WNET in New York City is offering an arts and culture content management sharing system for video and web content, mainly among Major Market Group (MMG) stations. The first package of programming is being delivered to stations today (Sept. 4). Content will cover performing and visual arts and feature interviews with a geographically diverse and creatively broad group of artists, writers, composers and performers, “allowing local arts and culture institutions and local funders to get their stories out to a national audience,” the station said in an Aug. 27 announcement. Each half-hour broadcast package will include a line-up, script, video segments, credit roll, music and graphics, sent three weeks prior to air.

In his latest column, PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler considers a recent flap involving PBS NewsHour correspondent Gwen Ifill, who on Wednesday tweeted in support of fired journalist David Chalian. Chalian, the Washington bureau chief for Yahoo News, was fired after he said that Mitt Romney was “happy to have a party with black people drowning,” referring to the Republican National Convention starting as Hurricane Isaac approached New Orleans. Chalian was unaware that his microphone was on, and the comment was broadcast. Before joining Yahoo, Chalian had worked as the NewsHour’s political editor. “I can understand Ifill’s wanting to go to bat for a friend and colleague,” Getler wrote, “but my personal view is that this was a big mistake on her part, feeding, unnecessarily, a conviction among many critics and reflecting poorly on PBS.

Utah Education Network, the only public TV licensee to receive a federal broadband grant and to join the national US Ignite project to develop broadband apps, has appointed a Utah school superintendent, Ray Timothy, as its c.e.o. and executive director, effective Oct. 1. Timothy is superintendent of the Park City School District, former super of the rural Millard County district and a former deputy super of the state Office of Education. He succeeds Mike Petersen, who took a faculty position with Utah State University. Since Petersen left in January, the network’s interim chief has been Eric Denna,  co-chair of the UEN Board and chief information officer of the Utah System of Higher Education and the University of Utah.

This month Philadelphia’s WXPN launched the Mississippi Blues Project, a concert series and website featuring eight musicians who have had limited exposure outside of their home state. “We wanted to bring awareness to a somewhat obscure form of blues from Mississippi,” said WXPN’s Bruce Warren, executive producer of the project and assistant station manager, in a Philadelphia Inquirer article. “The Delta blues is always the foundation of the blues. We wanted to focus on … dozens and dozens of incredible blues guys and women who rarely play outside of juke joints and areas of rural Mississippi.” The concert series kicked off Aug.

The man behind the voice of Sesame Street‘s Count von Count is gone. Jerry Nelson, who worked with Muppets creator Jim Henson early in his career, died Thursday at age 78. Nelson also played Gobo Fraggle on the 1980s Henson TV series Fraggle Rock. Jim Henson Co. C.E.O. Lisa Henson said in a statement that Nelson “imbued all his characters with the same gentle, sweet whimsy and kindness that were a part of his own personality. He joined the Jim Henson Co. in the earliest years, and his unique contributions to the worlds of Fraggles, Muppets, Sesame Street and so many others are, and will continue to be, unforgettable.”

WNYC in New York will launch Gabfest Radio, a one-hour program combining edited versions of two popular podcasts led by editors of online magazine Slate, with two weekend broadcasts. The move is a fast turnaround for WNYC, which first announced the program and collaboration with Slate in a Tuesday press release. Slate‘s Political Gabfest, which began in 2005, is hosted by website editor David Plotz,  chief political correspondent John Dickerson and senior editor and legal correspondent Emily Bazelon. Its Culture Gabfest, which originated in 2008, is hosted by deputy editor Julia Turner,  movie critic Dana Stevens and culture critic at large, Stephen Metcalf.

First came WYPR’s pledgecats. Then, WBEZ’s cats posing as pubradio personalities. Now, cute kitties have invaded the KCRW studios for its latest pledge pitch. There’s an appearance by on-air personalities at the Santa Monica, Calif., station, including Steve Chiotakis, afternoon news anchor, as well as a cameo by a very famous author (we won’t spoil it for you). But the real, multiple stars are the oodles of cute, adoptable kittens from the Best Friends Animal Society in Los Angeles. Cuteness abounds.

After a delay earlier this month, KUT-FM in Austin, Texas, has purchased KXBT, a commercial station now broadcasting classic rock at 98.9 FM. The $6 million deal was approved by the University of Texas System Board of Regents today (Aug. 23). The new KUTX will operate as a noncom music station, with KUT switching to all news. The new formats will begin sometime this fall, following FCC approval of the deal. “Music is part of Austin’s DNA,” the station said in an FAQ on its website. “We see an opportunity to deliver an all-music service focused on the Austin Music Experience.

In an interview with Politico, Andrea Seabrook explains how her work on her new project, the DecodeDC website, will differ from her past work as NPR’s congressional correspondent. “I am going to try to focus myself on the stories that none of the other reporters have time to cover,” she said. “NPR would have loved to have had any of these stories.  . . .  The problem is, as a modern, esteemed news organization, NPR also feels that it needs to cover the daily news and the daily news as currently defined is what happened on the floor today, what’s the big debate in Congress, what’s your government doing.

West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s executive director has suggested nearly $200,000 in spending cuts and cautioned members of the Educational Broadcasting Authority board that further reductions may be necessary, reports the Charleston Gazette. The proposal from Dennis Adkins on Wednesday (Aug. 22) includes dropping the network’s membership in the Association of Public Television Stations advocacy group, a $26,000 savings; cancellation of certain Nielsen and Aribtron ratings services, $25,300; and a halt to publication of Pubcaster, its news and program guide, $46,932. The network faces a 7.5 percent drop in state support next year, part of statewide budget cuts ordered by Gov.

Musician and public radio fan M. Ward has created an iPhone app that serves as a guide to noncommercial radio stations across the country. The Wasteland Companion app, which shares its name with Ward’s latest album, features almost a thousand stations of various formats, according to Rolling Stone. “The idea came out of my own necessity,” M. Ward told the magazine. “When I’m on tour, I want to listen to local radio with music being played by real people and actual voices in that community. Radio has the power to be a cultural hub.” Ward’s travels have taken him to public radio stations as a guest — you can check him out on The Current in St.