NPR is looking for a full-time blogger for its Mixed Signals blog. “Other qualifications not mentioned are a strong liver and deep fondness for insult-flinging world leaders. Willingness to drunk-dial foreign bureaus on deadline also a plus,” writes current blogger JJ Sutherland.

A former advertising rep for Michigan Public Media was sentenced to 18 months of probation last week for embezzlement charges, the Detroit Free Press reports. Jeremy Nordquist was one of three former MPM employees involved in the case. (Earlier coverage in Current.)

Fearing FCC fines from risque moments in David Grubin’s historical biography of Marie Antoinette, Rocky Mountain PBS pulled the program from last night’s schedule. The questionable scenes were “nothing worse than what you see on TV elsewhere,” RMPBS President James Morgese told the Denver Post, “but in this era of heightened sensitivity by the FCC, fines are pretty stiff.”

Sprint, NextWave, Clearwire and other wireless companies may bid on 72 MHz of microwave bandwidth worth an estimated $9 million to be leased at auction in coming weeks by the operator of Las Vegas pubTV station KLVX, the Clark County School District Board, says Las Vegas Business News. The FCC is letting businesses repurpose and reorganize the underused spectrum once used for ITFS school services, as Current reported in April. Wireless companies already own adjacent spectrum, which they plan to use for city-wide services resembling Wi-Fi.

A new episode of Maya and Miguel debuting today introduces Marco, a character who speaks American Sign Language. The New York Times reports on the difficulties of animating sign language, as well as the socialization issues that producers sought to address in the program.

Vanderbilt University’s 38-year archive of TV news broadcasts doubled its exposure on the Web, and nearly doubled its videotape rental income by catering to search engines, according to the Center for Social Media at American University.

Viewers complain to PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler about the “stupid promo” that disrupted the conclusion of Ric Burns’s American Masters bio of Andy Warhol. Others, including the American Conservative Union, took exception to Now‘s recent reports (Sept. 1 and Sept. 8) on voter registration.

The FCC will act soon on authorizing multicasting for digital radio, said Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein at the National Association of Broadcasters conference in Dallas. But talks about public interest obligations on the new channels are causing a holdup, Radio World reports.

Greg Diefenbach, a longtime executive producer at a major supplier of PBS programs, Devillier Donegan Enterprises, is CPB’s new senior v.p. for TV programming. At DDE he oversaw the PBS world history series Empires (“great eras of struggle … explosive creativity, ultimate depravity…”) among 100 hours of programming. He succeeds Michael Pack, who returned to documentary production. Pack colleague John Prizer remains at CPB as an advisor to President Pat Harrison.

NPR’s Kevin Klose will cede his role as c.e.o. of the network Oct. 1 to Ken Stern, now executive v.p. Klose will continue serving as president and will lead a collaborative fundraising initiative to support public radio. Stern, who joined NPR in 1999, will assume all management duties.

Warren Bell is undoubtedly a vocal conservative, but does he support federal funding of public broadcasting? Conflicting accounts of the CPB Board nominee’s views on pubcasting influenced the Senate Commerce Committee to drop Bell from today’s nomination hearing, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Television comedy writer Warren Bell will not appear at tomorrow’s Senate confirmation hearing for CPB Board nominees, according to an news release posted by the Commerce Committee.

Boston Globe columnist Alex Beam asks what Joan Kroc’s gift has done for public radio. “Two hundred twenty-five million dollars later, public radio certainly hasn’t gotten worse,” he writes. “But I don’t hear that it has gotten any better.”

Filmmaker Ric Burns explains to the New York Times why “Andy Warhol: A Documentary Film,” debuting tonight on PBS’s American Masters, is a “nerd film.” Reviews in the Hollywood Reporter and San Francisco Chronicle note the artist who famously set the standard of 15 minutes of fame for everyone has himself been given four hours. Newsday‘s reviewer is disappointed that Burns “skims past” the less inspiring chapters of Warhol’s life, “such as the endless evenings he spent cozying up to celebrities at Studio 54.”