Garrison Keillor’s traveling Prairie Home Companion will bypass its longtime home base, the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul, Minn., for at least the next year and perhaps longer, reports the Minneapolis Star-Tribune.

The Rev. James Dobson’s “Family News in Focus” website quotes “media critic Pat Trueman” calling for nonliberals to “step into the void” left by Ken Tomlinson’s resignation from the CPB Board and “take up where he left off.” (Earlier this year Patrick A. Trueman was a senior legal counsel of Family Research Council.) The website says Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, is volunteering to lead the effort. The article seems to imply that liberals have chased away Tomlinson.

In addition to the CPB probe, Kenneth Tomlinson is the subject of an investigation by the State Department’s inspector general, launched in July, the New York Times reports this morning. Materials including e-mails between Tomlinson and White House aide Karl Rove have been seized by State’s IG and may be disclosed in the CPB IG’s report this month, the newspaper said. Tomlinson is chairman of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, overseer of Voice of America, Alhurra and other agencies.

Pro-life groups are promoting PBS’s Nov. 8 broadcast of “The Last Abortion Clinic,” a Frontline documentary reporting on their movement’s success in limiting women’s access to abortion in Mississippi.

Brooke Gladstone, co-host of On the Media, should have noted on a recent show that a journalist she was citing happens to be her husband, says NPR Ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin in his latest column.

The Media Access Project filed petitions with the FCC to deny pending license renewals for commercial television stations in Chicago and Milwaukee. Broadcasters in both cities failed to meet their public interest obligations because their 2004 news coverage largely overlooked local and statewide elections, according to petitions filed on behalf of Chicago Media Action and Milwaukee Public Interest Media Coalition. In a separate petition, Third Coast Press included the city’s public TV stations in its motion (pdf) to deny renewals to Chicago’s TV outlets.

The Public Radio Exchange has handed out $45,000 to six public radio stations to support “showcase shows” that highlight documentaries and work from independent producers.

More pix on Flickr from the Third Coast Festival.

A weakening focus on core broadcast programming is to blame for public radio’s recent audience losses, writes consultant John Sutton. “Much of the industry’s attention is on reaching new and different audiences through new and different technologies,” he says. “It’s as if a lot of people in public radio don’t want to be in radio anymore.”

Romenesko asks: “Has NPR’s Libby Lewis done any reports yet on Lewis Libby?”

Steve Fentriss, a 19-year-old drummer and composer from Ann Arbor, Mich., has recorded a little ditty called “I Love Public Radio.” You can download it from his website (MP3). (Related article in the Ann Arbor News.)

Ray Suarez will host public radio’s America Abroad and continue as a correspondent for public TV’s NewsHour. Public Radio International distributes America Abroad to more than 100 stations.

See pictures from the Third Coast International Audio Festival on the Public Radio Exchange’s Flickr page.

“Public radio forces too much money out of its on-air fund drives,” writes consultant John Sutton on his blog. “And the problem is likely to get worse.”

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer profiles Seattle’s KEXP-FM. “They’re keeping this hopeful notion of what music is supposed to be about alive,” says a record label president.