A new genre of makeover programs flourishes in Britain, reports the New York Times. “Their proliferation has led to criticisms that British television, once known for its quality and innovation, has deteriorated into a showcase for relatively inexpensive programs that cater to viewers’ lazier and meaner instincts.”

A new report discusses the future of WNCW-FM in Spindale, N.C., according to the Asheville Citizen-Times. In the report, administrators at Isothermal Community College, the station’s owner, tell their board that other broadcasters want to buy or manage WNCW. They also suggest changes to the station if the board decides not to sell. [Earlier coverage of WNCW in Current.]

Joe Hagan reports in the New York Observer that PBS talk host Charlie Rose rushed back to Manhattan when deposed New York Times Editor Howell Raines offered an interview. In the newsmaking interview, Raines came off about as poorly as Jayson Blair in HIS post-scandal debut.

Sept. 16 is the application deadline for rural public TV stations to apply for aid to put their digital signals on the air. The Agriculture Department is making $15 million available, according to a press release. APTS sought the aid as part of a strategy to find federal money beyond the CPB appropriation, as President John Lawson wrote in a commentary this spring.

The CPB Board of Directors adopted these goals as part of the corporation’s fiscal year 2004 budget, July 22, 2003. I. LOCAL SERVICES AND CONTENT Strengthen the value and viability of local stations as essential community institutions by improving their operational effectiveness and fiscal stability, and increasing their capacity to invest in and create sustainable services and content that will advance their local mission. To achieve this Goal, CPB will pursue the following objectives: Measure the value of local service as perceived by the intended beneficiaries – Conduct research to understand how various media are used by the audiences that stations serve or hope to serve in the future, and how the pattern of use is changing as new platforms and media emerge.

Maria Martin, executive producer of public radio’s Latino USA, is leaving the show as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. She says she’s leaving to keep a CPB grant that drew objections from the University of Texas, where the show is produced.

The MITRE Corp. has released its study of whether low-power FM stations can operate on third-adjacent channels to full-power stations. The Prometheus Radio Project, a group of low-power activists, say the study proves the FCC could safely license many more LPFMs. Other stakeholders have yet to comment. [Earlier coverage in Current.]

San Francisco Chronicle critic Tim Goodman has some scathing words for PBS, which he says is “hopelessly broken.” President Pat Mitchell and her programmers “can’t form a declarative sentence to save their lives.” (Via Romenesko.)

Five years after setting it up as a way of helping public TV make decisions with new decisiveness and agility, members voted decisively and nearly unanimously this month to shut it down. The National Forum for Public Television Executives, which never had a full-time staff and is folding with 87 public TV licensees — about half of the total number — as members, had held useful discussions but never proved itself indispensable, leaders said. Fifty of the 55 member stations voting in a recent ballot favored closing the forum, said Chairman Gary Ferrell last week. The forum’s governing council decided to call for the vote in June.

CPB has revived debate within public TV about balance and fairness in public affairs programs, citing specifically Bill Moyers’ dual roles of host and uninhibited commentator on his Friday-night PBS show. After a vigorous debate among station reps and producers June 9 [2003] at the PBS Annual Meeting in Miami Beach, CPB President Bob Coonrod proposed to broaden discussions within public TV on standards of fairness. In a widely circulated letter exchange with PBS President Pat Mitchell, he put topics from the session–including Moyers’ roles–on the agenda for future talks between the two. “Specific notions of fairness, or perceptions of fairness, may vary by individual or by region, but the overall message was clear: There is a deep and abiding interest among our colleagues to try to ‘get it right,'” Coonrod wrote.

The Association of Independents in Radio has published an online version of its newsletter, Airspace–and this one is devoted exclusively to independent producing and the Web.

The executive director of Pacifica says the network’s move back to Berkeley is “symbolic of Pacifica returning to its roots, returning to its mission,” reports the Los Angeles Times.

Execs at San Francisco’s KQED are looking for ways to reduce expenses and may cut up to 40 jobs, reports the Contra Costa Times. (More in the Mercury News.)

The press fails when it allows “the principle of objectivity to make us passive recipients of news, rather than aggressive analyzers and explainers of it,” writes Brent Cunningham in the Columbia Journalism Review.

The BBC is embroiled in “unusually nasty and high-stakes clashes” over its news coverage with political leaders in two countries–British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the LA Times reports.