Nice Above Fold - Page 397
Thursday roundup: Diane Rehm has no plans to retire, Big Bird is a documentary star
Plus: Free Speech Radio News sues Pacifica, and GPB announces another WRAS program.Recast formula for public TV's Nature depicts animal lives in human terms
The show's executive producer says it's "become more character-driven and, frankly, more emotional."Study finds most listeners don't mind NPR's embedded underwriting credits
A committee of NPR’s board voted May 8 to maintain embedded underwriting at its current level on network programs, despite concerns among station executives that the practice could harm listeners’ perceptions. Embedded underwriting credits appear within segments of NPR’s newsmagazines, rather than in the longer blocks of credits that punctuate the shows. The credits give sponsors dedicated placement alongside particular series and areas of coverage, such as business, health and technology. NPR ramped up efforts to sell embedded underwriting starting in 2011, and station leaders and programmers responded with worries that the credits were disrupting the flow of programs and giving listeners the idea that sponsors are influencing content.
PBS's Kerger urges Annual Meeting audience to be bold amid change
The event kicked off Tuesday with its largest crowd in at least a decade.Wednesday roundup: Texas Tribune launches op-ed site, WRAS students protest GPB incursion
Plus: Celeste Headlee tells Current about plans for Middle Ground now that she has a new job.Via Aviators website, opportunities for product placement
Producers of The Aviators, a public TV series distributed by the National Educational Telecommunications Association, devoted a page of the program website to videos depicting opportunities for product placements by sponsors. The web page was removed after Current inquired about the unusual sponsorship marketing. Screenshots from the page are presented here. In an email to Current, Executive Producer Anthony Nalli explained the marketing strategies behind the descriptions and how FourPoints Television Productions worked with sponsors. Nalli writes: “Any time aviation gives back to the community, that’s the kind of positive message we feel is important to convey as part of the core mission of The Aviators.”
Aviators grounds embedded marketing offer
Until recently, a page on the Aviators website promoting program sponsorships used slick marketing lingo to pitch product placements, also known as embedded marketing.Calif. judge orders Pacifica's ousted leader to end occupation of network's offices
Summer Reese, former executive director of the Pacifica Foundation, was ordered to vacate the network’s headquarters Monday after an Alameda County Superior Court judge sided with the majority of the Pacifica board who fired her in March. Reese’s continued occupation of Pacifica’s national office “constitutes trespass and a nuisance,” wrote Judge Ioana Petrou in her ruling. Petrou ordered that Reese leave Pacifica’s headquarters immediately, as her presence there was impeding the foundation from conducting its normal business. “The Court finds that the current situation is not only far from ideal, but completely untenable,” Petrou wrote. After Pacifica’s board voted March 14 to dismiss Reese, she questioned the validity of the firing and broke into the foundation’s headquarters with a team of supporters.Koch protester takes stage at PBS meeting, gets handcuffed and shown out
PBS staff asked Current to stop photographing as Brant Olson was put against a wall and handcuffed.Subject of ITVS's Invisible War thanks pubTV programmers
Kori Cioca said the film's distributor gave her emotional support after she was raped while serving in the U.S. Coast Guard.Tuesday roundup: Headlee joins GPB, revamped History Detectives premieres July 1
Plus: A Frontline filmmaker wins a WGBH fellowship, and Wait Wait makes a cameo on The Simpsons.Monday roundup: Tiny Desk Concerts heading to Roku, Carl Kasell's greatest hits
Plus: PBS's retired longtime chief engineer receives a prestigious industry award.NPR names media exec and venture capitalist Jarl Mohn as new CEO
Philanthropist, investor and former cable TV executive Jarl Mohn will join NPR as its new c.e.o. July 1, the network’s board announced Friday. Mohn has served on the board of KPCC in Los Angeles since 2002 and is currently chair. He has worked mainly in commercial media, with a run as g.m. of MTV Networks from 1986–90. From 1990–98 he was c.e.o. of E! Entertainment Television, which he also founded. At NPR, Mohn will replace interim c.e.o. Paul Haaga, who stepped into the role in September 2013 after the departure of Gary Knell for the National Geographic Society. Haaga, who has also served on KPCC’s board, helped recruit Mohn for the job.CPB fines WJFF $15,000 for open-meeting violations
The Jeffersonville, N.Y. community radio station came under heavy scrutiny after a former g.m. cancelled programs in closed meetings.Pubmedia symposium examines how to define, quantify impact
“Impact” is a feel-good media buzzword of the moment, increasingly required by the funders of many projects and invoked by some PTV stations, news organizations and documentary producers as key to demonstrating the social good derived from their work. But defining the concept and then measuring whether a media project has demonstrated its value remain elusive challenges for many. During “Understanding Impact,” a two-day symposium convened last month at American University in Washington, D.C., participants explored a number of the ad hoc systems for tracking impact that are taking form. Organizations including the Center for Investigative Reporting in Emeryville, Calif., and KETC, the Nine Network of St.
Featured Jobs