“This is novel in public radio,” says classical DJ Greg Kostraba about his live, in-studio program on WGTE-FM 91 in Toledo, Ohio. “You have to go to big cities for programs like this,” he tells the Toledo Blade. Kostraba invites local and visiting musicians into a Steinway-equipped studio for the half-hour Live from FM 91, and he recently won a producer-of-the-year award from eTech, a state agency focused on education through technology. 

KMBH-FM in Harlingen, Texas, canceled its February fundraising campaign after receiving only six pledge calls in three days. “[T]his lack of financial support only aggravates our situation and may force us to make drastic changes on our service to the Rio Grande Valley,” KMBH warned visitors to its website. “[T]hose who HAVE NOT GIVEN THEIR FINANCIAL SUPPORT will not have any right to complain when their favorite radio station changes or even vanishes from the air!!!” The station, a joint licensee operated by the Catholic Diocese of Brownsville, has been under scrutiny of the local newspaper for lack of transparency in its governance and financial reporting.

The blog “Stuff White People Like” explains why Caucasians love public radio so much. Be sure to read the comments and follow the link to “Does Anything Make You Feel Instantly Older than Donating to Public Radio?”

Five years after the collapse of the CPB-backed OnCourse project, public TV is training for another run at the target. Which is: a comprehensive online digital library that gives teachers just the right video snippet, image, audio clip or interactive simulation that they can plug into a lesson ...

Listeners are flooding the station with emails, posting angry comments and picketing the studios.

The San Francisco Chronicle profiles Chris Boskin, a member of the CPB Board with a long career in the magazine business. “I would call her a ‘Bay Area Republican,'” says Nick Donatello, chair of KQED’s board. “She’s not at the extreme. But because she has been close to the Washington scene, she knows how the game is played.”

Officials in Montgomery County, Md., have made a pitch to lure NPR to the city of Silver Spring, reports the Gazette. NPR has narrowed its search for 400,000 square feet of office and studio space to Silver Spring and two sites in D.C. The network has said it will choose a location by the end of May.

Kirk Browning, who directed 185 Live from Lincoln Center telecasts and other performance programs for PBS, died Feb. 10 at the age of 86, reports the New York Times. “Kirk contained the entire history of cultural television in our country,” said John Goberman, series producer of Lincoln Center.

Public TV traveler Rick Steves is host of Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation, a new 30-minute DVD produced by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington State. The group has launched a multimedia campaign to question the fairness of U.S. policies regarding marijuana use and possession. “I’ve traveled throughout Europe and seen how they handle marijuana use and enforcement. I’ve learned that more thoughtful approaches can work,” Steves said in an ACLU release. “We need the understanding to go beyond ‘hard’ or ‘soft’ on drugs and find a policy that is ‘smart on drugs’.”

“I usually find out about breaking news on Twitter faster than any other network – broadcast or otherwise,” says NPR’s Andy Carvin in a Christian Science Monitor story on the micro-blogging application. Pubcasting consultant Rob Paterson, also a source in the Monitor story, has proposed that pubcasters set up Twitter Clubs to cover the March 4 Ohio primaries.

Andres Viestad, host of pubTV’s New Scandinavian Cooking with Andres Viestad, launched a new monthly column for the Washington Post today. The column, called “The Gastronomer,” is about “the science of everyday cooking,” according to the editor’s note. “Kitchen science tends to forget the enjoyment part of gastronomy; it can be far too demanding when it suggests how we can improve the way we cook,” writes Viestad in his first installment. 

NTIA is seeking station chief execs and other senior management as volunteer reviewers for grant applications in March and April. The agency said it needs 20 or more, working in teams of three, to review stations’ funding requests to the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program between March 24 and April 11. “PTFP has an engineering staff, so it also cannot use station engineers as reviewers,” said a memo circulated by program officer Walter Sheppard. Contact Sheppard at 202-482-1949 or wsheppard -at- ntia.doc.gov. Volunteers won’t be reviewing apps from their own or related stations, of course. PTFP grant applications are due Feb. 22.

WYPR in Baltimore has hired Baltimore Sun columnist Dan Rodricks to replaced talk-show host Marc Steiner. Rodricks will inherit Steiner’s noon to 2 p.m. slot on Feb. 25 and follow a similar call-in format. The station canceled its winter pledge drive in the wake of listener outcry about Steiner’s firing. Station v.p. Andy Bienstock said the station will hold a combined winter and spring drive in April, after listeners have had a chance to hear the new show, reports the Sun. Steiner, who helped raise money to buy the station from Johns Hopkins University in 2001, was fired Feb. 1.

Connecticut Public Television and WFSB, the local CBS affiliate, are creating the Connecticut Sports Network. The network will broadcast high school and collegiate sports from across the state, beginning with the state high school basketball championships in March. Games will air on the digital and primary channels of CPTV and WFSB. Video of games will be posted on a new website, www.ctsn.tv, which is yet to come. In a video realease on wfsb.org, Connecticut Public Broadcasting President Jerry Franklin said the network also hopes to do some documentary-style programming about the state’s sports. CPTV is already a major broadcaster of UConn women’s basketball.

Washington Post columnist Marc Fisher surveys the HD Radio offerings of D.C. stations and finds only two outlets–WHUR and WAMU–have made big commitments to creating “real radio” experiences for HD listeners. The majority of D.C. stations are half-heartedly programming their HD channels and barely promoting them. “HD remains a promising technology, but so far, many more people listen to the new programming via online streaming than on an HD radio,” Fisher concludes. “Listeners are voting with their ears, and they’re choosing Web-based and mobile audio, in part because most HD radio programming just isn’t compelling enough to lure people to a different gadget.”