The St. Louis public TV station’s Nine Academy, a program that trains individuals and community organizations to produce short videos on stories of “community impact,” received special recognition among the awards presented during NETA’s recent conference in St. Louis. In honoring the academy as the top winner in its annual awards program, NETA cited the station for groundbreaking community work. NETA recognized 20 public TV stations in 30 categories spread across four divisions — community engagement, content production, instructional media and promotion. The two stations receiving the most awards, Kentucky Educational Television and New York’s WNET, dominated the instructional media division; each brought a total of four awards home from the competition.

Former Georgia state Sen. Chip Rogers, a controversial figure recently hired by Georgia Public Broadcasting at the recommendation of Gov. Nathan Deal, will make $150,000 annually, reports the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The “lofty” salary, the paper notes, comes “despite a rather pedestrian title: Executive producer, community jobs program.” Rogers will earn more than the governor, lieutenant governor, GPB’s vice president for radio and its chief information officer, the paper adds. The state legislator has been linked to a $2.3 million loan default on a failed hotel venture and a group of ultra-conservative activists promoting theories that President Obama uses mind control techniques to influence public opinion (Current, Dec.

As the executive producer who acquired and managed co-productions of British dramas for Masterpiece and its predecessor titles for more than 26 years, Eaton has brought high-profile miniseries such as Prime Suspect, Bleak House and recent hits Sherlock and Downton Abbey to PBS.

KERA in Dallas has hired Glenn Fisher as its chief operating officer. Fisher will oversee daily administration of the organization, managing the finance, membership, underwriting, engineering and IT departments. Fisher spent 28 years at Twin Cities Public Television in St. Paul, serving as v.p. of station operations, v.p. for development and communications, and v.p. of broadcast operations. PBS named him Development Professional of the Year in 2005. “Glenn’s extensive experience in public broadcasting and station management will be an excellent addition to KERA’s senior leadership team as the organization continues to grow and provide essential resources to the North Texas region,” said Mary Anne Alhadeff, KERA president and c.e.o.,

When public radio managers gathered for November’s Super-Regional Meeting in New Orleans, home to Bourbon Street and the drive-through daiquiri bar, NPR Chair and ideastream COO Kit Jensen mentioned in passing during a panel discussion that her station has its own official cocktail. The “ideaScreamer” is a mix of Grey Goose orange vodka, cranberry juice and a twist of lime, garnished with a lightstick stirrer, according to Peg Neeson, ideastream community relations director. “It’s really quite pretty in a martini glass,” she said. No one at ideastream can recall when the ideaScreamer was created, possibly due to overindulgence in the drink.

WETA in Arlington, Va., has received a two-year, $100,000 grant from Newman’s Own Foundation for its BrainLine, a national multimedia project offering resources about preventing, treating and living with traumatic brain injuries. The grant will be used to expand coverage of military-specific information, according to the station. The actor was a big supporter of public broadcasting. His charitable foundation, funded by his Newman’s Own line of grocery goods, donated $2.2 million to nine pubcasting stations — including WETA — in December 2010. Also, in 2007 and ’08, Newman was in the process of developing a public affairs show with a production budget of $5 million with Connecticut Public Television, his local station.

The FCC has just released a staff summary of the upcoming broadcast television spectrum incentive auctions. The 11-page document explains in clear terms why the auctions are taking place, what the FCC hopes to achieve, and the specific decisions that television broadcasters face. It’s part of a new LEARN (Learn Everything About Reverse Auctions Now) website, which aims to be “a one-stop information resource for incentive auction stakeholders, particularly broadcasters,” said Gary Epstein, chair of the Incentive Auction Task Force, in a post on the FCC’s blog.

PASADENA, Calif. — The special package of primetime shows about gun violence that PBS unveiled to television critics Monday offers an example of how Beth Hoppe intends to operate as the network’s new chief programmer. Hoppe had been promoted to chief program executive and g.m. only three days before the Dec. 14 shooting in Connecticut claimed the lives of 26 students and teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School. As news of the tragedy unfolded, Hoppe was on the phone with producers, “trying to figure out what the appropriate PBS response was,” she told Current. “We looked at the landscape and said, ‘How can we meet the needs of our viewers in a way they’re not being served by the media?’”

This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. George H. Rogers, who worked as development and community relations director at WCET-TV in Cincinnati in the early years of the station, died Dec. 27 at his home in suburban Florence, Ky., after a three-year battle with lung cancer. He was 83. The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Rogers started at the station, now branded as CET, almost 50 years ago. In 1972, CPB honored him for his work in promotion and development. His daughter, Mary Clair Smoot of Lexington, Ky., told the newspaper that during her father’s years at WCET, “we eight kids were all enlisted to help ‘rubber stamp’ thousands of envelopes for mass mailings.”

New York’s WNYC has released for the first time recordings of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. interviewed on several occasions in the 1960s by Eleanor Fischer, a Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reporter who later worked for NPR. The interviews capture King discussing a wide range of subjects, including his childhood, his adoption of nonviolent resistance tactics, and the Montgomery bus boycott. The recordings were among tapes given to WNYC’s archive in 2008 after Fischer passed away. “We are a rich archive in content but not a huge staff of people and we have received many collections,” wrote Archive Director Andy Lanset in an email to Current.

Next Avenue — the online magazine for Americans aged 50 years and older created by Twin Cities Public Television — is now sharing its content with RLTV, a cable and online network for seniors. The agreement, announced Jan. 2, marks the beginning of a targeted syndication push, said Next Avenue Executive Director Judy Diaz. “We’re investing a lot in content, not just in money but in the time it takes to create the pieces,” she said. The plan is a win-win, expanding Next Avenue’s content distribution while raising revenue, Diaz said. Additionally, the deal allows Next Avenue to develop custom online content exclusive to RLTV’s website.

This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. Rocky Mountain PBS is merging with local jazz pubradio station KUVO-FM and I-News, a Colorado nonprofit investigative reporting service, the Denver Post reports. In a press release, RMPBS said it has partnered with I-News since the launch of the service in 2009, and the organizations already share content and location. Doug Price, RMPBS president, said the station also has “a long tradition of collaboration” with KUVO, “which serves a culturally rich, diverse audience that reflects the demographic future of Colorado.” The three organizations have started the transition to share resources, information and news, the announcement said.