FCC Auction 37 began Nov. 3. You can follow it at this FCC site (follow the link to “Bidding System and Results”—the page can’t be linked to directly). Earlier articles in Radio World summarized the bidding process and presented a nice map that shows where the frequencies at stake are located.

Citing declines in traditional revenue sources, KERA-TV/FM in Dallas announced job cuts and schedule changes that trim $1.1 million from its budget, reports the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. (Registration required.)

NPR has combined its operations and engineering departments and promoted longtime employee David Argentieri as their senior director, reports Radio World.

Congressmen from Hawaii have asked the FCC to expedite approval of a Hawaii Public Radio transmitter that would serve Maui, reports Pacific Business News.

“Focus requires discipline and, in this case, a painful choice.” The New York Times is restructuring its TV unit and shuttering its production facility in lower Manhattan, according to an internal memo leaked to Romensko.

Two keynote speeches from a recent production workshop held by American Public Media’s Classical Music Initiative are online.

NPR has hired David Folkenflik, media reporter at the Baltimore Sun, reports the Baltimore Business Journal (second item). (More in the Baltimore City Paper. Via Romenesko).

This winter, director Robert Altman will begin shooting a film version of A Prairie Home Companion, reports the St. Paul Pioneer Press. (Reg. req.) More in the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post (fourth item), the Minneapolis Star-Tribune (also, an interview with Altman), and the Associated Press.

“I may care who gets elected, but my show does not.” The LA Times interviews David Brancaccio about succeeding Bill Moyers as host of Now. (Via Romenesko.)

The audience of Pacifica’s WBAI-FM in New York rose 40 percent from spring to summer, reports the New York Daily News.

Sesame Workshop President Gary Knell describes plans to create a PBS-branded digital cable service for preschoolers as a “renewed marriage vow” for PBS and the famed producer of Sesame Street, partners over three decades in teaching young kids about letters and numbers and getting along. It’s a four-way marriage, however, and the two for-profit partners are cable giant Comcast and Hit Entertainment, the London-based owner of Barney, Bob the Builder, Thomas the Tank Engine and other kid brands. The deal gives public TV stations on-screen credit — “brought to you by your local public TV station” — and access to future shows from Sesame and Hit, but it associates public TV with a new digital channel that carries ads during program breaks and that’s available only to cable subscribers who pay extra for digital-tier service.

BBC Radio disc jockey John Peel, champion of many cutting edge rock acts that went on to notoriety and influence, died at age 65. He was “perhaps the only British D.J. known by name to American rock fans,” writes the New York Times. For all his influence, Peel was surprisingly accessible, reports the Washington Post: “[B]asically, if you wrote him, he’d send you a postcard back, often with his phone number, sometimes ‘signed’ with a rubber stamp that read ‘John Peel, The World’s Most Boring Man.’

Roadside sensors are now providing radio ratings for passing drivers in Washington, Los Angeles, Seattle, New Jersey, and Charlotte, N.C., the Washington Post reported [registration required]. The provider, Phoenix-based MobilTrak, derives listener data from tuning and sells results to retailers near the same roads, to billboard companies [earlier NYT article], as well as to radio stations.

“How can we reach kids who don’t watch PBS without dumbing down to them?” WGBH tries a reality show for teenagers.

The Boston Globe profiles Zalmai Yawar, an Afghan who has worked as an interpreter for NPR and other U.S. news outlets. “Reporters kill over two things: a great driver and a great interpreter,” says NPR’s Jacki Lyden. “Zalmai was one of my best interpreters ever.”