Public Media Digest has announced a redesign of the now privately owned website. Keith York of KPBS in San Diego and Garry Denny of Wisconsin Public Television took over the public media news site after CPB and the Public Television Programmers Association dropped support, Denny told Current. The new site will feature improved video capacity along with Flash and multimedia advertising; future plans include live chat and video conferencing. Four contributors write or report PMD’s blogs, news coverage and Twitter. PoGo Promotions heads up sales and sponsorship. The site currently claims 1,250 registered users and an average of 350 unique user visits daily.

The Satellite Home Viewer Extension and Reauthorization Act was okayed by the House Energy and Commerce Committee yesterday, Broadcasting & Cable reports. It includes an amendment by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) that DISH Network carry public TV stations in HD; DISH has carried some local HD programming but is legally required to carry pubcasting in HD in Alaska and Hawaii only. The Association of Public Television Stations issued a statement thanking the committee and Eshoo for “ending this discriminatory behavior.” APTS had secured voluntary agreements with every major multichannel video programming distributor except DISH. Negotiations between DISH and APTS had been ongoing for three years.

The CPB Inspector General’s office has issued findings from its audit of KMBH (PDF) in Harlingen, Texas, that looked into the station’s compliance with grant rules and examined its financial documents related to CPB (Current, March 16, 2009). KMBH is linking to the report on its home page. The 30-page investigation of RGV Educational Broadcasting Inc., controlled by the Brownsville Catholic archdiocese, was for fiscal years 2007 and ’08. The report found that KMBH didn’t fully comply with requirements to: establish a community advisory board, maintain certain documents for public inspection, describe and document station policy for complying with donor list and political activities rules, establish separate accounting records for CPB grants, and exclude from nonfederal financial support reports transactions that do not qualify as contributions.

The Marine Corps leaned on PBS to remove explicit imagery from Obama’s War, the Oct. 13 Frontline documentary that took viewers into Afghanistan’s Helmand province with rank and file Marines. Opening minutes of the film include a firefight in which Marine Lance Cpl. Charles S. Sharp was fatally wounded. Frontline had followed rules of embedded reporting in filming and presenting the footage, Marine Corps Col. B.F. Salas acknowledged in a letter to PBS President Paula Kerger, but he appealed to her on the basis of “journalistic good taste,” according to this column by PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler. “An accomplished storyteller can inform us without resorting to graphic imagery or what might be termed ‘combat pornography,’” Col.

The Federal Communications Commission is seeking comments on a broadband study by Harvard’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society, asking, among other items, how much weight it should be accorded as the FCC develops a broadband strategy. The 232-page draft report by the Center, which works to “explore and understand cyberspace,” is a comparative study that seeks to define what broadband is and examines how it was developed and is used in Denmark, France, Japan, South Korea, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. From the study: “All countries we surveyed include in their approaches, strategies, or plans, a distinct target of reaching their entire population.

More than 300 community organizers, bloggers, tech developers and pubmedia staffers are expected at the first national PublicMediaCamp (or “PubCamp”) this weekend in Washington (Current, Aug. 3). It’s a sold-out PBS-NPR initiative to “strengthen the relationship between public broadcasters and their communities through the development of collaborative projects, both online and offline,” according to a joint statement. Oct. 17 and 18 is the national kickoff, with local events then hosted by stations. Participants are using the PubCamp wiki site to propose their own sessions to lead. More sessions are expected to pop up as the weekend progresses in an “unconference” format.

Pennsylvania’s pubcasters continue to react to Gov. Ed Rendell’s elimination of state money to stations. The Pennsylvania Public Television Network agency, the 40-year-old state entity that administered the funding, also was shut down. According to The Patriot-News in Harrisburg, “what’s left from what had been an $11.26 million category in the state budget is $1 million to help stations cover operating costs and $1.5 million for technology services.” Kathleen Pavelko, president and c.e.o. of WITF in Harrisburg, called it “a bruising blow.” That station’s operating grants fell from about $917,000 last year to around $114,000.

An upgrade of the NPR News app for iPhone has been released for downloads from the iTunes Store. A Listen Live feature alerts users when NPR is feeding live coverage of major news events; improved audio streaming capabilities and content-sharing features are among 32 enhancements for the app. Since the NPR News app was first released on Aug. 15, it has topped 1 million downloads, and its users are generating more than 10 million page views per month, according to an NPR spokeswoman.

A study shows the literacy skills of low-income children measurably increased after their participation in a curriculum using educational video and interactive games from PBS, according to SRI International, one of the firms that conducted the study. Nearly 400 children in 80 preschool classes in New York City and San Francisco participated. Some children learned up to 7.5 more letters than children in a comparison group during the brief, intensive curriculum. The games were from Super Why!, Between the Lions and Sesame Street, produced for PBS Kids as part of the Ready to Learn initiative. The evaluation was funded by the U.S.

Two daily public radio programs for African American audiences have risen from the ashes of News and Notes, a talk show that NPR cancelled in March. But acrimony over plans, funding and personalities involved in the midday programs has split the African American Public Radio Consortium, a key station constituency for any broadcast aimed at black listeners.

Ken Burns’s 4-year-old daughter Olivia eats her meals atop a U.S. map so she can track her father. The documentarian has been absent from his family in Walpole, N.H., more than 200 days this year — so far. Before the broadcast of his National Parks series in late September, the last time Burns had been home to sup with Olivia was Aug. 21. He’s been on the road promoting the series, while squeezing in work on at least eight other PBS projects planned for future seasons. Since events kicked off in July 2008 at Glacier Bay National Park near Juneau, Alaska, he’s been on tour practically nonstop.

Nicole Childers, former executive producer of NPR’s News and Notes, will lead content development for the L.A. Public Media Service, a CPB-backed multimedia outlet targeting young, ethnically diverse listeners in Los Angeles. “We are in the midst of a cultural and media paradigm shift in this country and Nicole is one of those writing the story,” said Hugo Morales, executive director of Radio Bilingue, the California-based Latino radio network that is spearheading development of L.A. Public Media. “She is a world-class journalist, an African American who counts Latinos and Anglos in her family journey, and a leader with deep sensitivity and drive to serve diverse audiences.”

Citing public broadcasting’s “mixed history” in providing local news and information, a blue-ribbon panel has called on the field to “move quickly toward a broader vision of public service media.”

Gov. Ed Rendell’s signature Friday on the Pennsylvania state budget eliminated the state’s pubcasting subsidy of $11.3 million. Ramifications at the eight stations have begun: Due to the cut, PBS-39, which covers Lehigh Valley, is canceling production of its 10-year-old local issues mag, Tempo!, according to The Morning Call in Allentown. The station had previously laid off about half its staff. WQED had cut 11 staff positions in July, citing the state budget. Meanwhile, reps of the Commonwealth Foundation, a policy research group in Harrisburg, Pa., backed the governor’s decision, saying government-supported pubTV is no longer necessary due to all the choices on cable.

The Beeb is remaking the wildly popular show on PBS in the 1970s, Upstairs, Downstairs. Stars Jean Marsh and Dame Eileen Atkins return in this version, which will be set in 1936. The original program followed the lives of both an upper-crust British family as well as their servants. The new series will air in Britain first then on PBS in 2011.