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Project Core: A vision for scale and growth

Over the past three years, CentralCast has been hard at work implementing critical upgrades that lay the foundation for a more resilient and advanced future. And now, the culmination of these efforts is taking shape in our most ambitious initiative yet: Project Core.

Programs/Content

After 17 years, PRI ending distribution of This American Life

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Public Radio International announced today that it will end distribution of one of its biggest titles, This American Life. The Minneapolis-based PRI has offered TAL to stations since 1997. “During our most recent negotiation, it became clear that our organizations’ expectations regarding our futures were different,” and PRI will stop distribution July 1, said Julia Yager, PRI’s head of sales, marketing and distribution, in an announcement. Yager told Current that negotiations concluded today and that PRI does not comment publicly on confidential contract discussions. In a statement posted on the TAL website, host Ira Glass said that “looking at where PRI is now pushing its business and where we’re growing — especially on the digital side of things, which we’ve always done without PRI — both we and our colleagues at PRI came to the same conclusion: to go our separate ways.”

Quick Takes

Thursday roundup: Ruiz gets Sundance fellowship, new Muppet helps kids stay clean

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• Filmmaker Bernardo Ruiz (The Graduates/Los Graduados, Reportero) has received the Time Warner Fellowship from the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program to work on his latest doc, Recolectores (The Gatherers). As a fellow, Ruiz will get services from the institute including mentoring, grant assistance and attendance at its famous film festival. Joshua Oppenheimer (The Act of Killing) also got a production/post-production grant in this round of Sundance awards, which went to 35 filmmakers out of 750 applications from 93 countries. • Sesame Workshop is participating in this week’s annual Reinvent The Toilet Fair: India, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation event that showcases the latest in modern hygiene for developing nations. Making her debut at the fair is new Muppet Raya, who always wears her sandals to the latrine and washes her hands with soap.

Tech

WNYC’s new feature lets listeners create, download playlists

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New York Public Radio’s WNYC recently beefed up its mobile app with a personalization feature allowing users to generate playlists of news content that can be downloaded for listening on the subway or places where their phones go offline. The “Discover” feature of the WNYC mobile app lets listeners curate stories about topics that interest them — such as technology, pop culture or movies — into playlists of lengths ranging from 20 minutes to three hours long. The app pulls both local and national news stories, downloading batches of segments for later listening. The feature was designed to target the city’s subway riders, said Thomas Hjelm, chief digital officer at New York Public Radio. “It started with the thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great if there was an app you could use for a 30-minute subway trip?’”, he said.

Quick Takes

Wednesday roundup: Cutting locks at Pacifica; concerns about repacking interference

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• A new round of unrest is brewing at Pacifica. Current reported last week on the radio network’s board voting to oust executive director Summer Reese and this week on Reese’s defiance of the vote. An LA Weekly feature offers more details, including Reese removing a padlock from the doors of the network’s offices with bolt cutters and reading Bible passages to staff. The article recaps the history of the network and includes comments from former employees of Pacifica’s KPFK in Los Angeles. It’s reminiscent of the Village Voice’s September feature on New York’s WBAI (the Voice Media Group owns both publications). • PBS, CPB and APTS have joined the National Association of Broadcasters and commercial networks to warn the FCC about potential interference between TVs and wireless devices after spectrum repacking.

People

After 18 years leading KCET, Al Jerome announces retirement

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Al Jerome, the broadcasting executive who led Los Angeles public television station KCET out of PBS membership and into a partnership with satellite network Link TV, is retiring within the next six months, KCETLink announced today. Jerome has served as president of KCET for 18 years and is only the third person to lead the organization in its 50-year history. He will stay on through September and assist in the search for his successor, the statement said. He joined KCET in February 1996 after a 30-year career in commercial broadcasting at NBC, CBC and ABC. During Jerome’s tenure the station won 69 Emmys, seven George Foster Peabody awards, five duPont-Columbia awards and the Edward R. Murrow Award.

System/Policy

Pacifica’s executive director ignores board’s firing

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Pacifica Executive Director Summer Reese reported to work today at the radio network’s headquarters in Berkeley, Calif., ignoring her dismissal Thursday by Pacifica’s board of directors. Board members went into executive session during a meeting last week and voted to dismiss Reese effective Friday. Reese was appointed permanent executive director of the network last November after holding the job on an interim basis. Margy Wilkinson, who was elected chair of Pacifica’s board in February, declined to discuss why the board voted to dismiss Reese. “The board took an action that it thought was both necessary and appropriate,” she said by phone Monday.

Programs/Content

Panelists testify to inspiring global power of documentary films

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This article has been updated and reposted with additional information. Women and Girls Lead Global, a public media–based international outreach program, is helping drive positive change in five countries, participants said last week during panel discussions in Washington, D.C.

The public-private initiative grew out of the national Women and Girls Lead, a 2011 documentary-based campaign created by the Independent Television Service and backed by CPB. Partnering with ITVS in the international effort, which launched last summer, are USAID (the United States Agency for International Development), the Ford Foundation and the humanitarian organization CARE. The March 13 event, “Media as Multiplier: Using Documentary Film to Boost Global Development,” provided a forum for the international development community to discuss the value of using media as a development tool, Kimberley Sevcik, ITVS director of international engagement, told Current. Speakers at the Meridian International Center included New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof, whose book Half the Sky inspired a four-hour PBS film; Rajiv Shah, who leads USAID; David Ray, head of policy and advocacy for CARE; Judy Tam, e.v.p. of ITVS; and ITVS country engagement coordinators from Bangladesh, Peru, India and Kenya.

Quick Takes

Monday roundup: CPB Board gets nominee; public TV funding rebounds

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• President Obama has nominated Dr. Judith Davenport to serve as a CPB Board director, the White House announced Friday. Davenport, a retired dentist, co-founded Pittsburgh, Pa.–based Sheridan Broadcasting Corp. with her husband Ronald in 1973. She also serves on several other boards, including the Carnegie Museums of Pittsburgh and the Andy Warhol Museum. The nomination goes to the Senate for confirmation.