Alabama Public Television is soliciting funds using a form letter signed by its past director Allan Pizzato, who was fired earlier this year, reports The Associated Press. APT spokesperson Mike McKenzie told AP that a direct-mail company sent the letter by mistake. “We’ve done other mailings between then and now — other campaigns — where Allan’s name was replaced,” he said. About 1,000 copies were mailed. “They did it about a month after he was fired and they were told not to do it again,” Mark White, Pizzato’s attorney, told AP. “I think they know a letter from Allan will raise more money than a letter from anyone else they have.”

The momentum of journalism crowdfunding project Spot.Us has “dwindled” since its acquisition by American Public Media’s Public Insight Network, according to a report on MediaShift. Marianne McCarthy, who just completed a 14-month research project on crowdfunding, writes that Spot.Us under its original founder, David Cohn, supplied more than $120,000 in funding for various news projects last year. This year, under APM, that figure is $7,000, and the rate of projects achieving successful funding fell from 98 percent to 37 percent. Linda Fantin, director of Network Journalism and Innovation at American Public Media, “attributed the lack of activity to tougher vetting procedures and an ‘explosion in the crowdfunding space,'” McCarthy writes.

Public media outlets were cited for six 2013 Alfred I. duPont-Columbia Awards, announced today by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. NPR received three awards, with one given to reporters Deborah Amos and Kelly McEvers for their coverage of Syria. “NPR’s series of daily news reports about the conflict in Syria was wide ranging, balanced and in depth,” the announcement said. “Veteran foreign correspondent Deb Amos provided critical context and explanation in her reporting that helped listeners understand the complex sectarian and regional factors at play. Her reporting from inside Syria at the scene of a massacre and the capitol Damascus documented spikes in violence.”

Independent Public Media has unveiled a new program to provide bridge funding to financially troubled pubTV stations. The loans will help them stay on the air through the FCC’s incentive spectrum auction, and require a payout from auction proceeds. IPM designed the loan program to assist noncommercial broadcasters until they can sell off some, but not all, of their spectrum bandwidth through the FCC auction, and assumed that stations will gain big payoffs by participating. Once auction proceeds begin rolling in to a borrower station, IPM will pay off expenses incurred by participating in the auction and then recoup the principal and interest on its loan.

Transom.org has awarded small radio production grants from its Donor Fund. The online watering hole and how-to site for radio producers provided grants of $1,000 each to six producers who will debut work on the site next year with help from Transom editors: The Core, a series of podcasts launched by a group of teenagers working with Open Orchard Productions; William Dahlberg, who will produce a story about an unsolved murder in his hometown of Newbury, Vt.; Erin Davis, who will create a multimedia project about “adventure playgrounds”; Andrew Forsthoefel, who will produce an hourlong documentary about his cross-country trip that began in October 2011; Mary Helen Miller, who will complete a radio documentary about a mixed-race group of Tennesseans; and Lauren Ober, who is working on a story about “a quest to find meaning in life after your life has been saved at the cost of someone else’s,” according to Transom.

A new round of layoffs at Nightly Business Report, initiated last week, pared full-time staff to 22, down by half from two years ago. Cutbacks included shuttering the show’s Chicago bureau, where chief correspondent Diane Eastabrook has worked for the weeknight financial show since 1993. Also gone is Michele Molnar, a New York–based photography editor since 1996, and Johnnie Streets, longtime senior stocks producer at headquarters in Miami. In all, six positions were eliminated. “We had to do this streamlining on behalf of our investor,” Rick Ray, NBR chief exec, told Current. NBR lost its sole sponsor, Franklin Templeton Investments, in August.

The Open Mobile Video Coalition (OMVC), the main advocacy group for the development of mobile digital television since 2007, is integrating into the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB), effective Jan. 1, the organizations announced today. OMVC’s voluntary members include the Association of Public Television Stations, CPB and PBS, representing some 360 pubTV stations, and 36 commercial TV owners and operators with more than 500 stations. Former APTS President John Lawson was a founding board member of the coalition. The NAB is the main advocacy, innovation and education association for America’s broadcasters, working for radio and television interests in legislative, regulatory and public affairs areas.

When the popular Internet music-streaming service Spotify launches its improved Follow feature in early 2013, KCRW in Los Angeles will be the platform’s sole featured user from terrestrial radio.

The landscape of the audience-ratings business began shifting with this morning’s announcement that Nielsen Holdings plans to buy Arbitron Inc. in a $1.62 billion all-cash deal. New York-based Nielsen will pay $48 per share under the sales agreement, a 26 percent premium from Maryland-based Arbitron’s closing price on Monday. The deal, announced Tuesday, is supported by the boards of both companies. Bloomberg News reports that the agreement will have to meet antitrust standards of the Federal Trade Commission before the sale can close. “I would expect to see some push back from local customers like local radio and TV operating groups,” Rich Tullo, an analyst at Albert Fried & Co.

KUT in Austin, Texas, will launch its all-music station, KUTX 98.9 FM, Jan. 2 and adopt an all-news format on 90.7 FM, its flagship signal. The broadcaster’s purchase of the second frequency was approved in August by the University of Texas System Board of Regents. The new station will pick up music programming now airing on KUT and add new shows, including Jazz with Jay Trachtenberg, featuring jazz classics and new releases; What’s Next with Jeff McCord spinning mixes of new music from both emerging and established artists; and a three-hour freeform music mix on Sunday mornings hosted by Jody Denberg.

Sarah Gilbert is leaving her post as senior editor of NPR’s Weekend Edition to become managing editor of Marketplace, American Public Media announced today. She will oversee coverage across the business and economic news show’s radio and web platforms, its newsroom in Los Angeles and its bureaus in New York, Washington, D.C., London and Shanghai. “As soon as I met Sarah, I knew she had the sensibility and journalism chops to be a great partner for me at Marketplace,” said Deborah Clark, Marketplace executive producer, to whom Gilbert will report. “She’s quick, decisive and won’t be afraid to challenge all of us in our approach to news.”