Idaho’s state legislature has imposed extraordinary restrictions on the state public TV network, in delayed reaction to its broadcast last September of the gay-friendly documentary “It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School.” The state House of Representatives passed the restrictions March 27 [2000] by a vote of 50-16, as part of an appropriations bill that gives $2 million for DTV instead of the $3.9 million requested by the network. And the same legislation passed the state Senate April 4. It will order the State Board of Education, licensee of the network, to monitor “programs expected to be of a controversial nature,” and to reject any program that “promotes, supports or encourages the violation of Idaho criminal statutes.”

NPR took a different tack March 16 in the ongoing assault on the FCC’s controversial plan to license low-power FM (LPFM) stations. Lawmakers and the National Association of Broadcasters have opposed the measure outright, but in a petition for reconsideration and a motion for stay, NPR asked the agency to take another look at some aspects of LPFM and delay implementing the proposal until July 15. Specifically, NPR requested greater protections for translators, radio reading services, full-power stations on third adjacent channels from LPFM stations, and potential digital radio technology. The network says the motion for stay would allow more time for NPR and FCC lab and field tests of interference expected to be caused by LPFM stations.

Twenty years is an anniversary round enough to permit us at Current to indulge in some hoorah, and to recognize the people who have made the paper possible for two decades. Marking the occasion, we published an updated edition of the paperback A History of Public Broadcasting last month, and inaugurated a companion website of the field’s historical documents, Public Broadcasting PolicyBase (PBPB). Since its first issue, March 17, 1980, Current has grown in many respects — in professionalism, in average page count (threefold), in circulation (fivefold), in advertising support (vastly), and in sustainability. (The growth allows and requires us to expand our staff this year, adding a fourth editor.)

In March 2000, the FCC reduced its 1997 fine of public TV station WTTW, finding that three of the four underwriting credits at issue were permissible after all. The original fine was levied in December 1997. [Text of 1997 letter.] Before the Federal Communications Commission Washington, D.C. 20554 In the Matter of Window to the World Communications, Inc., Licensee of Station WTTW(TV), Chicago, IL, Facility ID #10802 For a Forfeiture File No. 97040529 FORFEITURE ORDER Adopted: March 3, 2000 Released: March 6, 2000 By the Chief, Enforcement Bureau: 1. In this Order, we grant the request of Window to the World Communications, Inc.

The argument over the digital TV standard will continue, though the FCC tried to put it away Feb. 4 [2000], unanimously denying Sinclair Broadcast Group’s petition to permit the use of a different transmitter modulation scheme. Public TV has taken no official position on the issue — engineering managers in the system are divided on the issue. Though informal Sinclair tests found that first-generation DTV receivers have trouble getting pictures with indoor antennas, the FCC said in its letter to the Baltimore-based station chain, “we believe that Sinclair has done no more than to demonstrate a shortcoming of early DTV receiver implementation, rather than a basic flaw in the ATSC standard .

For the faculty of Wake Forest University, the hush order given to reporters at the university’s WFDD-FM last September came too close for comfort.”I’ve never seen anything rile the faculty on this campus like this did, and I’ve been here 11 years,” says law professor Ronald Wright. “A lot of faculty members identified with those reporters. We’re both in the business of telling the truth.” “What has occurred on our campus violated certain ‘givens’ about what a university should be: a place where freedom of thought and expression thrive,” said this month’s report by an ad hoc committee appointed by the faculty senate.

The Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing for Public Telecommunications (TCAF) delivered its recommendations to Congress on Oct. 1, 1983, after extensive research, including an Advertising Demonstration Program at a number of public TV stations. Documents below: Letter of transmittal Membership of TCAF Executive Summary Chairman’s letter of transmittal To the Congress of the United States: In accordance with Congress’ direction in the Public Broadcasting Amendments Act of 1981, Public Law Number 97-35, the Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing for Public Telecommunications hereby submits its Final Report. This report describes the Advertising Demonstration Program in which selected public television stations experimented with the carriage of limited advertising.

Which would be worse? Raising ungrounded fears about DTV technology that spook the public and delay the transition for years? Or ignoring those worries and finding out later that the system is a dog? Public TV’s engineers are divided on question of reopening the three-year-old U.S. standard for DTV transmission, a course of action championed by Sinclair Broadcast Group and now festering on the body technological. “I’m conflicted — it’s a thing that an engineer doesn’t like to be,” admits Bruce Jacobs, chief technology officer at KTCA in Twin Cities. “We like to have answers.” The outcome of FCC decisions quite likely won’t hinge on public TV’s position on the matter, of course, but so far the pubcasters have not taken a unified position on the question.

PBS’s new president is Pat Mitchell, departing head of CNN Productions and Time Inc. Television, whose appointment was ratified by the PBS Board Feb. 4. She is the first producer to take PBS’s top job, and is as comfortable in front of cameras as behind them, having performed in numerous on-air roles. Her major projects for CNN included the Peabody-winning Cold War, a 24-part documentary series that she executive produced with Jeremy Isaacs, and Millenium: A Thousand Years of History, also supervised with Isaacs. A search committee reached an “enthusiastically unanimous” decision to recommend Mitchell as the best candidate for the post last week, said Wayne Godwin, committee co-chair and president of WCET in Cincinnati.

A weekly half-hour program about space aliens — probably the only one in public radio (but who knows?) — has just been renewed for 26 weeks. Starting last Halloween, SETLAB Radio (the acronym means “Study of Extra-Terrestrial Life and Answers from Beyond”) has aired Sunday afternoons in south Texas — on KMBH in Harlingen and its repeater, KHID in McAllen. Host Russell Dowden says he’s gotten dozens of reports from Rio Grande Valley listeners that they, too, have seen unidentified flying objects. Then, several weeks ago, someone anonymously sent in a “very weird and very real-looking” image of a bulb-headed alien supposedly photographed aboard a U.S.

This is the PBS Board’s governing document as amended Feb. 6, 2000. For comparison, see also the original PBS bylaws of 1969, and the most recent version, amended November 2011. Article I Name The Corporation shall be known as the PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE (PBS). Article II Offices 2.1 Registered Office. The Corporation shall maintain a registered office in the City of Washington, District of Columbia. 2.2 Other Offices. The Corporation may also have offices at such other places, either within or without the District of Columbia, as the business of the Corporation may require. Article III Members 3.1 Membership.

Five months after the conflict developed between Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, N.C.) and its public radio station, WFDD, the faculty’s Senate Ad Hoc Committee on WFDD released this report Feb. 2, 2000. See also coverage in Current and case study on the conflict in the Public Radio News Directors Guide. Events Triggering This Inquiry Proposed Guidelines on Confidentiality Policy The Public Trust and Internal Management at WFDD The Committee’s Process Conclusions Memo from university Vice President Sandra Boyette to university Counsel Leon Corbett Appendix Separate statement by member Michael Curtis Report to the University Senate on the WFDD Matter Introduction In October 1999, the President of the University Senate appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on WFDD.

Undated document supplied by NPR, January 2000. No Commercial Obligations or Influence NPR is an independent, nonprofit organization that carries no on-air advertising. One of the ways NPR helps fund its programming and general operations is by seeking underwriting support from corporations, foundations and associations. These tax-deductible donations provide virtually all of NPR’s contributed income. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations govern all underwriting announcements by NPR and public radio stations. The regulations require NPR and stations to provide on-air recognition of funders while stipulating that these credit announcements are strictly for identification; they cannot be promotional. In establishing its on-air credit guidelines, NPR is sensitive to the expectations of the public radio audience and NPR member stations.

The FCC’s establishment of two low-power FM (LPFM) classes of stations — 10-watt and 100-watt — could populate radio dials with more than a thousand tiny noncommercial broadcasters, assuming the plan weathers possible challenges from Congress and existing broadcasters. FCC officials say the initial LPFM proposal, unveiled a year ago, generated a record volume of public comment, with churches, high schools, minorities, microradio activists and others defending the plan against attacks from established broadcasters. The plan that won approval by a 4-1 vote is more modest than its predecessor. It nixed the idea of commercial LPFM stations — which may allow a boom in noncommercial radio beyond the reserved band.

Seventeen million dollars slipped through WQED’s fingers last week when a partner in its long-delayed deal to sell sister channel WQEX abruptly backed out, even though they had won a go-ahead at the FCC a month earlier. George Miles, president of the Pittsburgh station, paraphrased a newspaper report on the turnabout: “We have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.” Important issues about pubcasting’s reserved channels were at stake in both WQED’s victory and its defeat, but they got little attention as all eyes turned to a couple waves of explosive controversy surrounding the FCC decision: First, in mid-December [1999], reporters swarmed over the news that Presidential candidate and FCC overseer Sen.