System/Policy
White House nominates two new CPB directors as three depart
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Board nominees announced last week are Carol Kellermann and Adam White.
Covering Guam’s military, politics and culture: Inside KPRG’s first newsroom
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“I compare what I’m doing here to missionary work in the sense that the idea and knowledge of public radio isn’t well known in Guam,” says News Director Naina Rao.
CPB
CPB reduces aid to longtime grantees
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CPB is reassessing its funding commitments to several grantees that provide specialized assistance and diverse programming to the public TV system.
Quick Takes
Tavis Smiley joins BlogTalkRadio
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In fall 2012, Tavis Smiley saw a decline in station carriage for his public radio program Smiley & West, including a high-profile drop from Chicago’s WBEZ. Now Smiley has found a new platform: online radio.
People
William Stibor, NET Radio music director, dies at 49
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William Stibor, the music director of NET Radio in Lincoln, Nebr., died in his home June 17. He was 49.
Quick Takes
Downton Abbey gets a Sideways boost
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Actor Paul Giamatti (John Adams, Sideways) is joining the cast of Downton Abbey on Masterpiece Classic. He’ll play Harold, the “maverick, playboy” brother of Cora Crawley, Countess of Grantham, according to a Masterpiece announcement today. Gareth Neame, managing director of producer Carnival Films, said, “We can’t wait to see him work alongside Shirley MacLaine, who are both sure to upset the Granthams’ apple cart in this year’s finale.”
Downton’s Season 4 premieres Jan. 5, 2014.
Quick Takes
KEET, KIXE in California trying collaboration; each has trouble with NFFS minimums
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KEET-TV in Eureka, Calif., could lose its Community Service Grant as soon as September because it is not reaching its minimum non-federal financial support requirement, reports the local North Coast Journal in Humboldt County. Executive Director Ron Schoenherr told the newspaper that KEET has never raised its NFFS minimum of $800,000, in its 44 years of broadcasting. KEET has received waivers based on its rural location and limited resources until CPB policies tightened in 2010. In a letter to the station last fall, CPB told KEET it must show by June 30 that “it has significantly improved its long-term financial sustainability through a merger, consolidation, or collaboration.” In April, KEET’s board of directors passed a resolution to collaborate with KIXE in Redding; that station’s board approved a similar resolution in May.
System/Policy
NPR, other noncoms push for laxer FCC indecency rules
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NPR is advocating for the Federal Communications Commission to loosen its policies surrounding broadcast decency standards, and retreat from a “zero tolerances” approach to one that only targets “egregious cases.”
Quick Takes
Four more stations join NPR’s Facebook geotargeting project
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NPR Digital Services has added four stations to its Local Stories Project, in which participants submit stories to be included on NPR’s Facebook page and geotargeted to Facebook users in their markets. The project launched a little over a year ago with KPLU in Tacoma, Wash., and has since expanded to include 18 stations. Stations submit online stories that are shared via NPR’s Facebook page but appear only in the News Feeds of users in each station’s market. In April the project drove 114,000 visits to station sites, according to NPR. The four new participants are WXPN in Philadelphia, KUER in Salt Lake City, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho and KALW in San Francisco.
Quick Takes
CNN correspondent O’Leary joins Marketplace
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A day after a shakeup of senior management at Marketplace, American Public Media announced that CNN’s Lizzie O’Leary would be joining the public radio business and economics show as host/correspondent. O’Leary will serve as the primary fill-in host for all the Marketplace programs. When not hosting, O’Leary will cover topics related to the intersection of “politics, policy and Wall Street,” APM said in its announcement. Prior to joining Marketplace, O’Leary was the aviation and regulation correspondent at CNN. “As a longtime listener, I’m absolutely delighted to join Marketplace,” O’Leary said, in a statement. “Marketplace tells sharp, engaging stories about business and economics the best possible way: by making them about people. I’m thrilled to be part of the team that tells those stories.”
On Monday, J.J. Yore, a veteran producer and co-creator of Marketplace, was one of three senior executives let go in an organizational restructuring of the Minnesota-based company.
System/Policy
Pacifica misses CPB deadlines, holding up funding for stations
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CPB has withheld financial support for the Pacifica Foundation’s five radio stations after the organization missed deadlines for fixing errors and shortcomings in its accounting and operations. The errors were discovered during a CPB audit last year that cited Pacifica for insufficient accounting practices, misreported revenues and failure to comply with CPB rules on open meetings and financial transparency. The withholding of CPB funding hits Pacifica at a precarious time as its stations struggle to raise enough money to pay rent and staff. WBAI, Pacifica’s New York station, fell short of its on-air fundraising goal in May by 45 percent, or $343,000. The station can’t cover its June payroll or rent for its antenna, according to a June 9 email by Berthold Reimers, g.m., to members of WBAI’s board.
People
NPR’s Rudin hopes to launch new show after leaving network
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Shutdowns of a show and a reporting project at NPR have prompted the departure of “Political Junkie” Ken Rudin, who has worked at the network since 1991. Rudin appears weekly on NPR’s Talk of the Nation, which is ending production this month. He also served recently as editorial coordinator for StateImpact, a collaborative reporting project with stations that NPR is exiting. “With the combination of Talk of the Nation and StateImpact ending, there wasn’t really a place for me,” Rudin says. “It didn’t come as a surprise.” He will leave NPR at the end of September.