The U.S. Department of Agriculture announced today that it will spread $15 million among 16 rural public TV stations to help them switch to digital transmission. Among the grantees are some of the nation’s smallest public TV stations as well as the West Virginia, South Dakota, North Dakota and Kentucky networks.

“There are enough fine children’s entertainments being made that there is no excuse for Clifford’s Really Big Movie, a really lame attempt to expand the marketing reach of the PBS-TV series.” A New York Daily News critic pans the kiddie film opening today at theatres. Scholastic is promoting the popular PBS Kids character and his canine side-kicks in kids’ meals at Wendy’s.

Bill Moyers will retire from TV journalism in November, after the elections. He plans to write a book about President Johnson, whom he served as a young White House aide, AP reported. CPB has sought conservative programming to counterbalance his Friday-night PBS program. In a Current critique, Christopher Lydon called Moyers “the best of our village explainers.”

Iowa regents unanimously approved the request of WOI in Ames to bid on a bankrupt FM station, reports the Iowa State Daily.

Orange County’s Coast Community College District is sounding antsy about delays in its sale of KOCE to the station’s nonprofit arm, judging from the latest Los Angeles Times report. Daystar, the religious broadcaster that bought KERA’s second channel in Dallas and bid unsuccessfully for KOCE, is threatening to sue the college district.

A Maryland state representative says he’ll ask the FCC for a hearing on the pending sale of a Christian station to WYPR-FM in Baltimore, reports AP. Opponents of the transfer say it will leave Frederick, Md., without a locally based Christian station.

The LA Times (subscription required) reports that religious broadcaster Daystar Television Network is has threated to sue over its lost bid for KOCE in Orange County, Calif. “If this were a publicly held corporation, it would be ripe for a lawsuit in which those who control the company are playing favorites with bidders,” comments one legal expert. [Current‘s earlier coverage of the sale.] Dallas pubcaster KERA sold its second TV channel to Daystar, which took control of KDTN last month.

KPBS in San Diego is producing a radio version of California Connected, reports the San Diego Union-Tribune. KPBS and three other California stations already co-produce a TV version of the show.

Iowa State University is planning to acquire a bankrupt FM station that could bring public radio to 44,000 unserved people, reports the Ames Tribune. Iowa regents will consider the purchase Thursday. (More coverage in the Iowa State Daily.)

NPR’s Anne Garrels and a Frontline co-production were among the George Polk award-winners announced yesterday, reports the New York Times (registration required). (Via Romenesko.)

Technology vendors chosen by PBS for its new package of station automation hardware and software were announced today. The optional ACE package for stations includes servers from Omneon Video Networks, scheduling software from BroadView Technologies and other systems from Miranda Technologies. Current described the offer in December.

NPR has closed its Tokyo news bureau and opened another in Hanoi, Vietnam, staffed by reporter Michael Sullivan.

The Stanley Foundation will cease producing its public radio show, Common Ground, April 30.

The freedom granted by online media is “something that newspapers can only dream about,” says Christopher Lydon in the Guardian.

Minnesota Public Radio announced yesterday that it will begin distributing almost all of its own programs, taking that business from longtime rep Public Radio International. The Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reports. In 2000, PRI filed a lawsuit, later settled, in an effort to prevent similar competition from MPR.