WCVE, Central Virginia’s Community Idea Stations, is planning a unique fundraiser for this spring: A “puzzle-solving event” designed by Ravenchase Adventures in Richmond, Va. The Big Idea Challenge runs April 29 through June 2 and the station hopes to raise $250,000 to supplement its on-air pledge dollars. “With the uncertain status of government funding, we have been looking for lots of different ways to reach out beyond our traditional audiences and involve folks who peripherally know about us but may not be as close,” Lisa Tait, vice president for development at WCVE, told the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “We wanted something different to tie in with our mission and with the people who like public broadcasting, who are intellectually curious.”

Three national pubcasting organizations are encouraging the FCC to exempt pubTV licensees from any new public interest reporting requirements, in a Jan. 27 filing with the commission. The Association of Public Television Stations (APTS), Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) prepared the filing in response to the FCC’s notice of inquiry in November 2011 soliciting input on a proposal “to replace the issues/programs list that television stations have been required to place in their public files for decades with a streamlined, standardized disclosure form that will be available to the public online.” “We support the commission’s effort to standardize information about their public interest programming and activities,” said Lonna Thompson, APTS c.o.o.,

The stations are here so they can understand and illuminate a community’s aspirations and concerns, engage people in the life of their community, and help people reengage and reconnect with one another. — Richard C. Harwood and Aaron B. Leavy1 The remark above reflects a way of thinking strategically about the institution of public broadcasting at this point in our history. Today, public media boards and executives face such strategic questions as: What can we do to be a more significant and engaged institution in our community? What should be our focus, and what does that mean for redeploying resources from current activities?

Nothing comes easily to public radio, not even a good idea. About 30 years ago, Wisconsin Public Radio veteran Jack Mitchell came up with the concept of banding together small stations throughout Wisconsin into a centralized system, within which a mothership would handle overhead and distribution, thus freeing up resources for stronger local content. Today, Wisconsin Public Radio operates 33 stations that benefit from strength in numbers – some of which might not exist today were it not for a centralized system. Each station is tied to one of two statewide networks, one featuring the NPR newsmagazines and classical music and the other mostly state-oriented talk programming.

The evaporation of the Commerce Department’s Public Telecommunications Facilities Program and the dwindling of other funding sources have created a critical situation at stations needing to purchase or update equipment for broadcasting. PTFP had provided public stations more than $233 million in capital funds since 2000. The congressional budget ax fell in April 2011, zeroing out PTFP’s annual $20 million allotment for matching grants. Compounding the problem is the parallel fall-off of state money, which also helped some stations cover equipment costs. At the same time, hardware for the first digital TV installations in the early 2000s is slowly approaching replacement time.

With this package of articles, Current begins publishing a series of articles on Public Media Futures, appearing in conjunction with a two-year series of quarterly forums starting this month. The forums are co-sponsored by USC Annenberg’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy and American University’s School of Communication, which publishes Current. Both the articles and the accompanying forums are planned to amplify and contribute to conversations already underway in the field about serious issues facing public service media companies in the 21st-century. The recession and trends in media technology are shaking the structural and financial foundations of public media, suggesting that some of the system’s major operating assumptions will have to change.

A former top editor of the Los Angeles Times, Russ Stanton, has joined APM’s Los Angeles station KPCC in Pasadena, Calif., announced a major hire last week: Former Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton has joined the station as its new v.p. of content. Stanton’s arrival “is part of an aggressive effort by the nonprofit news organization to become the preeminent regional source for both broadcast and online news — with deeper, more enterprising and investigative coverage,” KPCC declared on its website. Stanton had left the newspaper last month in what was announced as a “mutual decision” with Times President Kathy Thomson.

WASHINGTON, D.C. — At the packed “Looking Ahead with the Pubcasters” session at Monday’s (Jan. 29) Realscreen Summit, PBS President Paula Kerger once again spoke of the potential the PBS Foundation holds for the future of the organization. “It’s just starting to ramp up,” she said of the foundation. “It isn’t the full answer for us because the amounts of money are reasonably low, but it has given us a little more flexibility to do some things relatively more quickly.” One example: PBS was able to acquire a film on Steve Jobs soon after the Apple founder’s death on Oct.

Iowa Public Radio has completed launch of its new all-classical service in Des Moines. IPR Classical now airs on two commercial FM frequencies — KICP 105.9 and KICL 96.3 — that were purchased last summer for $1.75 million. The signal expansion gives IPR Classical a broadcast footprint of more than 400,000 potential listeners and improves the outlook for membership and underwriting income. WOI 90.1 FM, IPR’s flagship channel in Des Moines, continues to split its broadcast day between NPR News and classical music, but that could change soon. IPR looks to expand the reach of its Studio One format, which combines news and alternative music programming, and is evaluating format switches for its other Des Moines area stations.

As the chorus calling on public media to add more local journalists grows, let’s be mindful of the specific ways adding journalists can dramatically improve local public service. Just by enlarging its newsroom to four, five or six journalists, a station will gain the human wherewithal to unleash a proper beat system. Beats cause reporters to become specialists. With a news staff of six, for example, a newsroom could have reporters well versed in the actors, history and nuances of a starter set of beats — education, health, business, law, environment and arts/culture. These specialists are more likely to break original stories, to know when it’s important to follow up, and to extract meaningful news analysis from a week’s events.

Between the years 1995 and 2010, public television stations’ cash revenues rose, plateaued and then crashed with the 2008 recession, falling altogether 14 percent. Public radio stations, meanwhile, expanded their revenue by 67 percent,

Two Oklahoma lawmakers are proposing ending funding for Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, the pubTV network based in Oklahoma City, reports the Tulsa World newspaper. Senate Bill 1689 would end state money for “public media or establishing a statewide educational television system,” and OETA is the only Oklahoma public media to receive such funding. Pubradio KOSU and KGOU receive funding indirectly through their university licensees schools, not through appropriations. House Bill 3039 would end OETA funding over the course of five years. “If that money were to go away, this would be a very different operation, and it would not — could not — continue to be a statewide operation,” said John McCarroll, OETA executive director.

Having lost its digital projects fund last year, CPB lacks the money to develop the American Archive much further, according to Mark Erstling, senior v.p. The next step is to find an outside institution to adopt and support creation of the proposed archive of public stations’ historic audio, video and films. That helps explain why professional archivist Matthew White left CPB Jan. 13 after two years as executive director. “It was very clear to him that things were going to change significantly,” Erstling says, and White accepted an offer to lead a “significant” archiving project abroad. White could not be reached for comment.

Idaho Public Television needs funding for capital equipment purchases, General Manager Peter Morrill told the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee of the state legislature Friday (Jan. 27). The network has not received its usual state appropriation for equipment for the past three years, reports the Spokesman-Review, and is asking for $1.5 million. “Our operating model is not sustainable with current capital funding levels,” Morrill told members. “Continued deferral of equipment repairs and maintenance will lead to loss of service.” The governor’s budget recommendation for IPTV for next year calls for a 0.5 percent increase in general funds. For much more on the loss of capital equipment funding across the system, see the Jan.