KQED has dropped plans for a public TV documentary about pioneering Napa Valley winemaker Robert Mondavi after widespread newspaper reports that an organization funded largely by Mondavi had supplied the first and only seed money.

Observers are watching hopefully as Laura Walker, the first CEO hired to run WNYC as a private entity, sets out to double WNYC's weekly cume and make it a high-energy, high-profile and spiritually indigenous New York cultural and news center.

The New York Botanical Garden, still fighting the completion of a nearby 480-foot tower for WFUV-FM, told the FCC late in October that the station should disguise the antenna as a 185-foot double flagpole. In its reply to the commission, WFUV said the notion was “without technical or practical merit” and asked for approval of its construction permit. The botanists are “trying to sidetrack the commission” and extend the two-and-a-half-year delay, says Ralph Jennings, g.m. Before proposing the double flagpole, the garden had suggested a stone tower to hold the antenna, but it was not feasible, he says. “All these things would be pretty, but they’re about 200 feet high, which is no higher than what we’ve got now.”

Nebraska ETV canceled a senatorial debate broadcast in August [1996], and Iowa PTV was taken to court last month as the ripple effects of a federal circuit court decision involving Arkansas ETV spread throughout the Midwest’s Eighth Circuit. As it did in 1994, the circuit court had ruled on Aug. 21, [1996] that the Arkansas network had no right to exclude independent congressional candidate Ralph P. Forbes from a Republican-Democrat debate that it was sponsoring and broadcasting in 1992. Richard D. Marks, attorney for the Arkansas, Iowa and Nebraska networks, called the decision “a grave threat to public broadcasting.” In the parallel case in Iowa, pubcasters were elated with two rulings last week: first, a U.S.

Max Morath reminded America about a largely forgotten part of its musical legacy, but beyond that achievement of mass education, the musician also helped educational TV accept the element of entertainment in its programs. This article by Contributing Editor David Stewart is part of Stewart’s planned book on public TV programming. Stewart, who retired as CPB’s director of international activities, profiled early television’s favorite professor, Frank Baxter, in a January issue of Current. In the summer of 1959 an itinerant musician and sometimes TV producer, Max Morath, was playing piano for melodramas in the restored mining town of Cripple Creek, Colo.

A federal appeals court has upheld the little-noticed 1992 law setting aside 4–7 percent of direct broadcast satellite capacity for “noncommercial programming of an educational or informational nature.” The Aug. 30, 1996, decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington, D.C., overturned a 1993 District Court decision that ruled the set-aside had violated DBS operators’ First Amendment rights. If the decision isn’t appealed successfully to the Supreme Court, the set-aside means that a DBS operator with 175 channels — that’s how many DirecTV claims — will have to offer 7-12 channels of noncommercial fare on its menu.

The minority of public radio stations that use listener preference data to choose music is becoming a little less minor as music testing spreads to jazz this fall.

One major issue remaining between staff and management is whether KPTS will rehire David Brewer, a 25-year staff member.

After six weeks of intense conflict with the majority of his staff, the president of Wichita’s KPTS, Zoel Parenteau, resigned his position Aug. 23 [1996]. His longtime v.p. of programming, Jim Lewis, resigned under pressure Aug. 8 [1996]. Parenteau will remain on staff as a v.p. and representative to the Kansas Public Broadcasting Council until July 1997, when he turns 65 and had planned to retire. The board last week named Paul Longhofer, a former Wichita high school principal and assistant superintendent of schools, as interim g.m., effective Sept. 1. (Board member Tom Bashaw, a former radio station manager, had been slated to fill in before Longhofer was named.)

This 1996 Circuit Court opinion upholds a provision of the 1992 Cable Act that mandates noncommercial educational or informational programming on 4-7 percent of DBS operators' channel capacity...

This 1996 federal Circuit Court opinion upholds a provision of the 1992 Cable Act that mandates noncommercial educational or informational programming on 4-7 percent of DBS operators’ channel capacity [DBS provision]. The law was not challenged by DBS operators but by Time Warner, which opposed many provisions of the Cable Act. The decision was a major victory for public TV, which had tried for years to obtain reserved channels in the new media that would be comparable to the FM and TV channel reservations of earlier decades. [Current coverage: appeal verdict, FCC rules.] United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT Argued November 20, 1995; Decided August 30, 1996 No.

This 1996 Circuit Court opinion upholds a provision of the 1992 Cable Act that mandates noncommercial educational or informational programming on 4-7 percent of Direct Broadcast Satellite operators’ channel capacity (DBS provision). The law was not challenged by DBS operators but by Time Warner, which opposed many provisions of the Cable Act. The decision was a major victory for public TV, which had tried for years to obtain reserved channels in the new media that would be comparable to the FM and TV channel reservations of earlier decades. (Current coverage: appeal verdict, FCC rules.) United States Court of Appeals FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT Argued November 20, 1995; Decided August 30, 1996 No.

Uneasy staff members have returned to their work at Wichita’s KPTS after demanding the firing of the station’s top two executives and prompting the resignation of Vice President Jim Lewis. But late last week they were still seeking the ouster of President Zoel Parenteau, and the Board of Trustees’ executive committee has declined to let them take their case to the full board. Board leaders said Parenteau already planned to retire when he turns 65 next July 26. Seventeen of the 24 full-time KPTS staff members petitioned the trustees July 12 to investigate the management of Parenteau and Lewis. “Zoel Parenteau and Jim Lewis have conspired … to discriminate, harass and generally conduct the management activities in such a manner as to make the working conditions of the staff of KPTS so difficult and unpleasant that a reasonable person in their position would consider resigning,” the petition alleged.

Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D.C. 20554 In the Matter of Deletion of Noncommercial Reservation of Channel *16, 482-488 MHz, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER Adopted: July 24, 1996 Released: August 1, 1996By the Commission: Commissioner Ness issuing a statement; Commissioner Chong concurring and issuing a statement in which Commissioner Quello joins. 1. The Commission has before it for consideration a “Petition to Delete Noncommercial Reservation” filed on June 24, 1996 by WQED Pittsburgh (WQED or the Company), licensee of noncommercial educational television stations WQED(TV), Channel *13 and WQEX(TV), Channel *16, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. WQED requests that its Channel *16 allotment be dereserved in order to permit commercial broadcasting on Channel 16 in Pittsburgh, and that it be permitted to assign WQEX(TV) to a commercial licensee and use the net proceeds to further WQED(TV)’s noncommercial broadcast operation.

A local tale from Fayette, Maine, that came to public TV seven years ago in an American Experience documentary will return next year as an opera on Great Performances. The musical retelling will be taped later this week during the world premiere of Tobias Picker’s new opera, Emmeline, at the Santa Fe Opera. [The premiere received more than its share of rave reviews, using words like “sensational” and “a triumph.” Great Performances’ version aired April 2, 1997 on many stations.] “I’m very happy that it’s coming full circle,” says Picker. “It shows that public television is so important, because it’s capable of generating art.”