In an email to employees, WNET today announced a $15 million gift for its new Lincoln Center Studio, which will be named for donors James S. and Merryl H. Tisch. James Tisch, president and CEO of Loews, is the chairman of WNET.org’s Board of Trustees. This is the largest individual contribution in WNET’s nearly 50-year history. “When we decided to invest in the new studio, one of our main goals was to bring in a major philanthropic partner to help us leverage these studios to our best advantage as leaders in public television programming,” WNET President Neal Shapiro told staffers.

The APTS Grant Center website (password protected) is now up and running, provides funding opportunities and resources to help public broadcasting stations find and apply for grants, according to a statement from the Association for Public Television Stations. There are monthly APTS Grant Center conference calls and webcasts, and lists of personnel in funding agencies. The CPB-funded center is partnering with the Development Exchange Incorporated (DEI) on the foundation and radio components, providing profiles on national, local and regional foundations identified as potential station funders.

Democratic Rep. David Obey, a longtime pubcasting champion and chairman of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, is leaving Congress after this term. The Capital Times in his home state of Wisconsin called him Congress’s “most powerful populist.” In 2005, Obey co-sponsored an amendment to restore the $400 million CPB appropriation for the next year that that the Republican-led House Appropriations Committee wanted cut (Current, June 27, 2005). The previous month, he had joined fellow Democratic Rep. John Dingell of Michigan to complain about CPB Board Chair Kenneth Tomlinson’s probe of alleged liberal bias in pubcasting (Current, May 16, 2005), saying, “the law says the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is supposed to keep its cotton-picking nose out of programming and out of politics.”

Penn State’s WPSU is one of dozens of TV stations worldwide participating in the new TED Open TV Project, bringing speeches and appearances from the world of technology, entertainment and design to viewers (a bit of TED history here). Those are called TEDTalks, and have received some 200 million Web views since postings began in 2006 with such speakers as Bill Gates, Frank Gehry, Jane Goodall, Al Gore, Billy Graham, Peter Gabriel, Quincy Jones and Bono. TEDTalks are the brainchild of the nonprofit Sapling Foundation, dedicated to “fostering the spread of great ideas.” Now those speeches are coming from the Web to television.

Big news in the indie production world, P.O.V.‘s 2011 call for entries is now open. The pubcasting program is TV’s longest-running showcase for independent nonfiction films, and many projects it has supported or aired have gone on to fame — one good example is the recent Oscar nominee “Food, Inc.” For filmmakers new to the application process, P.O.V. offers this handy video. For those who have applied before, good news: The form is much shorter this year, according to P.O.V.’s series producer Yance Ford. Log in here to apply.

An NPR decision to change staffing arrangements for its western bureau chief has drawn objections from public radio station news directors and journalists. Two chiefs now share the job from two different cities–Kate Concannon in Seattle and Alisa Joyce-Barba from San Diego. NPR plans to hire a full-time bureau chief to work from its NPR West studios in Culver City, Calif. Public radio news consultant Michael Marcotte, a longtime advocate of expanding the bureau chief system, says the change will undercut the local/national news reporting relationships that NPR President Vivian Schiller says she wants to strengthen. “The bureau chiefs are the unsung heroes, the key linkages in the network-station editorial relationship, a relationship that must be tended and nourished,” he writes.

NPR and APT both won James Beard Foundation Awards on Monday, known as “the Oscars of the food industry.” The Kojo Nnamdi Show won for broadcast media; host is Nnamdi, producers are Tara Boyle, Michael Martinez, Ingalisa Schrobsdorff, Brendan Sweeney and Diane Vogel. For television show, on location, the winner is Chefs A’Field, “King of Alaska” (click on Episodes, then Episode 2) from presenting station KCTS in Seattle. Now in its fourth season, host is Rick Moonen, producers are Heidi Hanson and Chris Warner. WGBH is presenting station for Food Trip with Todd English, which won for television special; producers are English, Matt Cohen, Joel Coblenz and Gina Gargano.

The FCC on Monday released a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) asking for comment on rules governing construction, marking and lighting of antenna structures. The FCC hopes the revisions will improve compliance and allow the agency to better enforce the regs. The proposed rules would also remove outdated and complicated requirements without compromising the FCC’s responsibility to prevent antenna structures from being hazards to air navigation. A petition filed by the PCIA — The Wireless Infrastructure Association back on Sept. 12, 2006, led to the proposal; it’s being eyed now as part of an FCC biennial review of rules.

No, “Mornings with NPR” is not a new show, it’s the name of an aspiring cartoonist’s tribute blog to her fave pubradio show. Alex Olanow says two of her more enthusiastic fans are Morning Edition hosts Steve Inskeep and Renee Montagne, who once sent her a goody bag full of show swag: mugs, hats and, of course, that proverbial tote bag.

The Tyee, a British Columbian news and culture website, is reporting that a leaked survey of CBC journos tells “a mind-boggling tale of institutional incompetence. It’s a surprisingly amusing story, with great literary potential …” The main hubbub seems to be over the Hub, a layer of middle management that picks stories for cross-platform use. It’s part of an effort to integrate national radio and local TV so one reporter can serve both. Nearly half of the journalists insist it’s stopping them from getting a good story on the air, and, furthermore, they insist the Hub is a bunch of people “not qualified to be called junior reporters.”

Good news from Wyoming Public Radio: It reached its spring pledge goal of $250,000 in just 56 hours of on-air fundraising, according to a statement from licensee University of Wyoming. Jon Schwartz, g.m., said the station’s membership drives are consistently among the shortest in the country.

An Oregon Public Broadcasting contractor was found dead last weekend at its Stacker Butte, Wash., tower. Station spokesperson Becky Chinn told the Yakima Herald that his death appears to have been unrelated to his installation and maintenance work. She had no information on his age or hometown because he was not an employee. An autopsy is pending.

Muppets Studio won four Webby Awards — a major coup for its hilarious “Queen and the Muppets: Bohemian Rhapsody” — NPR.org won two, and one each for PBS, Frontline/World and Sesame Street in the honors for online excellence announced today. (OK, so technically Muppets Studio isn’t really a pubcaster, but those furry ones are definitely related to their Sesame Street cousins so we’ll claim ’em.) Each category had two winners, one voted on by judges including domestic doyenne Martha Stewart, Simpsons creator Matt Groening, and media maven Arianna Huffington, and the other, People’s Voice, selected by voters around the world. NPR’s awards came for Best Practices (People’s Voice) and Radio Podcasts (People’s Voice).

In the beginning, there was CBS Reports. Then came Bill Moyers. It was 1976. Executive Producer Howard Stringer wanted to show the world that the hour documentary was still viable despite the gaggle of magazine-style news shows pushing their way to the screen. Accountants had discovered there was profit in the magazine format and wise men in good-looking suits informed us we were behind the times. Howard held a staff meeting to solicit ways to best exploit the talents of this man from Texas. A hand went up. “Can we send him for speech lessons? Who will take us seriously when they hear that country accent?

Such hires push a hot-button issue: Public broadcasting’s commitment to diversify its largely white male corps of decision-makers.