Applications are now being accepted for the 2011 Producers Workshop at WGBH, part of the CPB/PBS Producers Academy. It’s open to producers who want to create content for pubcasting, either through a  station or independently. Application deadline is July 8 for the October workshop in Boston. Want to know more? Check out what alums are doing on the Producers Workshop Online.

WHYY overcame a deficit of $3.9 million to end the last fiscal year with a $1.7 million surplus, reports the Philadelphia Inquirer. WHYY’s new audited financial statement shows that the station received $8.9 million in program contracts and other project revenue in fiscal year 2010, $4.9 million more than the previous year. Meanwhile, personnel and fund-raising costs dropped — including station President William Marrazzo’s base compensation, which fell from $506,157 in FY09 to $448,161 in FY10.

In an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!, longtime PBS newsman Bill Moyers sounds a warning. “Public broadcasting, which remains a place that treats you as a citizen and not a consumer, is … threatened,” he said. “We must defend it. We must call it back to its heights. We must continue to support it, because without it, we’re at the mercy, totally, of corporate power.”

“Information Needs of Communities: The Changing Media Landscape in a Broadband Age,” a report on the future of media in America from the Federal Communications Commission, was released today (June 9). Here (PDF) is the section on public broadcasting. It notes that while PBS “airs some of the best journalistic documentaries on TV,” public television “has placed a much smaller emphasis on local news.” An FCC analysis of Tribune Media Services Data shows that 94 percent of noncom stations air less than 30 minutes of local news daily. It also said there are “significant financial obstacles standing in the way of more local public TV news and information programming.”

WLRN in Miami is dropping use of the Florida Public Radio Network in protest of Gov. Rick Scott’s decision to end all funding to public broadcasters in the state — except to WFSU, which will still receive $1.8 million for the legislative-focused Florida Channel. John LaBonia, g.m. of WLRN, says the station will instead report on the state government by joining the combined bureau in Tallahassee created by the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald. “The governor zeroed out public broadcasting because he’s calling it a special interest,” LaBonia told the Times. “When you single out one station and give to it but nobody else, that’s the definition of a special interest.”

The Senate Commerce Committee voted 21 to 4 today (June 8) to authorize incentive auctions to compensate broadcasters that give up spectrum for wireless broadband. It’s part of a larger effort to fund an emergency communications network. If it becomes law, the legislation will also compensate broadcasters who retain their spectrum but are “repacked” to make larger, contiguous swaths of vacated spectrum available for wireless (Current, “Spectrum talk at NETA: One ominous session,” Jan. 24, 2011; also Feb. 8, 2010). The bill must now pass the full Senate and move to the Republican-controlled House. The Association of Public Television Stations told Current in a statement: “We have been carefully watching progress on the Hill regarding FCC authority to conduct incentive auctions.

According to research out this week from Knowledge Networks, the number of Americans exclusively using over-the-air (OTA) television broadcasting in their home increased from 42 million to 46 million over the last year. The demographics of broadcast-only households skew towards younger adults, minorities and lower-income families, the report finds. The “2011 Ownership Survey and Trend Report” shows that 15 percent of all U.S. households with TVs use just over-the-air signals; that compares with 14 percent of homes reported as broadcast-only for the previous three years. Knowledge Networks estimates that more than 17 million households, or about 45.6 million consumers, receive television exclusively through broadcast signals.

U.S. Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), a longtime pubcasting champion on Capitol Hill, underwent a successful laparoscopic appendectomy at Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, Calif., on Tuesday (June 7), according to a statement from her office. There were no complications and she is making a full recovery. “Rep. Eshoo will be working from home for the rest of the week,” the statement said.

PBS NewsHour and WTTW just received a $250,000, one-year grant from the Joyce Foundation to collaborate on coverage of Great Lakes region news. The partners will produce segments for the national PBS NewsHour audience; expand local reporting on Chicago Tonight and its digital platforms; and create national arts reports for NewsHour and related arts and culture content for the Online NewsHour. “Public affairs programs such as Chicago Tonight are important, credible platforms for informing the public on policy issues that most local television news programs would not cover,” said Joyce Foundation President Ellen Alberding in a statement. “And by partnering with PBS NewsHour, we know these regional issues will receive national attention.”

A group of community leaders and jazz fans working to preserve music programming on Pittsburgh’s WDUQ, the NPR News and jazz station that has been in ownership limbo for more than a year, asked the FCC to delay the proposed license transfer to Essential Public Media (EPM), according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The expectant owner recently announced plans to convert 90.5 FM into an all-news station and move all but six hours of jazz programming to an HD Radio channel. Evan Pattak, chair of Jazz Lives in Pittsburgh, recently described the format change as “draconian” in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the Federal Communication Commission’s highly anticipated report on the future of media, to be released Thursday, “holds little more than minor suggestions for rule changes, such as requiring broadcasters to put more information online.” The paper cites sources that have read what it characterizes as “the voluminous document.” The document also suggests that the Internal Revenue Service help struggling media companies get an easier path to becoming nonprofits. “It’s more of a history of media than a future of media [report],” said one FCC official who has read the report.

The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is releasing a new report, “Families Matter,” documenting how families with young children integrate digital media into their lives, today (June 7) at the E 3 Expo for electronic gaming in Los Angeles. Center Executive Director Michael Levine writes on Huffington Post that the findings include: Only half of parents are playing with their kids on newer platforms such as video game consoles; many parents are spending more time with their children engaged in traditional activities (TV, books, board games); and while more than half of parents are concerned about the effect of media usage on their children, fewer than 1 in 5 parents think their kids spend too much time with digital media.

The Senate Commerce Committee is set to mark up a spectrum incentive auction bill Wednesday (June 8), but that could prove to be a “marathon undertaking,” according to Broadcasting & Cable. The bill, S. 911, contains nearly 100 draft amendments. It would allow the Federal Communications Commission to compensate broadcasters for giving up some spectrum, around 120 MHz total, to make room for more wireless broadband. It would also allow allocate the D block of spectrum to first responders for an interoperable broadband emergency communications network rather than auction it. The bill’s sponsor, Senate Commerce Committee chairman Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.),

American Public Media is announcing J.J. Yore’s promotion from vice president/executive producer to vice president/general manager of pubradio’s Marketplace. APM said in a statement today (June 7) that in his new role, Yore will be responsible for overseeing all editorial and business operations activity. Yore was part of the team that created Marketplace in 1988. He has worked as a reporter, editor, and broadcast producer for the show. In his most recent role as executive producer, he oversaw Marketplace’s on-air and online programming. Prior to launching Marketplace, Yore was editor and associate publisher of Current.

As expected, New York Gov. Chris Christie today (June 6) announced that New Jersey Public Media, a new nonprofit subsidiary of WNET/Thirteen in New York City, will take over the television stations of the New Jersey Network as the state ends financial support on July 1. NJN will now be known as NJTV and will continue to provide a nightly newscast, according to the New York Times. On the radio side, four state-owned licenses will be acquired outright by New York Public Radio, which operates WNYC and WQXR, and the remaining five will be purchased by the Philadelphia public broadcaster WHYY.