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.

Quick Takes

Monday roundup: WNYC gets $10 million, POV pairs with NYT, PRPD elects directors

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• WNYC/New York Public Radio is receiving the largest grant ever given to a public radio station, it announced today. The pubcaster will use the $10 million from the Jerome L. Greene Foundation for digital innovation and to support its Jerome L. Greene Performance Space, keeping ticket prices low for events there. Also today, the station introduced a new Discover feature to its WNYC app, allowing listeners to create and download curated playlists with a function that “blends personal preferences with an element of surprise,” it said in the announcement. • POV’s new online documentary collaboration with the New York Times kicked off over the weekend with an in-depth look at a group of developmentally challenged men who survived decades of neglect in a small Iowa town. The Men of Atalissa, produced by the Times, was posted on both websites March 8.

Quick Takes

Thursday roundup: CPB presents education grants, CPI wins Goldsmith, Schiller talks Twitter news

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• CPB has awarded multimedia journalism grants totaling more than $1.18 million to nine public media stations for education coverage aligning with its American Graduate dropout prevention initiative. “These grants will allow stations to report on the state of education locally, while contributing to the national conversation about solving the dropout crisis,” said Bruce Theriault, CPB radio s.v.p., in Wednesday’s announcement. Grants to three stations — WAMU, Washington, D.C.; WNED/WBFO, Buffalo, N.Y., and Wyoming Public Media — provide for reporters who will cover education topics full-time. Cleveland’s WCPN/ideastream will assign two reporters to education as part of a community engagement initiative and a multi-state data mapping project involving the Southern Education Desk Local Journalism Center and stations in Florida and Indiana. Grants were also awarded to: KERA, Dallas, for a reporter assigned to the multiyear project Class of ’17; Radio Bilingüe/KSJV in Fresno, Calif., for a Spanish-language radio series on academic success of Latino students in America and four one-hour programs in English for other pubmedia stations; Oregon Public Broadcasting for The Class of ’25, focusing on one elementary school class learning under new state education goals; WNYC, New York, for the journalism training program Radio Rookies; and WUNC, Chapel Hill, N.C., for its American Graduate–Crossing the Stage project, distributed nationally by PRX. • The nonprofit Center for Public Integrity in Washington, D.C., won this year’s prestigious Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, announced today by Harvard’s Shortenstein Center.