TuneIn, a free streaming audio aggregation app that lets listeners hear music, sports and news from around the world, has launched TuneIn Donate, which enables listeners to contribute to pubradio stations. KQED in San Francisco is piloting the new app, available for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android smartphones. TuneIn said in a statement that since using TuneIn Donate, KQED “has seen a meaningful increase in traffic” to its website donation page, although it provided no details. “KQED donors are some of the earliest adopters of new technologies,” said Tim Olson, station v.p. of digital media and education. “We are excited to be part of this groundbreaking initiative and are encouraged with the initial results.”

Contractors working in the basement of KCAW/Raven Radio in Sitka, Alaska, uncovered human remains that may predate the 103-year-old building, the Associated Press is reporting in the Anchorage Daily News. When workers found the skull and skeleton between two slabs of bedrock, work immediately stopped. “And the first thing we had to do was figure out what to do,” said KCAW General Manager Ken Fate. Police and an archeologist determined the bones were not part of a crime scene. Then, “erring on the side of caution,” Fate said, “we determined that we better treat them as if they might be culturally significant.”

Here’s a nice Thanksgiving tribute to public media from the staff of the National Center for Media Engagement, talking about what they’re most thankful for. From Charles Meyer, NCME executive director: “I’m grateful for the times I’ve giggled uncontrollably while listening to This American Life podcasts. I’m thankful for being moved deeply every time I watch Ken Burns’s documentary about Lewis and Clark. And I’ve never been more proud and grateful to be part of public media as I was when my family and I watched the recent NewsHour segment about American Graduate and the Nine Network Teacher Town Hall.

Brian Eckstein, production manager at Indiana Public Radio and a volunteer at the station since high school, died unexpectedly Monday (Nov. 21) at his home in Muncie, Ind. He was 40. “Chances are, if you live around here, your life has been touched somehow, in some way, by Brian Eckstein,” wrote the Star Press in Muncie. “His small shoes leave an enormous space to fill at the radio station, and in our hearts,” Angie Rapp, marketing manager of WIPB and IPR, told the paper. Eckstein was recognized as an Outstanding Alumnus by the Disabled Student Development Office of Ball State University.

California Gov. Jerry Brown has named Jeffrey Callison of Capital Public Radio in Sacramento, as press secretary of media relations in the state’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Callison, with his distinctive Scottish brogue, is host of the daily pubaffairs show Insight. “I’m happy what I’m doing,” Callison told the Sacramento Bee. “It’s not that I don’t like what I’m doing or that I’m not happy at Cap Radio. I just felt it was time for a new challenge.” Salary for the position is $102,015.

CPB Ombudsman Joel Kaplan looks into a complaint that during a recent fundraising campaign at WAMC Northeast Public Radio in Albany, N.Y., the station sold buttons that read “I support WAMC & Occupy Wall Street — 99%” for an additional 99-cent contribution. Also, the listener writes to Kaplan, during that campaign, station President Alan Chartock “constantly referred to the Republicans in the House as ‘radical’ intent on silencing public radio because it is an answer to Rush Limbaugh. This speaks directly to how Dr. Chartock views himself. If he is the answer to Rush Limbaugh, he should raise the money from sponsors and not the taxpayers.”

Two Dutch political parties are opposing a plan to cut the number of public broadcasting organizations in the Netherlands from the 21 to eight, because they think two channels will end up with an unfair advantage over the others, according to Radio Netherlands Worldwide. The VVD and Freedom Party are lobbying media minister Marja van Bijsterveldt to ban the merger, supported by the Dutch Public Broadcaster authority (NPO), which would give 10 million euros extra to two of the broadcasters. “The Dutch government is shaving up to €127 million off the national TV/radio budgets, demanding that broadcasters merge rather than co-operate,” explains Dutch media consultant Jonathan Marks on his Critical Distance blog, which explains the proposal in depth.

Pre-selection for U.S. entries for next year’s INPUT (INternational PUblic Television) screening conference took place Nov. 16-20 in Charleston, S.C., where South Carolina ETV is INPUT secretariat. American finalists will be announced in mid-December for INPUT, which takes place May 7-12, 2012, in Sydney, Australia. The panel, from left to right: Gayle Loeber, NETA; Erica Deiparine-Sugars, ITVS; Donald Thoms, PBS; Ron Hull, Nebraska ETV; Amy Shumaker, SCETV; Jennifer Lawson, CPB; Betsy Newman, SCETV; Sandie Pedlow, Latino Public Broadcasting; and Bill Gilcher, Goethe Institute. (Image: Kent Steele, WNET)

Fernando Rivas, a former award-winning composer for Sesame Street, entered a not guilty plea in federal court Monday (Nov. 21), in Charleston, S.C., on charges of production, transportation and possession of child pornography, according to the local Post and Courier.  Local officers and FBI agents had executed a search warrant at Rivas’s Charleston home on April 19, during which Rivas reportedly admitted to restraining a 4-year-old girl in handcuffs and photographing her, the paper says. According to his website, Rivas began to write for the Children’s Television Workshop, now Sesame Workshop, in 1990 and composed “a number of songs for the show Sesame Street,” featuring singers Celia Cruz, Gloria Estefan and Cindy Lauper.

Michele Bachmann has lots of nice things to say about her fellow Anoka (Minn.) High School alum Garrison Keillor in her new book Core of Conviction, which hit bookstores Monday (Nov. 21), reports Politico. Of the Prairie Home Companion host, she writes, “His politics are very different from mine, but I love his gentle, knowing humor. Keillor understands Minnesota, from Lutherans to lutefisk, and his ability to squeeze laughs out of serious-minded midwesterners makes him a legend.” She also compliments his writing skills. But Keillor doesn’t feel the same about her. In a 2010 letter of support for her Bachmann’s Democratic opponent in Minnesota’s 6th District, Keillor wrote: “It’s embarrassing to me and a great many Minnesotans that Michele Bachmann, a politician who is so busy grandstanding and giving interviews on Fox News that she doesn’t have time to serve the people who elected her, represents the 6th District in Washington.”

Pat Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, expressed disappointment over the announcement today (Nov. 21) that the congressional deficit-reduction Super Committee could not reach agreement to avoid automatic budget cuts. All domestic discretionary spending, which includes the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, could now be subject to an 8 percent across-the-board cut effective Jan. 1, 2013, Butler said. For CPB, that equals about $35 million of its $445 million appropriation. “The Super Committee’s assignment was never going to be easy — that’s why there was a Super Committee — but I know from direct conversations with some of the committee members that serious, good-faith efforts were made to reach the $1.2 trillion deficit reduction goal and more,” Butler said in an email to Current.

Colorado Public Radio has found a new use for the spare AM frequency that it couldn’t sell. OpenAir 1340 took to the air last month, bringing the Denver area a Triple A–format station featuring rock, folk and indie music ranging from the present day to rootsy influences. The station signed on Oct. 31 with the song “Colorado” by Denver band Paper Bird, an early indicator of OpenAir’s commitment to showcasing local music. CPR has already recorded more than a dozen local bands in its studios for broadcast on OpenAir. CPR previously used OpenAir’s AM signal for its news/talk format.  After CPR doubled its program offerings by creating separate news/talk and classical music streams in 2001, the news/talk stream was heard in Denver only on the AM signal.

A dispute over state funding of Florida pubcasters has prompted Miami’s WLRN to create a new system for sharing news stories among pubradio stations. Eight stations serving the state’s largest markets have signed onto the Florida News Exchange, a digital network for content sharing that the Miami station launched in September. It’s modeled after the Northwest News Network, a reporting collaborative of stations in Washington, Oregon and Idaho. Its formation is a direct challenge to the Florida Public Radio Network operated by WFSU in Tallahassee, the state capital — the only Florida pubcaster to be spared from a complete loss of state funding this year.

StoryCorps chose a special theme for this year’s National Day of Listening, the four-year-old public radio tradition of encouraging Americans to take time out over the Thanksgiving holiday to recognize their loved ones through the simple art of intimate conversation. Instead of family members, participants are being asked to set aside some time on Friday, Nov. 25, to recognize favorite teachers. “National Day of Listening 2011 will send a powerful and necessary message to teachers across the nation: that they matter, and that we as a nation are grateful for the impact they have on our lives,” said David Isay, StoryCorps founder and radio documentarian.