System/Policy

APTS chief sees renewed battle over CPB aid

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APTS President Patrick Butler is warning public broadcasters of continued threats to their federal funding this summer as Congress takes up work on appropriations for the next federal budget. During an appearance at the Public Media Business Association conference this morning, Butler recalled a private meeting with a key House Republican from Georgia who opposes federal aid to CPB. Rep. Jack Kingston, chair of the House appropriations subcommittee with oversight over CPB, told Butler that he plans to zero-out CPB funding. “He told me point blank, in January, that he was going to do everything he could to eliminate our funding,” Butler said during a PMBA breakfast meeting at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C. Public TV’s top lobbyist expects Kingston to introduce the bill in June. “I’m sure there will be a big zero in his bill for public broadcasting,” he said.

Quick Takes

Orlando Bagwell departing Ford Foundation, Cara Mertes to head its JustFilms

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Cara Mertes, a past executive director of American Documentaries Inc., ex-e.p. of its POV and former programmer for WNET’s Independent Focus, will succeed Orlando Bagwell to head up the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms, which backs social-justice documentaries. Mertes is currently director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund, where she will remain until September. Bagwell is returning to filmmaking after more than eight years at the foundation, it announced today. He joined Ford in 2004 as a program officer and initially led its five-year initiative, Global Perspectives in a Digital Age, Advancing Public Service Media. He also directed grantmaking for public media, media rights and access, arts and culture and religious issues.

Quick Takes

Downton producer ITV on a “spending spree” in U.S. reality production market, Variety reports

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Britain’s ITV, production home of Masterpiece titles Downton Abbey and Mr. Selfridge, is on a “spending spree” in the United States, according to Variety. ITV just bought a controlling stake in reality producer High Noon Entertainment (Cake Boss) for $39 million, and in December acquired 61.5 percent of Gurney Productions (Duck Dynasty). “Another U.S. buy is believed to be on the horizon as ITV Studios beefs up ITV Studios America,” Variety reports. ITV Studios also produces longtime pubcasting favorites Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Poirot. Variety notes that Mr. Selfridge “encapsulates a key part of what ITV wants to do more of — produce inhouse U.K. hits that can sell strongly overseas.

Quick Takes

ITVS responds to New Yorker story about documentaries on Koch

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The Independent Television Service on Tuesday posted a statement in response to what it calls “the rising flow of misinformation surrounding Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream and Citizen Koch” stemming from a lengthy New Yorker piece last week. “As a matter of policy,” the statement reads, “ITVS respects the privacy of filmmakers and our negotiations. We therefore declined an interview request from The New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer for a May 20, 2013, article she was framing around two documentaries with storylines on [billionaire conservative] David H. Koch. In the days after its publication, we continued to decline interview requests from other outlets.” As part of its statement, ITVS says it “initially recommended the film Citizen Corp for production licensing based on a written proposal.

People

Louis Cook, Native American broadcaster

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Louis Cook, a longtime host and producer for North Country Public Radio in Canton, N.Y., and a mentor to Native American broadcasters, died May 13 in Pine Ridge, S.D., of complications from a car accident. He was 66.