WUSF Public Broadcasting will spend $200,000 on a new television, video and radio facility for performance and production, at the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus, reports The Bradenton Herald. A former computer lab will be renovated for the studio space. WUSF currently broadcasts from Tampa.

There’s one week to go before New York’s classical WQXR relaunches under the ownership of WNYC, and programmers are putting the finishing touches on the talent roster and playlist. Current WQXR hosts Jeff Spurgeon, Midge Woolsey and Elliott Forrest have been retained for weekday and weekend airshifts. WNYC also hired Naomi Lewin, a host, producer and arts feature reporter for Cincinnati’s WGUC, to anchor afternoon drive-time on the new WQXR. Terence McKnight and David Garland, hosts of the eclectic and adventurous Evening Music broadcasts on WNYC-FM, will take over WQXR evening slots and program a more narrow range of music than what they’ve presented on WNYC.

One iPhone app will be released for each episode of National Parks: America’s Best Idea, according to developers We-Envision. The 99-cent apps, six in all, generate mini-films using thousands of Web-based photos from some 400 national parks, and provide information about the parks, maps and live webcams. The first ships today.

The kick-off episode for Sesame Street‘s 40th season on Nov. 10 will feature a very special guest: First Lady Michelle Obama. She’ll (attempt to) convince kids of all the good things that vegetables bring to the plate. This will be her second appearance on the show.

With corporate support revenues running 11 percent below last year, New Hampshire Public Radio laid off four employees. Business reporter David Darman, one of five full-time NHPR journalists, was among those riffed, according to the Concord Monitor. “Everybody knows the economy’s bad, and the station’s not immune to that,” Darman told the Monitor. “But it was a shock to me.” NHPR’s member support revenues have been growing, but not enough to cover lost underwriting income, according to Alexandra Urbanowski, v.p. of development and marketing.

In a Poynter.org column for journalists seeking employment, pubradio producer and journalism trainer Doug Mitchell says he was lucky to have been “booted” from NPR during lay-offs this year. He’s now working on three different projects, including a forthcoming Living on Earth podcast, and continues to work with new talent. After 21+ years at NPR, the hardest part of being laid off was “feeling like my work didn’t matter to the new leadership of NPR because it didn’t generate revenue or didn’t meet the plus side of whatever cost-benefit analysis was used,” Mitchell said. “Sticking with what I believe in has proven to be a great salvation.”

There’s been a split within the African American Public Radio Consortium over the Michael Eric Dyson Show, a midday talker launched in April by the consortium and Baltimore’s WEAA. CPB awarded a $505,000 grant to WEAA on Sept. 15 to produce a show with Dyson, but it’s unclear whether consortium member stations intend to carry it. Richard Prince of the Maynard Institute reports that the consortium cut ties to Dyson months ago and is backing a new weekday show hosted by Tony Cox. “The Michael Eric Dyson Show is no longer,” Loretta Rucker, consortium executive director, told Prince. “We had a good four months with Dr.

The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy will present its findings Friday before a plethora of federal officials, such as Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Aneesh Chopra, and media dignitaries including NPR President Vivian Schiller. It’s the “first major national commission of its kind in the digital age,” according to a press release. PBS helped gather public comments for the report, and local pubcasters testified in meetings across the country. The commission will present 15 recommendations for “sustaining democracy and meeting America’s information needs,” including comments on public broadcasting’s role.

Where in the world was Ken Burns when his 10-year project, National Parks: America’s Best Idea, had its PBS premiere last night? Watching it alone, in his Washington, D.C., hotel room. “I like to watch it when everyone else does,” Burns told Current after a National Press Club event today. The energetic documentarian has been making appearances for the project since July 2008, and hasn’t been back home to Walpole, N.H., since Aug. 21. That’s not all: He’s working on half a dozen projects simultaneously. How does he do it? Check out the upcoming Current for an inside look.

Twenty pubcasters are included in The Chronicle of Philanthropy‘s executive compensation survey for the nation’s top foundations and charities. Figures reflected end of fiscal 2008. The Chronicle’s survey examined 325 organizations that are among those raising the most money from private sources in 2008, as well as grant makers holding the largest assets. Former NPR C.E.O. Kenneth Stern, who departed in 2008, is atop the pubcasting list, receiving $1,319,541 as part of his four-year contract. Another former exec, PBS C.O.O. Wayne Godwin, who served from 2000 to 2008, was paid $398,063. Current PBS C.E.O. Paula Kerger, $534,500, up from $424,209 at end of fiscal 2007.

The leadership of WNET said a federal investigation into the station’s use of federal grants totaling almost $13 million is wrapping up, and the organization is financially sound. “There was sloppiness as opposed to real wrongdoing in terms of our accounting systems, which has been addressed,” said James Tisch, chairman of the WNET Board, in an interview. The station has hired a new chief financial officer and created the position of executive director, financial control, to ensure compliance with federal grant rules, said Neal Shapiro, president. “We have a new CFO. We have a new compliance person to make it very clear we take all these rules very seriously,” Shapiro said.

Frontline has entered into an “editorial partnership” with Tehran Bureau, an online news site connecting journalists, experts, readers–and sometimes anonymous contributors. The site launched today. The joint effort fits into what Frontline e.p. David Fanning refers to as “converged” journalism. The show’s senior editor Ken Dornstein tells The New York Times that means “investing in the best reporting possible, then using all platforms to incubate and publish stories.” Segments of the upcoming Frontline episode on Iran, “A Death in Tehran,” will be shown on the site before the November television broadcast.

A new column from PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler is now online. Subjects include KBDI’s Sept. 11 conspiracy theory pledge programming, and Tavis Smiley’s former affiliation with Wells Fargo wealth-building seminars.

WFYI Public Broadcasting in Indiana is announcing a new board game it helped create that provides insights into the challenges former inmates face. The project was developed with Volunteers of America-Indiana and John P. Craine House, an alternative sentencing program for nonviolent women. “Checkpoints and Challenges” provides role-playing situations that newly free inmates face. It’s designed for use by re-entry programs, correctional systems, congregations with prison ministries and secondary and higher educational programs. It’ll be sold starting Sept. 30 on the volunteer group’s web site for $32.

By now you know, unless you’ve been holed up in a Yosemite cave, that Ken Burns’ latest doc, National Parks: America’s Best Idea, kicks off Sunday night. The PBS Video Portal will have the entire series, all six parts, available for viewing starting that day. The portal already offers an extended preview and a peek behind the scenes.