The Morning Edition audience trends reported by the Sacramento Bee were wrong, according to pubradio analyst John Sutton, who compares key audience stats from the Bob Edwards era and after. He reports that Morning Edition‘s national cume has increased but the average listener is spending less time with the program.

CPB and Oregon Public Broadcasting said today that OPB will distribute the hot-potato documentary Islam vs. Islamists to pubTV stations, relieving public TV of complaints that pubcasting was bottling up the documentary funded by CPB but rejected by PBS. (American Public Television also rejected the film, the syndicator told Current.)

What does YouTube have today? How about the Sesame Street theme on beatbox/flute?

In the three years since Bob Edwards was ousted as host of NPR’s Morning Edition, the morning newsmag has gained 3 million listeners, according to the Sacramento Bee. Reporter Sam McManis writes that the show is “a better, newsier, more nimble and relevant program with Renee Montagne and Steve Inskeep as co-hosts.”

Mary G.F. Bitterman, who ran stations in Honolulu and San Francisco and now chairs the PBS Board, received CPB’s Ralph Lowell Award at PBS Showcase over the weekend. In nine years as president of KQED, she led its revival as a local producer and helped stabilize its finances. In between her station jobs she ran the Voice of America.

“I’m beginning to think that PBS may need a separate ombudsman just to deal with the weekly mail praising or pillorying this lightening-rod/icon,” writes PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler, referring to Bill Moyers’ recent return to PBS. In his first column in nine weeks, CPB Ombudsman Ken Bode steps into the breach to make a “very good point” that Getler wishes he had made regarding “Buying the War,” the lead documentary of Bill Moyers Journal. Bode describes the documentary as “embarrassingly flawed” because Moyers and his producers failed to examine how PBS’s own NewsHour with Jim Lehrer failed to scrutinze the Bush Administration’s case for initiating the Iraq War.

Presidential debates planned for exclusive broadcast on NPR stations next January will be made available for full and free public access by bloggers, podcasters, mainstream media, and anyone who wants to create a mash-up. NPR and Iowa Public Radio, partners in the production, announced the unrestricted license agreement today, prompting cheers from Jeff Jarvis, a journalist and blogger pushing to “free the debates” from copyright restrictions.

Faced with a $100,000 reduction in support from its licensee, Oxford’s WMUB-FM asked Miami University of Ohio to reevaluate its future relationship with the station, according to the Dayton Daily News. In a statement announcing the review, the university described technological changes in public radio and declining state support to the university as “forces making the review necessary.”

Pubcasting lobbyists added information about the ongoing web streaming rate battle and links to a constituent letter generator to the system’s advocacy website, TellThemPublicMatters.org.

Rhode Island Public Radio began broadcasts to the southern region of the state today via WAKX in Narragansett, according to The Jamestown Press. The station, recently acquired through a loan from the Rhode Island Foundation, carries the NPR News service originating from WRNI in Providence.

Public radio’s Local News Initiative backed seven collaborations proposed through its “Hubs Initiative,” an effort to bring multiple stations together for shared reporting or training projects. [Via PRPD.]

“You try to be an advocate for the truth, not an ideology,” says Ian Masters, host of KPFK’s Background Briefing, in a recent Los Angeles Times profile. The Times describes his weekly show as “considerably more ambitious and frequently more illuminating” than Sunday morning pundit fare broadcast by the commercial networks.

In a statement describing his role as a transitory leader for Pacifica, Executive Director Greg Guma writes about his achievements after two years in the job. [Via Rolas de Aztlan.] “I have tried to raise some fundamental questions–for example, the question of whether Pacific’s current governance structure is sustainable or even wise–while simultaneously avoiding actions that would produce debilitating resistance,” Guma writes.

Oregon Public Broadcasting CEO Steve Bass says $1.25 million in proposed funding cuts could hamper his network’s digital transition in this editorial.

So says Broadcasting & Cable blogger John Eggerton, who weighs in on PBS’s recent experience catching heat from both the left and the right and worries that the network may be setting a “poor precedent for independence” in the dispute over Ken Burns’ The War: “PBS should clearly reflect the various, competing, voices of the public it serves, but it should not give undue weight or give into political pressure from either side.” For a different take, see this column from Ruben Navarrette Jr., who thinks Burns was right to give in to pressure by Hispanic activists.