“Public By Choice is a multimedia, interactive project designed to educate the audience about the public radio system and offer the system a flexible way to engage its audience.” (Via Robert Paterson.)

Reducing television violence may be the next thrust for Washington policymakers looking to expand the FCC’s regulatory powers. Anticipating the release of a major FCC study on violence and gore on broadcast television, the Los Angeles Times reports on various approaches that have been floated in Congress.

WETA-FM in Washington, D.C., resumed broadcasts of classical music last night in a format change that was closely coordinated with WGMS, a local station that replaced Mozart with oldies pop tunes. The Washington Post reports that several WETA staff members, including talk show host Rebecca Roberts and Program Director Maxie Jackson, will lose their jobs. WAMU-FM, now the city’s sole all-news NPR station, has picked up A Prairie Home Companion, which WETA dropped, and may make other changes. The Post‘s Marc Fisher reviews the new sound: “Best sign so far: Full-length works, albeit relatively short ones, even in morning drive time.”

After a stint as a NewsHour special correspondent, Judy Woodruff signs on full-time Feb. 5 as a senior correspondent and back-up anchor to Jim Lehrer. Gail Shister of the Philadelphia Inquirer interviewed Woodruff about her decision to return to daily journalism.

During an appearance at the Television Critics Association press tour yesterday, This American Life creator and host Ira Glass explained why his new TV show will be on Showtime, not PBS. “Public television is terrible,” Glass says. “This isn’t the greatest thing for me to say, but it’s the truth. In terms of innovation and what they do, you know, it’s just not that interesting most of the time.” Roger Catlin reported on Glass’s comments in today’s Hartford Courant. [Page down to second item.]

Neal Shapiro, president of NBC News until 16 months ago, will succeed William Baker as president and c.e.o. of New York’s WNET. Shapiro, 48, a 25-year veteran of network news who ran NBC’s Dateline before heading NBC’s global news operations, will assume one of Baker’s titles next month, serving for a year as president while Baker remains c.e.o. Baker will relinquish the chief exec role next February, becoming president emeritus. The board of Educational Broadcasting Corp., licensee of both WNET and WLIW in Long Island, unanimously approved the transition plan on Jan. 18, ending a year-long executive recruitment process that began as a search to replace Paula Kerger, former c.o.o.,

The board of WNET in New York will vote this morning to appoint former NBC News President Neal Shapiro as successor to William Baker, president and c.e.o. of the station since 1987, according to the New York Times.

Comedian Patton Oswalt, who stars on CBS’s King of Queens, told USA Weekend that public radio’s The Sound of Young America ranks among his favorite podcasts. Host Jesse Thorn “knows how to interview comedians and gives them endless opportunities to be funny,” Oswalt said. “That’s a skill.”

Complaints from listeners have prompted Iowa Public Radio to restore On Point to its weekday news lineup, reports the Des Moines Register. The network had replaced the talk show from WBUR Jan. 1 with The Diane Rehm Show as part of a schedule overhaul. “This was the only issue that really got a wide response from people,” said Todd Mundt, director of programming.

Bill Moyers, 72, resumes weekly appearances on PBS with a new Friday-night version of Bill Moyers’ Journal in April, he announced at the Television Critics Association press tour on Saturday, the New York Times reported. And Ken Burns will produce for PBS at least until 2022, when he’ll be 68. Critics objected that PBS hurt publicity for Burns’ WWII series by scheduling it amid the commercial networks’ fall premieres in September, the Los Angeles Times said.

Former CPB President Richard Carlson helped raise a $3 million defense fund for I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former aide to Vice President Cheney who was indicted in the Valerie Plame leak case, CBSNews.com reported. After Libby’s indictment, ex-State Department official Richard Armitage admitted that he was the primary source for columnist Robert Novak’s 2003 column.

KTOO in Juneau, Alaska, launched three distinct programming streams Friday, one news and two music, making use of two newly acquired FM signals. “If we underestimated anything, it was how complex running these three radio stations would be in the midst of other technological challenges,” President Bill Legere told the Juneau Empire.

Programs on public TV and radio received seven of the 14 duPont-Columbia Awards announced Saturday. Winners include Martin Scorsese’s Dylan bio on American Masters; Brook Lapping Productions’ Israel and the Arabs; the WGBH Cape and Island stations’ doc on Cape Cod poverty; Frontline‘s The Age of AIDS; Lisa Sleeth and Jim Butteworth’s Seoul Train on Independent Lens; public TV’s California Connected; and NPR’s Iraq coverage.

Northeast Indiana Public Radio in Fort Wayne plans to pay a commercial broadcaster $1.75 million for an FM channel on which it will air classical music, reports the Fort Wayne Daily News. “This will be a place that finally gives a greater voice to the fine arts in Fort Wayne,” said Bruce Haines, g.m.

As Sirius Satellite Radio flirts with competitor XM Satellite Radio (sending their stock prices rising), a group of George Washington University law students has formed a consumer advocacy group to push for continued consumer choice and oppose monopoly. Consumer Coalition for Competition in Satellite Radio, or C3SR, will debut at the National Conference on Media Reform this weekend in Memphis.