Mykalai Kontilai, who purchased Nightly Business Report in August 2010, is cited in the latest Esquire magazine as a “reengineer.” More than 20 persons were identified as “men and women who have rebuilt, rethought, or happily dismantled their industries, their influences, and themselves.” Kontilai, a former mixed-martial arts agent and educational video distributor, was noted for “snatching up the rights” to NBR and “pledging to reinvent the sleepy half-hour public news into the impossible and improbable – a must-see business report that will be syndicated in two hundred countries.” Others on the list include President Obama, actor Alec Baldwin and NFL quarterback Michael Vick.

Say, “Rick Steves,” and what do you think? Congenial public TV travel host. Think again. According to a blogger at Examiner.com/Chicago, Steves made quite the speech at last weekend’s (Jan. 29 and 30) Chicago Travel and Adventure Show. Referring to himself as a “provocateur,” he held forth on topics including legalization of marijuana, infrastructure reinvestment, housing prices, health care reform, American “torture” of prisoners, the growing gap between rich and poor, gun control, “racist” incarceration policies, legalized prostitution and the “hysterical” American media. Steves also defended his 2009 TV special on Iran, saying, “I think you should know people before you bomb them.”

An intriguing alliance has formed among ivi TV, the brash startup that’s selling Internet access to specially encrypted TV signals, and four public interest organizations that have filed an amicus brief in its defense. The groups, Public Knowledge, the Media Access Project, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Open Technology Initiative of the New America Foundation, identify themselves in the “friends of the court” Jan. 31 filing as “public interest organizations concerned with maintaining an open, competitive, and diverse communications infrastructure.” The Seattle-based ivi is being sued by 25 broadcasters including WGBH, WNET.org and PBS, which seek a restraining order to stop ivi from selling their content (Current, Oct.

What does a free and open Internet mean for the future of journalism? Quite a lot, writes Kat Aaron, a journalist with the Investigative Reporting Workshop and media policy fellow, on MediaShift. Net neutrality, the principle protecting equal treatment of all content on digital networks, provides the foundation for innovative crowd sourcing projects and platforms for minority and low-income communities to amplify their voices via online dialogues and specialized reporting. “Despite journalism’s increasing reliance on a neutral network, most journalists and their trade associations have been silent on this issue,” Aaron writes. “To preserve the tools and technologies most reporters take for granted requires vigilance, organizing, and yes, the a-word: advocacy.”

Regina Fraser, co-host of Grannies on Safari, says the group just heard from the U.S. State Department today (Feb. 1) and is standing by for a flight out of Egypt, as the revolution there continues to intensify. Fraser, co-host Pat Johnson and 10 Americans are stranded in Luxor after arriving on Jan. 26. Maria Dugandzic of MediaPros 24/7 in Chicago has been monitoring the situation and is in close contact with the group. “The State Dept just called them and told them to pack their bags because they may have a flight back to the U.S. in the next hours,” Dugandzic said.

Nonprofit news entities are beginning to explore the possibilities of partnering with commercial broadcasters. NBC agreed to have at least five local affiliates collaborate with the nonprofs as part of its agreement with the FCC to merge with Comcast. Joe Bergantino, co-founder of the New England Center for Investigative Reporting in Boston, is in talks with several television outlets, including one commercial. “I think [the FCC order] sends a strong message that partnering with nonprofit investigative reporting centers makes a lot of sense for commercial news outlets,” he tells TVNewsCheck.“It makes journalistic sense and it makes economic sense.” Thus far, nonprofit journalism entities, which are springing up to fill coverage holes left by dwindling newspaper staffs, have been collaborating with major metro newspapers, public TV stations (Current, March 30, 2009) and regional news networks.

University licensee Penn State Public Broadcasting has produced a video advising Penn State students how to react if faced with a gunman on campus. The Daily Collegian says the pubcasters worked with psychologists and police officers before screening the project. It’s part of a course teaching the “Five Outs” – get out, call out, hide out, keep out and take out. In one scene, students fight back against a gunman, one using a backpack to knock him down. Penn State University Assistant Police Chief Tyrone Parham said that “take out” is a last resort, when no other options are left. “Remember, at this point, you may be literally fighting for your life,” Parham said.

CPB’s website, as of February 2013, carries this document, “Revised February 1, 2011,” redefining the assignment of its ombudsman. Kenneth Tomlinson, past chair of the CPB Board, had prompted controversy by hiring two ombudsmen in April 2005. Charter Establishing the CPB Office of the Ombudsman The founders of public broadcasting saw a clear need for a “system-wide process of exerting upward pressure on standards of taste and performance.” (The 1967 Carnegie Commission Report, p.36) In addition, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was expected to become the “center of leadership” with a “primary mission…to extend and improve . . . programming.”

PBS member station KBTC in Seattle/Tacoma is picking up the new Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies. Why is that news? Because some local viewers were mightily peeved that Seattle’s KCTS decided not to run it – one of the few pubTV stations that passed on the popular critic’s latest program. KCTS programmer Randy Brinson told a Seattle Times blogger that the decision not to carry the show was based on “scheduling logistics and financial reality.” In another word, pledge. It would “get pre-empted on a regular basis, as a normal course of events due to our occasional pledge programming.”

MHz Networks is alerting its 31 pubcasting affiliates nationwide that the shutdown by the Egyptian government of Al Jazeera’s bureau there does not affect broadcast of Al Jazeera English programming on Worldview. Some media were erroneously reporting that Al Jazeera English’s shows in the United States were also blacked out.

Did you miss the Sundance Film Festival Jan. 20-30 in Park City, Utah? Yeah, us too. Fear not, ITVS social media wizard Jonathan Archer “storified” the Tweets and other posts of ITVS-related events and adventures at the famous fest. One featured Tweet: “Glazed. Chocolate chipolte. Powdered. Plain. Homemade donuts. Great food at HBO party.” Oh fine, rub it in.

Guam’s Office of Public Accountabilty has released an audit of PBS Guam (PDF) that sets a longterm goal of converting it to a community licensee “to alleviate dependency on the government of Guam.” Government of Guam appropriations, 38 percent of station revenues, increased from $596,000 in fiscal 2009 to $610,000 in FY10. The audit shows a revenue decline of $2.6 million due primarily to a one-time $2.5 million grant to purchase and install a digital tower in 2009. The station also ended FY10 with a decrease in net assets of $204,000.

Tony Geiss, composer and lyricist for Sesame Street for almost 40 years as well as a creator of several Muppets, died Jan. 21 in New York City of complications from a fall. He was 86. He’s at left in the photo, speaking with fellow Sesame Street writer Lou Berger and Executive Producer Carol-Lynn Parente on the set. (Image: Sesame Workshop) Geiss won 22 Emmys for scriptwriting and songwriting. He created the Honkers Muppets and, most recently, Abby Cadabby. He was a co-creator of Sesame’s “Elmo’s World” segment, composing its theme song (which has been viewed more than 25 million times on YouTube).

Problems with signal interference from the U.S. Coast Guard’s emergency communications system has stymied launch of Tampa’s new full-time classical music service, according to the St. Petersburg Times. Since purchasing the license to 89.1 FM in Sarasota last fall, pubcaster WUSF-TV/FM has been broadcasting its new classical service WSMR at 30 percent power; the signal doesn’t reach far beyond Sarasota, disappointing expectant music lovers in Tampa. “The Coast Guard is huge and we don’t want to get in the way of a life being saved,” says JoAnn Urofsky, g.m. “But I’m still not sure why this stalemate happened.”

PBS has not yet decided whether to renew WNET’s newsmag Need to Know, which replaced Bill Moyers Journal in May 2010 (Current, March 22, 2010). PBS said in a statement to the New York Times that the show runs through June 2011, and it is currently “evaluating the series carefully.” Stephen Segaller, station v.p. for content, and Shelley Lewis, Need to Know e.p., sent an email to programmers December 3 thanking them for their feedback on the show. Apparently some of those comments had zeroed in on co-hosts Alison Stewart and Jon Meacham. The note, obtained by Current, said in part: “It’s fair to say (as some of you have) that Alison is far more comfortable in the anchor role than Jon, and Jon is a far more comfortable guest on other programs than he was (at first) as anchor on his own.