ExxonMobil will stop underwriting Masterpiece Theatre after spring 2004, the oil company announced Dec. 13. It has spent more than $250 million on MT and other PBS programs over 32 years. In recent years, the company has spent about $10 million a year, providing full funding for the drama series, says Jeanne Hopkins, v.p. of communications at WGBH, which packages the series. For years before merging with Exxon, Mobil had also supported another series of largely British dramas, Mystery!, but Mobil had dropped funding of the sister series Mystery! several years ago. As WGBH and its benefactor were preparing press releases Dec.

A group of pubcasting stations interested in Internet services will hold an Integrated Media Conference next April for both radio and TV stations. PRISA posted a questionnaire and tentative plans on the Web. The event in Minneapolis will fill a gap left by the suspension of the annual PBS/NPR web Summit.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals will review whether Frontline can film jury deliberations. “This is an important enough issue, and it’s good the court is going to hear it with full arguments,” comments an attorney on the case in today’s Houston Chronicle.

The novelty has faded: Public radio’s Rewind is going off the air as host Bill Radke seeks a new gig, reports the Seattle Weekly.

Bill Fantini, radio news director at WHYY in Philadelphia, resigned Dec. 9. Fantini recently developed a state-funded series of positive stories on the environment that some reporters and observers have called unethical. [Read Current‘s report on the controversy.]

” . . . Ultimately, it’s a state agency buying good coverage,” comments a broadcast journalism professor on ethical lapses at WHYY-FM, in today’s Philadelphia Daily News. Current reported last month on breaches in journalism ethics and sponsorship disclosure in environmental reporting at WHYY.

The Houston Chronicle reports that prosecutors filed new arguments in the Texas jury taping case.

KCTS is “in the midst of a severe financial crisis that has some concerned about whether it can, in the words of a board member, ‘sustain the operation,'” according to the Seattle Weekly.

Attorneys for Frontline and production executive Michael Sullivan explained the rationale for taping jury deliberations in a Texas death penalty case during a Dec. 2 press conference. An attorney representing District Court Judge Ted Poe, who is defending his order to allow the taping, faced off with the prosecutor on the case on the NewsHour. A Google news search found several recent newspaper editorials opposing cameras in the jury room.

Radio World‘s Skip Pizzi says digital radio may fail because it promises better sound but little new content. In the same issue, a reader asks how digital radio will affect subcarrier services.

The latest Eastern Public Radio newsletter covers Vinnie Curren’s CPB appointment (see below), successful fund drives, format advice and more.

Bill Moyers came out swinging three days after the Nov. 5 midterm elections, and the target of his jabs—America’s right wing—came swinging back. Conservatives said he made a hysterical partisan attack on Republicans in his commentary on PBS’s Now with Bill Moyers Nov. 8. Lamenting the GOP sweep of both houses of Congress, Moyers slammed the majority party’s agenda, which he believes will “force pregnant women to give up control over their own lives,” use “taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich” and give “corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment.” The Now host also railed against the close ties between Republican leaders and the religious right.

Public radio producer Aimée Pomerleau just set up a website, Scorcher Radio.

CPB named Vinnie Curren, g.m. of WXPN in Philadelphia, its senior v.p. of radio.

Pacifica appointed Don Rojas to manage WBAI, its New York station.