The Knight News Challenge, an international media innovation contest, revealed today that the second round of competition (with submissions accepted from May 31 to June 20), will be centered on the theme of Data. Photo via cip_sb on Flickr. The contest, which is part of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation’s $100 million plus “Media Innovation Initiative,” is split into three rounds this year. The first round (Feb. 27 — Mar. 17) featured the theme of Networks and received 1,078 applications. The field has since been winnowed to 52 finalists, and only 4 to 6 entries will be brought before the Knight Foundation trustees for consideration in mid-June.

Simon Marks Feature Story News, an independent TV news agency that works closely with many pubTV outlets, announced the opening of four new bureaus in Miami, San Francisco, Houston, and Los Angeles today at the PBS Annual Meeting in Denver, Colo. FSN is helmed by Simon Marks, a former president of MacNeil/Lehrer Productions. The Houston bureau will be based in the TV/radio newsroom of Houston Public Media, the Miami bureau will be based at WPBT-TV, the Los Angeles bureau will be based at PBS SoCal, and the San Francisco bureau will be based at KMVT-TV 15. Each bureau will be a two-person operation, with each staffed by an on-air correspondent and a video journalist.

  DENVER, Colo. — At the PBS Annual Meeting, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof interviewed actress Meg Ryan during a luncheon presentation on Half the Sky. The Independent Lens two-part documentary, coming in October, is based on the book Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, by Kristof and his wife, Sheryl WuDunn. Ryan was one of several celebrity activists who traveled overseas with filmmakers and interacted with women bravely facing — and overcoming — horrendous conditions due to forced prostitution, gender-based violence and maternal mortality. The documentary is part of ITVS’s Women and Girls Lead initiative.

WTTW in Chicago is merging its national and local production departments, reports Time Out Chicago media writer Robert Feder. Over the years, WTTW National Productions has produced popular titles including Soundstage, Sneak Previews, The Frugal Gourmet and The McLaughlin Group; WTTW11 Local Productions handles shows such as Check, Please! and Chicago Tonight. Dan Schmidt, president of parent company Window to the World Communications, wrote in a memo to staff: “With this new focus, we are better able to leverage the creativity, experience and expertise of our existing staff to develop programming that appeals to local, national and international audiences.”

DENVER, Colo. — For the first time since 2006, a “Dear Colleague” letter to U.S. Senators requesting continued federal funding for pubcasting has Republican signatures, Pat Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, told attendees at the PBS Annual Meeting. The letter, addressed to the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee led by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), has 39 signatures including three Republicans. On the House side, a similar letter to the Labor, Health and Human Services Appropriations Subcommittee led by Rep. Dave Reichert (R-Wash.) and Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) has 116 signatures that include six Republicans.

New York Public Radio (which comprises WNYC-FM and WQXR-FM), announced today a new partnership with New Jersey’s Montclair State University, whose broadcast studios and production facilites will be the new home of New Jersey Public Radio’s news division. The managing editor of NJPR News is Peabody Award-winning journalist Nancy Solomon, and the newsroom will cover New Jersey news, politics, and public affairs. NJPR (owned by NYPR) was created in 2011 when NYPR purchased four defunct NJN stations from the state after Gov. Chris Christie axed NJN. The MSU news bureau will produce content for NJPR, WYNC, and other outlets throughout New Jersey.

Susanne Reber, who had left her position as deputy managing editor of investigations at NPR last week, was hired by the California-based Center for Investigative Reporting, CIR announced today. Reber built and led pioneering investigative units at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (2003-2009) and NPR (Jan. 2010 until last week). Reber will serve as the senior coordinating editor for multiplatform projects and investigations at CIR. Reber’s reporting team will produce work for all of CIR’s branded products, including The Bay Citizen and California Watch. Reber will start at her new position in June.

DENVER, Colo. — Jason Seiken, PBS Interactive chief, told a packed audience at the PBS Annual Meeting that “a magical opportunity will slip through our fingers if we don’t have the courage to change” and fully embrace the potential that video presents to public TV. “We are in the early stages of a two- to five-year land grab that will reshape the video industry in a way not seen since Hollywood in the early 20th century,” he said. “For media organizations, this video revolution will determine who wins, who merely survives, and who perishes.” Some 100 million Americans watch videos online daily; last year, YouTube had 1 trillion views, Seiken noted — and that number is doubling every two years.

DENVER, Colo. — At the PBS Annual Meeting today (May 15), Chief Programmer John Wilson answered a question many programmers had been asking lately: What are PBS’s plans for 8 p.m. Sundays? Beginning in September, that spot will go to a Brit hit, Call the Midwife, a BBC drama based on memoirs of a young midwife in London’s East End in the 1950s. Wilson noted that when the show premiered in Britain in January, it scored higher audience numbers than Downton Abbey. Wilson also had good news regarding overall pledge proceeds so far this year, up 2.7 percent systemwide over fiscal 2011.

Radio Ambulante, an ambitious monthly radio show and podcast which hopes to revolutionize Spanish-language radio, launched its pilot episode today. Radio Ambulante (which roughly translates to “radio on the move”) is the brainchild of acclaimed Peruvian-American writer Daniel Alarcón, whose novel Lost City Radio, was named Best Novel of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Washington Post, also claiming the 2009 International Literature Prize. Also on the Radio Ambulante team are Martina Castro (managing editor of KALW News), Mandalit del Barco (general assignment correspondent at NPR West), entrepreneur Carolina Guererro, and journalist Annie Correal, whose work has aired on NPR, WNYC and This American Life.

According to a report in Radio World, CBC Radio, Canada’s public broadcaster, has just launched a full slate of free online radio stations in an effort to diversify its online music offerings. The 40 stations are organized by genre (classical, jazz, hip hop, aboriginal) and are available to stream in both the U.S. and Canada 24/7 at music.cbc.ca. CBC Radio’s online music portal. Screenshot by Rhys Heyden. Though the music is predominantly Canadian, and the stations are aimed at the Canadian market, U.S. radio fans can also listen in. Steve Pratt, CBC’s director of digital music, told Radio World that the stations attracted more than 200,000 unique hits in their first week of existence, also racking up 1 million page views and 600,000 audio streams.