Western Illinois University in Macomb has announced the four candidates for director of its WQPT-TV, Quad Cities Public Television. Interviewing for the position are Victor Hogstrom, executive director and general manager of the Utah Public Radio Network; Mary Pruess, former president and general manager of WNIT, South Bend, Ind.; Sharon McNeal, former coordinator of communication and marketing at Pinellas (Fla.) County Schools; and Andrew Chalanick, director of programming at WDSC-TV, Daytona Beach, Fla. Interviews should be concluded by the end of the month.

Philadelphia’s WXPN-FM has converted a long-running alternative-rock stream into XPN2 Singer-Songwriter Radio, the broadcaster announced last week. The new stream, which can be heard online and as an HD Radio channel in the Philadelphia area, highlights music by performers “rooted in the singer-songwriter tradition,” the station said in a press release. The stream had launched in 2006 as Y-Rock on XPN, a reincarnation of alternative rock station Y100. That former FM station went online-only in 2005 after falling victim to a format change. It then adopted XPN’s brand. In 2011 WXPN rebranded the stream as XPN2. The new Singer-Songwriter Radio features in-studio performances and an additional broadcast of WXPN’s World Café, as well as Mountain Stage and four hours of music from Folk Alley, a web stream programmed by WKSU in Kent, Ohio.

Crowdfunding website Kickstarter announced Thursday that independent film projects on its site had passed the $100 million mark in pledges since its 2009 launch, with $42.6 million of that total pledged to documentaries — the largest share of any film genre. Many Kickstarter-funded documentaries find their way to larger success, whether through film festivals, theatrical distribution or airings on networks like PBS. This year, three Kickstarter-assisted documentary features shortlisted for a Best Documentary Oscar nomination will also air on PBS in 2013: The Waiting Room, Detropia and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.

Next Avenue — a web-based initiative focusing on Americans over 50 years old from Twin Cities Public Television, American Public Television and PBS — will now share content with RLTV, a cable and online network for seniors, the two announced Wednesday. RLTV, headquartered in Baltimore, will license for its website “targeted, mission- and category-aligned content that is selected from among Next Avenue’s rich array of original articles and blogs,” the announcement said. The deal, effective immediately, also allows for Next Avenue to develop custom exclusive online content for RLTV. Next Avenue, based in St. Paul and launched in May 2012, publishes original articles and blogs daily, written and edited by veteran journalists.

Dec. 31, 2012, marked the last day that Lisa Mullins, longtime host of PRI’s The World, held that position. On Jan. 1, reporter and substitute host Marco Werman took over hosting full time, a promotion that PRI announced Dec. 7. Werman, formerly a senior producer for the show, joined The World in 1995 and began stepping in as a host three years ago. Julia Yager, PRI’s v.p. of brand management and marketing strategy, said the show’s producers made the change because Werman “best embodies the direction of the program” as it aims to expand further on digital multimedia platforms.

NPR today announced changes to its roster of co-hosts for All Things Considered. Audie Cornish, who had been guest-hosting during Michele Norris’s leave of absence, becomes permanent co-host of the NPR newsmag. Norris will return to work next month in what NPR describes as an “expanded role” — host and special correspondent. She will produce in-depth profiles, interviews and series as well as guest-host on NPR News programs. Norris stepped out of her prominent on-air role in  October 2011 to avoid any potential ethical conflict in covering the presidential race; her husband Broderick Johnson had taken a job as a senior adviser to President Obama’s re-election campaign.

As part of its annual “The Lives They Lived” issue, a collection of obituaries for people who passed away during the previous year, the New York Times Magazine drew on an interview with author and illustrator Maurice Sendak that aired on NPR’s Fresh Air in September 2011. In a video on the Times’s website, illustrations by Christoph Niemann accompany a touching clip from the interview, in which Sendak talked with Terry Gross about his athiesm, death, and getting older. “There’s something I’m finding out as I’m aging: I am in love with the world,” Sendak said. He also told Gross that of all the interviewers he knew, only she brought out such reflections in him.

Two recent deaths of interest to public broadcasters: Hyman Goldin, the executive secretary for the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television, which led to the creation of CPB; and Jim Adams, a longtime sports director at WKAR in East Lansing, Mich. Goldin died Nov. 21 in a rehabilitation center in Beverly, Mass., of complications from a fall several weeks earlier, reports the Boston Globe. He was 99. “An early advocate for public television,” the Globe obituary said, “Hyman Goldin believed the relentless push for profit in commercial TV compromised the quality of shows that are designed to inform.” Adams died Dec.

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn will continue to be heard over broadcast radio after the show has left distributor PRI in spring 2013, host and creator Jesse Thorn told Current.

Veteran pubcaster Polly Anderson is leaving the helm of New Mexico PBS to take over leadership of WUCF TV in Orlando, Fla., in early February. Anderson also worked for Alabama Public Television and KWBU community radio and television stations in Waco, Texas, before joining KNME in 2008 as general manager and c.e.o. She is vice-chair of the Association of Public Television Stations and former chair of the National Educational Telecommunications Association. University of Central Florida launched WUCF in July 2011 as the new PBS primary station in Orlando, following WMFE-TV’s departure from PBS and subsequent sale. “Polly is a dynamic leader in the public television industry,” said Grant J.

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn, the Los Angeles-based nationally distributed radio program and podcast, is leaving longtime distributor PRI, host and creator Jesse Thorn announced on his website Dec. 19.

This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. WGBH has agreed to pay more than $300,000 in a civil settlement with the U.S Attorney’s Office to resolve allegations that it improperly tracked and accounted for federal grant money, The Associated Press is reporting. U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz told AP that from 2005–08 the Boston pubcaster maintained an inadequate accounting system for tracking grant expenditures. The settlement, announced Thursday, is for damages incurred by the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. WGBH spokesperson Jeanne Hopkins told Current that the settlement involves a payment equal to the error rate of half a percent to one percent of the total value of the grants, which was $60 million.

Trustees of the San Mateo Community College District, who dismissed two finalists in November interested in purchasing its KCSM-TV, have reopened the bidding process. The Request for Proposal presents an opportunity for bidders to either acquire the station’s assets, or agree to subsidize operation of the station by the district and participate “in some capacity” in offering the KCSM-TV spectrum for sale in the FCC’s upcoming reverse auction. “For a sale, the district will independently evaluate whether the bidder will qualify under FCC rules to take assignment of the KCSM-TV license and how long it might take to get FCC approval,” the RFP said.