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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

Forthcoming NPR mobile app could advance public radio’s quest for digital audience

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Public radio executives who have long bemoaned the field’s collective inability to pursue innovation have a new opportunity to alter that dynamic as they evaluate a new digital-service strategy crafted and advanced by NPR. The plan, centered on mobile digital service, was described in detail by NPR content chief Kinsey Wilson during last month’s Public Media Summit in Washington, D.C. In an hourlong session, he described the overarching strategy and briefly discussed an audio application developed to advance it. The mobile app, introduced by Wilson as the “Infinite Player,” expands on a desktop-based app that NPR released under the same name in 2011. The mobile version is slated for full release this spring. This strategy and the app that supports it will be major topics of discussion during regional station consultations that NPR began convening this week.

System/Policy

Report: Pacifica board dismisses executive director after five months on the job

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The board of directors of the Pacifica Foundation terminated Executive Director Summer Reese Thursday, according to an email sent early Friday by outgoing board treasurer Tracy Rosenberg. (UPDATE: Board Secretary Cerene Roberts has confirmed Reese’s dismissal. “We thank Summer Reese for her service to date and will not continue her employment effective March 14, 2014,” the board said in a terse statement, offering no explanation.)

Reese’s termination comes five months after the Pacifica board gave her the job, which she had held on an interim basis since August 2012. Reese became interim executive director after the board dismissed previous ED Arlene Engelhardt. Dismissing Reese burdens Pacifica “with a new $315,000 obligation to buy out a 3-year employment contract signed just a little while ago,” according to Rosenberg, who added:
Given the financial pressures on the organization (exacerbated by 3 of the 5 stations recently missing fund drive goals, all but KPFK and WBAI), it seems likely the board’s action will result in the forced sale of one or more real estate assets,

This latest return to the days of constant lawsuits draining the foundation due to reckless behavior by boards will not be welcome news to many.

Quick Takes

Wednesday roundup: Pubradio at SXSW Music, Frontline Vatican doc goes international

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• The South By Southwest Music festival is underway in Austin, Texas, and public radio is providing an Internet gateway to the show. Beginning at 8:50 p.m. Eastern time, NPR Music will live-stream its showcase at Stubb’s BBQ; the lineup includes St. Vincent, Damon Albarn and Kelis. Meanwhile, Los Angeles’s KCRW will broadcast live from the Spotify House, with editions of its music show Morning Becomes Eclectic beginning tomorrow. KCRW is also sponsoring several artist showcases at the festival and plans to feature some of their live performances on the air.

Programs/Content

PBS mulls strategy to boost kids’ ratings

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With many local pubcasters reporting sharp declines in daytime viewership, PBS programmers are reevaluating scheduling strategies for children’s programs, trying to get a handle on a problem that’s also affecting commercial competitors for kids TV audiences.

Programs/Content

NPR to stock new mobile app by aiding stations on back end

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NPR is preparing member stations to provide local news for the network’s new mobile app, slated for release by summer. NPR content chief Kinsey Wilson discussed and previewed the app Feb. 24 for station execs attending the Public Media Summit in Washington, D.C. It builds on the Infinite Player, an NPR platform released for bigger-screened devices in 2011, moving it to a mobile interface and adding local station content to NPR’s own programming. Summit attendees heard an NPR newscast item about the Winter Olympics segue into a segment from San Francisco’s KQED about a labor dispute. The audio included a plea for donations to KQED.