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Project Core: A vision for scale and growth

Over the past three years, CentralCast has been hard at work implementing critical upgrades that lay the foundation for a more resilient and advanced future. And now, the culmination of these efforts is taking shape in our most ambitious initiative yet: Project Core.

People

Morgese accepts GM post at KUED-TV

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Veteran pubcaster James Morgese will take over  Dec. 1 as GM of KUED-TV in Salt Lake City. Morgese has more than 30 years of experience in public broadcasting management, programming, production, engineering, development and community outreach. In October 2012 he signed on as g.m. of dual licensee WKYU in Bowling Green, Ky. Previously he worked at Rocky Mountain PBS in Denver, Idaho Public Television and WUFT in Gainesville, Fla.

Quick Takes

NewsHour audience falls 48 percent over last eight years

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Baltimore Sun Television Critic David Zurawik reports that PBS NewsHour has lost 48 percent of its audience over the last eight years. NewsHour’s average audience, the number of people watching at any given minute in a program, is 950,000. “I firmly believe this nation needs at least one non-commercial, national news broadcast,” Zurawik writes. “It is important to democracy. But it is long past time to ask some hard questions about this one.

Quick Takes

NPR’s Jean Cochran takes voluntary buyout

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Newscaster Jean Cochran, the longest-serving member of NPR’s newscast unit, announced today that she has accepted a voluntary buyout offer from the network and will be leaving. Cochran made the announcement via Twitter this morning: “It’s official: I’ve accepted NPR’s generous Buyout. Leaving at the end of the year. Anyone need a newscast,I do birthdays, and bar mitzvahs!”

The buyouts are part of NPR’s plan to balance its budget before fiscal year 2015. It aims to reduce staff by 10 percent to help reach that goal.

People

Walter Sheppard, former grant officer for PTFP, dies at 82

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Walter Sheppard, a veteran public radio general manager who worked for the federal government’s Public Telecommunications Facilities Program for more than two decades as a federal program officer, died Oct. 19 at the age of 82. Over the course of Sheppard’s career, which began in 1947, he held roles at several public radio stations across the country, including WITF in Harrisburg, Penn.; Boston’s WBUR; and the West Virginia Educational Broadcasting Authority (today known as West Virginia Public Broadcasting), where he served as deputy director in the 1980s and added more radio stations to the network. He joined the National Telecommunications and Information Administration in 1990 to manage grant portfolios as part of PTFP. Sheppard managed several different regions of the program during his 21 years there, including the South and Northeast.

Tech

Start the presses: WHYY releases “print edition” of NewsWorks web site

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To promote its online local news platform NewsWorks, Philadelphia’s WHYY developed an unconventional campaign mimicking over-the-top advertising techniques and the limitations of news published in print. A team of designers and editors created a “print edition” of the online news site and used various tactics to distribute more than 36,000 copies to Philadelphia residents.  Beginning Oct. 22 commuters could pick up copies as a handout offered at public transit stations and temporary newsstands. In addition, residents of some neighborhoods received copies that were delivered to their doorsteps.

Quick Takes

CPM employees take union request to labor relations board

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Editorial employees at Chicago Public Media filed a petition to unionize with the National Labor Relations Board Oct 18 after earlier efforts to gain recognition from management were rebuffed. Nearly 80 percent of the 54 employees who work at CPM as on-air talent, producers, web staff, reporters, editors and production assistants support the petition, according to a statement provided by the employees. The group initially notified interim CEO Alison Scholly of their request for union recognition Sept. 25. That request was rejected Oct.

Quick Takes

Former NPR head Vivian Schiller joining Twitter as head of news partnerships

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Vivian Schiller, NPR president from 2009 to 2011, will join Twitter as head of its newly created News Partnerships division. Schiller, who announced the job change Oct. 24, steps down as chief digital officer for NBC News to join the social media network. At Twitter, she will cultivate and oversee partnerships with established news outlets, including NPR, according to the New York Times. During her short tenure at NPR, Schiller played a key role in developing grant-funded projects and services that accelerated public radio’s capacity to deliver news coverage online.

People

PBS Station Services chief to exit next week

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Joyce Herring, s.v.p. of station services for PBS, is leaving the network Oct. 31, President Paula Kerger announced today in an email to station executives. Kerger attributed Herring’s departure “to a series of unexpected circumstances requiring her immediate attention.” Herring, who joined PBS in 2007, is the third senior executive to depart in the past month. John McCoskey, the network’s top engineer, recently left to join the Motion Picture Association of America; Jason Seiken, head of digital media, took a position with the Telegraph Media Group in London.

Programs/Content

With Sparticl, TPT hopes to make STEM learning fun

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Twin Cities Public Television launched Sparticl, a new STEM-focused sharing website geared toward middle-school students, Oct. 1 with support from a major corporate sponsor. Manufacturing company 3M backed more than two years of research and development of the site prior to its launch early this month. Sparticl curates links to articles, videos and games built around Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics–related themes, ranging from the environment to nutrition to outer space. Links are geared toward an audience of seventh- through ninth-graders.