban use of federal funds for NPR dues and programming: The Administration strongly opposes House passage of H.R. 1076, which would unacceptably prohibit Federal funding of National Public Radio (NPR) and the use of Federal funds by public radio stations to acquire radio content. As part of the President’s commitment to cut spending, the President’s Budget proposed targeted reductions in funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides a small amount of funding for NPR, and the Administration has expressed openness to other spending reductions that are reasonable.

Here are statements that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting just released on today’s (March 17) House vote to prohibit federal funding for NPR dues and programming: From CPB: Today, the House passed a bill that would significantly restrict public broadcasting stations’ ability to acquire programming that they feel best serves the needs of their communities. Every day, these stations serve the informational and educational needs of the public with programming that contributes to the health and well-being of the country in a way that would not be possible without federal support. The American people overwhelmingly agree that public broadcasting is a service worthy of the federal investment.