Dick Meyer, editorial director at CBSNews.com, announced yesterday in his online column that he is moving to NPR. Meyer didn’t specify which post he’ll assume, but PaidContent.org reports that Meyer will serve as editorial director for digital media.

Variety reports a change in the top job at Hit Entertainment. CEO Bruce Steinberg is stepping down, and Jeffrey Dunn, a former c.o.o. at Nickelodeon, is taking over. Dunn created Noggin with Sesame Workshop while at Nickelodeon, the mag reports. Hit, a partner with PBS in Sprout, owns Barney and Bob the Builder, among other shows.

The dismissal of talk show host Marc Steiner from WYPR-FM in Baltimore was related to internal disagreements, reports the Baltimore Business Journal. “It became obvious that attempts to resolve disagreements on a variety of matters had failed,” wrote board chair Barbara Bozzuto in an e-mail to WYPR members. “Declining ratings were emphasized as the reason for the show’s cancellation out of a desire to avoid any public discussion of complicated personnel issues.” Steiner tells the paper he was unaware of the issues cited. In the Baltimore Sun, a WYPR board member defends the decision. “Board members were aware that this decision would likely engender a vocal, negative reaction,” writes John Machen.

In a New York Times story on Ken Stern’s departure from NPR, board Chairman and interim CEO Dennis Haarsager downplays the notion that Stern’s undoing was his push to put NPR content on multiple digital media platforms. Haarsager agrees that Stern’s digital agenda didn’t have wide backing within pubradio, but says the digital issue was “not a source of tension” that led to his exit. “[T]here are about 20 different dimensions you evaluate leadership on,” Haarsager tells the Times. NPR has not conducted a national search for a top executive in 10 years and decided to do so “sooner rather than later.”

CEO Ken Stern is leaving NPR, the network’s board of directors announced today. The board did not explain why Stern was leaving, but several unnamed sources suggested reasons to NPR’s own Frank Langfitt. Dennis Haarsager, chair of NPR’s board, is taking over as interim CEO. Washington Post: “NPR Leader Out After Board Clash.” LA Observed has the memo from Haarsager.

The FCC will seek comment on a recommendation to reallocate television channels 5 and 6 for FM broadcasting, according to a notice released yesterday [scroll to page 35]. The proposal, advanced via a petition filed by Maryland-based Mullaney Engineering, addresses the “gigantic pent-up demand for additional FM spectrum” and will help redress the inefficient allocation of spectrum on TV channels 2-6, according to the Mullaney petition. Rec Networks reports that the proposed reallocation could open up an additional 60 FM channels. The FCC will not accept comments until the notice of proposed rulemaking on broadcast diversity (MB Docket 07-294) appears in the Federal Register.

NPR will not have to pay property taxes on its new home near Washington’s Union Station for 20 years, reports the Washington Post. The tax abatement offered by the District of Columbia, worth an estimated $40 million, was a major reason NPR opted to remain in Washington, D.C., rather than move to nearby Silver Spring, Md., home of Discovery Communications. Mediabistro posted internal memos and an FAQ about the move here.

The station manager charged with creating an independent nonprofit and viable financial plan to purchase KCPW in Salt Lake City launched a website appealing for public support. Ed Sweeney, who gave up his job at KCPW last week, established the Utah nonprofit Wasatch Public Media and is working with Public Radio Capital on a bid for the station. Even though Community Wireless, KCPW’s current licensee, gave Sweeney first pass at creating a plan for KCPW to retain its staff and its current NPR news/information format, there’s no guarantee that Sweeney’s plan will be chosen over those of other potential buyers, he writes on the website.

In a piece for the Los Angeles Times, Ken Burns responds to “grandstanding politicians who believe that public television must be de-funded” and “misguided cultural critics who mistake our mission and demand of us something we are not.” PBS is “obligated to serve the public in a number of decidedly unsexy ways,” he writes, and while it isn’t as fast-paced as commercial TV, pubTV persists in “doing things well and doing things that last.” In response to suggestions that PBS should have to compete in the marketplace like other media outlets, Burns writes, “Many blessing have flowed to America from that marketplace, but I am certain that none of the films I have made in the last nearly 30 years could have been produced anywhere but at PBS.”

NPR will move into a new home in Washington’s emerging mixed use NoMA (North of Massachusetts Avenue) neighborhood in 2012, the network and District of Columbia announced today (press release). The company will move its entire Washington-based operation from its current home on Massachusetts Avenue to 1111 N. Capitol St. NE, site of the historic former home of the Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Company, built in1927 (map). Consistent with D.C. development practice, the original facade will be incorporated into the new 10-story office tower, which will include a 60,000 square foot newsroom for NPR’s radio and multimedia ops and a public space for live shows and events.

Public broadcasting resembles the “live-in brother-in-law,” writes The Heritage Foundation’s Ken McIntyre in a column appearing in several newspapers. “For 40 years, taxpayers have paid the rent.” McIntyre says it’s time to cut pubradio and TV loose from government funding and let them “go it alone in the marketplace.” If PBS and NPR had no government funding, he adds, they would be less self-indulgent. Also, viewers and listeners would be more likely to give them money. Echoing Charles McGrath’s New York Times column “Is PBS Still Necessary,” McIntyre writes, “The original mission – to provide quality educational, cultural and public affairs programs – is now the province of dozens of specialty networks.” 

In the lefty journal The Nation, media activist Jerrold Starr offers his take on the Pittsburgh pubcasting piece of the McCain/lobbyist issue.

Daljit Dhaliwal has been chosen to anchor KCET’s upcoming Global Watch, an international news program premiering on PBS April 9. Dhaliwal is also anchor of Foreign Exchange, the international news program presented by Oregon Public Broadcasting and distributed by American Public Television. Global Watch, also streaming online, will examine perceptions of the U.S. abroad, incorporate reports from citizen journalists, and host discussion and gather stories online. Produced by KCET’s Bret Marcus, the program was initially imagined as part of a public affairs block for the PBS World multicast channel, to be produced by California Fault Line Productions, a nonprofit formed by KCET, KQED and PBS and headed up by former CNN producer Sid Bedingfield.

Nicole Sawaya has agreed to stay on as executive director of the Pacifica radio network, according to interim e.d. Dan Siegel. She resumes her duties tomorrow.

Inadequate pay, burnout and overwhelming pressure to raise money are driving nonprofit executives to plot their exits within five years, and their potential successors describe these challenges as reasons why they don’t aspire to top leadership positions, according to a recent national survey of emerging non-profit leaders. The Washington Post and the Chronicle of Philanthropy [subscription required] reported on the survey findings yesterday.