Pubcasters with new backing from CPB will start a music-focused online social network (WFUV, New York), combat the spread of invasive plants (Oregon Public Broadcasting) and build a concert hall in Second Life (WGBH). CPB announced six grants of up to $20,000 each Jan. 17 in the second round of its Public Media Innovation Fund grants.

PBS’s Charlie Rose will contribute reports to CBS’s 60 Minutes starting this season, reports the New York Times. Rose had previously appeared on 60 Minutes II until its cancellation in 2005.

An APTS survey (press release) found that more than 40 percent of current over-the-air households would rather continue to get their TV over-the-air after the DTV transition, via converter box or new digital TV, than subscribe to a cable or satellite provider (12 percent said they’d sign on to a pay service). A total of 44 percent of respondents said they would wither didn’t know how they’d adapt to the Feb. 17, 2009 analog shut-off or would “do nothing.” That said, early demand for the government’s $40 converter box subsidies has been strong. The program officially started Jan. 1 and in the first week they were available, nearly 2 million consumers requested the coupons, due to be mailed out beginning in February.

With the pending $8.2 million purchase of Denver Christian music station K-LOVE, Colorado Public Radio plans to move its KCFR-AM news service to the FM band, according to the Denver Business Journal. CPR’s announcement of the acquisition is here.

Vermont Public Radio’s Rich Parker describes how a personal approach to educating listeners and retailers about HD Radio has made all the difference in bringing audiences to the network’s new multicast service. “In the abstract, it’s hard to get across how revolutionary digital multicasting really is,” he writes in Radio World online. “But once people start to actually see and hear the units, they are excited about getting a radio as soon as they can.”

PBS is adding more video content to its YouTube channel, including original online content, previews of broadcast programs, and longer program segments. PBS currently has nearly 700 videos on YouTube, most of which are less than 6 minutes long.

All is not well in Lake Wobegone. Prairie Home Companion host and creator Garrison Keillor is suing his neighbor over a planned expansion of her home next door to his in St. Paul’s Ramsey Hill historic district. “Neighbors do not deal with neighbors in the way you have dealt with us,” Mr. Keillor reportedly wrote in an e-mail to Lori Anderson, who ended a New Zealand vacation with her fiance to attempt to resolve the dispute. Yesterday a county judge sent the two sides to a mediator to attempt to work out an agreement, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which published a photograph of the stalled construction project (subscription required).

CPB has awarded more than $1.3 million to a consortium of public radio and television organizations to support multi-platform coverage of Election 2008. The partners include American Public Media, Capitol News Connection, KQED, NPR, PBS, Public Radio Exchange, Public Radio International/Public Interactive and The NewsHour. The mashup of local and national content will include election video and teaching materials from PBS, a collaborative content initiative called Global Perspectives on Election 2008 from PRI, a collection of election audio and social media content from PRX, and user-generated political commentaries curated by NPR. An interactive election map from The Newshour and NPR and an “Ask Your Lawmaker” web widget from CNC–through which users can question their lawmakers and listen to answers obtained by journalists–are already up and running.

President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plan to end advertising on France’s public television channels would also take ads off Radio France, reports Forbes. Advertising accounts for only about 8 percent of the pubradio network’s budget, in contrast to 40 percent of the pubTV network’s budget. French Culture and Communication Minister Christine Albanel said the government would try to get the law passed before summer.

Discovery Communications and Oprah Winfrey will create OWN: The Oprah Winfrey Network to replace Discovery Health Channel, the principals announced today. The network will debut in 2009 to the roughly 70 million homes that currently get Discovery Health and will have the backing of Oprah.com. Discovery and Winfrey’s Harpo Productions will split ownership of the venture 50/50, but Winfrey will retain full editorial control. OWN will feature empowering programs designed to help viewers “live their best lives.” The programming shakeup comes as privately held Discovery Communications prepares for a public offering of its stock. Another change: Discovery’s Animal Planet is “not looking to be a natural history channel,” said GM Marjorie Kaplan.

Adobe Systems Inc. has given the PBS Foundation $1 million to aid youth-oriented and youth-generated programming — establishing the network’s Adobe Youth Voices Venture Fund. The grant will also assist foundation operations.

Those are the stakes outlined by Fatworld, ITVS‘s latest educational video game, which launched this week. The free game (download required) uses whimsical, bloating Mii-esque characters to illustrate the serious, complicated relationship “between nutrition and factors like budgets, the physical world, subsidies and regulations.” Players choose their own starting weights and health issues and have to create menus, exercise (or not) and run a restaurant. Fatworld is the latest “serious game” from ITVS, which last spring asked webizens to imagine a world without oil in, um, World Without Oil.

PBS Kids Play!, the online learning games package for ages 3-6, opened in a beta version this week for free tryouts, USA Today reported. Current previewed the service, which will cost users $9.95 a month or $79 a year ($15 off if you order by Feb. 18). For best results, PBS directs PC users to download the 3MB client software, while Mac users are directed to a web version that also appears to work with PCs.

“My job is not to advocate for NPR,” writes new NPR Ombudsman Alicia Shepard in her first web column. “My job is to explain NPR to the public and the public’s concerns to NPR.”

A professor at Ohio University in Athens is leading a campaign to bring Democracy Now! to WOUB. So far station managers have rebuffed the request, saying the show does not meet their editorial standards, according to a newspaper op-ed inviting readers to join the cause.