John McKinley, an early employee of PBS who went on to produce a TV version of Mountain Stage, died of congestive heart failure Nov. 3 in Washington, D.C. He was 66. PBS hired McKinley in 1973, just three years after its launch. Public TV development consultant Michael Soper, who worked with him there, recalls an iconoclast with a biting sense of humor. “When I first met John upon arriving at PBS in 1978, I thought he was nuts,” Soper said. “Quickly, I realized there was a very smart, cynical guy hiding under all that hair. I always remember him wearing motorcycle boots and a cape to work.

Plus: Bill Siemering discusses his start in radio; should public radio stations pursue local news?

Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever, the famous 1983 special on which Michael Jackson debuted his signature moonwalk and Smokey Robinson reunited with the Miracles, is coming to public television via pledge producer and doo-wop showman TJ Lubinsky. The two-hour program has not aired since its initial broadcast on NBC due to complex rights issues, Lubinsky said. He negotiated a two-year exclusive contract for public television stations to run the entire show. The list of performers is a who’s who from Motown, the famous Detroit-based record label: Marvin Gaye, Stevie Wonder, Diana Ross, the Supremes, the Jackson 5, the Temptations, the Four Tops and more.

StoryCorps founder David Isay has won the 2015 TED Prize, which gives him $1 million to fulfill a “wish” of his choice. Isay will present his wish March 17 at the 2015 TED conference in Vancouver, Canada. Past winners include Bono, who devoted his prize to fighting poverty in Africa; Bill Clinton, who aided health access initiatives in Rwanda; and chef Jamie Oliver, who used his funds for his Food Revolution program combating diet-related diseases. TED Curator Chris Anderson said, “On the tenth anniversary of the TED prize, it seems fitting that TED — an organization whose central mission is to spread ideas and empower storytellers — is honoring a storytelling pioneer.”

LAS VEGAS — Addressing station executives here Wednesday, NPR CEO Jarl Mohn offered a free year of Morning Edition as the grand prize for the winner of his “Spark Project,” a campaign to boost the newsmagazine’s audience. Mohn delivered a keynote speech at the annual Public Radio Super-Regional Meeting, held this year at Caesar’s Palace. In his speech, he called on the crowd of mostly general managers and station executives to move out of their comfort zones and unite in a push to cross-promote Morning Edition. The CEO is asking public radio stations to air 100 promotions a week from Jan.

Longtime Programming Director Mark McDonald and Engineering Director John Holt will be leaving WAMU-FM in Washington, D.C., according to the station. McDonald will depart at the end of the year to pursue multimedia opportunities, said WAMU Director of Marketing Kathleen Allenbaugh, and Holt will retire at the end of November after 20 years with the station. McDonald has been programming director at WAMU since 2001. He previously worked for BBC TV and Radio News and was managing editor for WNYC in New York. Holt has been engineering director at WAMU since 1994. Prior to WAMU, he was director of engineering at Jefferson Public Radio in Oregon and chief engineer at Minnesota Public Radio.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — An increasing number of public broadcasters have been contacting the FCC in recent weeks for information about participating in the upcoming spectrum auction, according to commission representatives who spoke at a CPB board meeting here Tuesday. The uptick began after an Oct. 1 report by investment banking firm Greenhill & Co. projected massive paydays for television stations if they sell spectrum to wireless carriers in next year’s congressionally mandated auction. Most pubTV stations, the representatives said, have been asking the FCC for details about transitioning from UHF to VHF channels. Doing so would provide stations with a payout but would also require over-the-air viewers to return to old-fashioned rabbit-ear antennae and may increase interference.

Public Radio Exchange’s podcast network Radiotopia has raised $620,000 from 21,808 donors on Kickstarter, setting a record among publishing, radio and podcasting projects that have used the crowdfunding platform. “We were dazzled by the response,” said PRX CEO Jake Shapiro. “It shows how dedicated the listeners are to the shows. And it means we’re going to be shipping out a lot of T-shirts.” After reaching its initial goal, the campaign achieved stretch goals as well. One enabled Radiotopia to add four shows to its lineup. Three are hosted by women, addressing a gender imbalance among popular podcasts. With the addition of those three programs and one more podcast, Mortified, Radiotopia will expand its total offerings to 11.

CPB’s Inspector General has recommended that CPB end the crediting of in-kind donations toward stations’ nonfederal financial support after the IG’s office found six stations had overstated NFFS by claiming invalid donations and incorrectly valuing the contributions. The IG’s office said in a Sept. 30 report that it found stations had inappropriately claimed in-kind donations such as venue space, merchandise and services as NFFS, amounting to misclassifying of hundreds of thousands of dollars. “CPB should evaluate the practicality of continuing to allow stations to claim in-kind trades as NFFS given the historical and continuing challenges in valuing trades and documenting that trades were received by the stations,” the report said.

Plus: Dead mechanics write no columns, and Montana drops PRI.

A new vocabulary is emerging in public radio newsrooms to help journalists communicate and make decisions about online coverage that attracts and builds digital audiences. Developed through the Local Stories Project, an NPR Digital Services initiative that began as a geotargeting experiment on Facebook, the vocabulary includes phrases like “topical buzzer” — a story that provides a unique take on a subject that everyone is talking about — or  “curiosity stimulator,” for a piece with a science or technology angle. The concepts are explained in this blog post, “9 Types of Local Stories that Cause Engagement.” As newsrooms around the country adjust to the demands of producing distinctive coverage within their local markets, reporters increasingly are required to serve two news platforms, each with a different audience, without spinning their wheels.

Five years after pubcasters switched off the last of their analog TV transmitters and advanced into an all-digital world, planning is underway for the next generation of digital TV. The ATSC 3.0 standard has been years in the making, and years of work and many questions remain before pubcasters are ready to put it on the air. ATSC is the Advanced Television Standards Committee, an international nonprofit comprising broadcasters, regulators, consumer electronics manufacturers, broadcast equipment companies and other experts. It developed the ATSC 1.0 standard that was adopted for broadcast digital TV in the early 2000s and is now charged with replacing that standard to keep up with rapid advances in the technologies used in broadcast TV.

Selling or keeping spectrum is perhaps the most consequential decision that the current generation of public television station executives and their boards will ever make about the future of public media, not just in their communities but the nation as well. The FCC chairman’s postponement of the spectrum auction until at least 2016 is an opportunity for greater scrutiny of that weighty decision. Pitches from speculators and their FCC allies have focused on the one-time financial windfall to local licensees from selling noncommercial spectrum. However, balanced deliberation requires examining some key issues. Here’s my own short list: Know when to hold ’em: Next-generation broadcasting technology will open up important new revenue streams for public and commercial stations.