APTS President Patrick Butler is warning public broadcasters of continued threats to their federal funding this summer as Congress takes up work on appropriations for the next federal budget. During an appearance at the Public Media Business Association conference this morning, Butler recalled a private meeting with a key House Republican from Georgia who opposes federal aid to CPB. Rep. Jack Kingston, chair of the House appropriations subcommittee with oversight over CPB, told Butler that he plans to zero-out CPB funding. “He told me point blank, in January, that he was going to do everything he could to eliminate our funding,” Butler said during a PMBA breakfast meeting at the Washington Court Hotel in Washington, D.C.

Cara Mertes, a past executive director of American Documentaries Inc., ex-e.p. of its POV and former programmer for WNET’s Independent Focus, will succeed Orlando Bagwell to head up the Ford Foundation’s JustFilms, which backs social-justice documentaries. Mertes is currently director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program and Fund, where she will remain until September. Bagwell is returning to filmmaking after more than eight years at the foundation, it announced today. He joined Ford in 2004 as a program officer and initially led its five-year initiative, Global Perspectives in a Digital Age, Advancing Public Service Media. He also directed grantmaking for public media, media rights and access, arts and culture and religious issues.

Britain’s ITV, production home of Masterpiece titles Downton Abbey and Mr. Selfridge, is on a “spending spree” in the United States, according to Variety. ITV just bought a controlling stake in reality producer High Noon Entertainment (Cake Boss) for $39 million, and in December acquired 61.5 percent of Gurney Productions (Duck Dynasty). “Another U.S. buy is believed to be on the horizon as ITV Studios beefs up ITV Studios America,” Variety reports. ITV Studios also produces longtime pubcasting favorites Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Poirot. Variety notes that Mr. Selfridge “encapsulates a key part of what ITV wants to do more of — produce inhouse U.K.

The Independent Television Service on Tuesday posted a statement in response to what it calls “the rising flow of misinformation surrounding Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream and Citizen Koch” stemming from a lengthy New Yorker piece last week. “As a matter of policy,” the statement reads, “ITVS respects the privacy of filmmakers and our negotiations. We therefore declined an interview request from The New Yorker staff writer Jane Mayer for a May 20, 2013, article she was framing around two documentaries with storylines on [billionaire conservative] David H. Koch. In the days after its publication, we continued to decline interview requests from other outlets.”

Have you heard about that crazy new reality TV show, Knitting Wars? WNET in New York City is using that fake title and others to make a point, and, it hopes, score a lot of donations. The New York Times reports that the station is running an ad campaign touting titles including, Bad Bad Bagboys, Bayou Eskimos, The Dillionaire and Married to a Mime. Next to an ad for the fake program is a real pitch: “The fact you thought this was a real show says a lot about the state of TV. Support quality programming. Join us at thirteen.org.”

The contract paves the way for public TV station KCSM to go dark if a wireless company buys its broadcast spectrum.

Sesame Workshop and Ape Entertainment released the first comic book featuring the cast of Sesame Street May 4, to coincide with national Free Comic Book Day.

PBS Digital Studios is expanding its web video output with three new YouTube series: Deep Prep, UnderH2O and Short of the Week.

New Jersey Television and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) of Newark are partnering on a new six-part cabaret music television series, American Songbook at NJPAC, to debut on NJTV and WNET this fall. The series will be produced from two live performance sessions at the center to be taped in June. Performers include Tom Wopat, Valerie Simpson, Rebecca Luker and Maude Maggart, and the duos Sandy Stewart and Bill Charlap and Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley. Each will perform 40-minute sets and sit for a Q&A session. NJPAC will donate proceeds of ticket sales to the Actors Fund, which assists professionals in performing arts and entertainment.