Nice Above Fold - Page 506
Fine of $50,000 settle transfer of San Francisco’s KUSF
The FCC closed its investigation of a management agreement between the University of San Francisco and the Los Angeles–based Classical Public Radio Network June 7 after each of the parties agreed to pay the federal government $25,000 as part of a consent decree.NPR hires two reporters, WXXI news director rappels down 21 stories, and more...
Leila Fadel, Cairo bureau chief for the Washington Post, signs on as NPR’s Cairo-based correspondent in July. She covered the Iraq War for almost five years and won a George Polk Award in 2007 for her reporting from Baghdad. She replaces Soraya Sarhaddi Nelson, who will report from Kabul, Afghanistan, and then Berlin. Gregory Warner, a senior reporter for American Public Media’s Marketplace, will join NPR as East Africa correspondent, based in Nairobi, Kenya, in December. Warner now covers the economics and business of healthcare, but he’s previously reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan and the DR Congo. Warner replaces Gwen Thompkins, who is now living in New Orleans and writing a book of short stories.Output: Open-source Bach, eyes on Venus, videos from Louisville pubradio, and more
On the afternoon of June 24, Wisconsin Public Radio will air a new recording of the great composer’s Goldberg Variations. The broadcast presentation wouldn’t be especially unusual, except that listeners who visit a special website, opengoldberg.wpr.org, will be able to view a score of the work as it plays...
Ramer sees potential return on CPB’s investments
A fast-track request for CPB aid to a digital innovation project morphed into a pointed exchange over the corporation’s overall funding objectives during a June 4 board meeting in Washington, D.C.PubTV tests new approaches for fundraising with kids’ programs
Though public television stations have been reluctant to solicit pledges during their daytime PBS Kids block, some are testing new approaches for tapping into viewers' strong affinity for the shows.Film explores influence of WBAI freeform pioneer Bob Fass
A documentary examines the legacy of the countercultural legend.
Wildfire takes Colorado radio station off air
The main transmitter of KUNC-FM in Greeley, Colo., is off the air due to the High Park Fire, a wildfire covering almost 37,000 acres. “KUNC’s main transmitter is located on Buckhorn Mountain which is directly in the fire zone of the High Park Fire,” says a post on KUNC’s website. “There is no power at the site and as a result, KUNC is not on the air on 91.5fm.” KUNC is covering the wildfire on its website, however. UPDATE: KUNC President Neil Best emailed Current: “With the main signal down we have lost service to a translator in Boulder, the KENC station in Estes Park, and a translator on the eastern plains in Morgan County.Organizers prep for next wave of LPFM
The new noncommercial stations, which broadcast at 100 watts or less, will join the ranks of about 800 LPFMs already on the air.Click and Clack are checking out but will keep chortling in repeats
NPR announced June 8 that Tom and Ray Magliozzi, hosts of the popular and long-running Car Talk, will lay down their wrenches and stop recording new episodes as of October. The show will continue, however, with producers repackaging calls mined from Car Talk’s 25-years-deep archive.Multicasts tailored to local priorities
Bolstered by ratings data on their digital multicast channels and years of experience in managing them, public TV station programmers in many markets are refining their channel lineups.Kerger among winners of annual Brand Builder Awards
PBS President Paula Kerger is one of four honorees for the 10th annual Brand Builder Awards, sponsored by Broadcasting & Cable, Multichannel News and Promax/BDA, the international membership organization for major media marketing professionals. Other winners this year are FX Networks President John Landgraf, Sony Pictures Television President of U.S. Distribution John Weiser, and Walmart. All will be honored this week during the Promax/BDA conference in Los Angeles."WGBH Music" kicks off on YouTube
WGBH in Boston has launched a YouTube music channel. WGBH Music will offer radio listeners a look at short videos featuring classical, jazz, celtic, singer/songwriters and more.Pubradio needs new ideas and courage to try them, MPR's Collins says
Can public radio still take risks? That’s the headline of a thought-provoking post on Minnesota Public Radio’s News Cut blog by writer Bob Collins, an MPR journalist, in the wake of the Car Talk hosts’ retirement announcement. “This has been an interesting time in public radio of late,” Collins writes, “and the next few years are going to test whether it’s capable of taking a risk enough to give an outlet to new ways of doing things. Car Talk is gone, [Prairie Home Companion‘s Garrison] Keillor is retiring, [MPR newsman Gary] Eichten has retired, and an increasing number of people who basically built public radio are turning things over to the next generation, which has not been well schooled in the art of betting it all on an idea.”Kerger suggests viewers contact NEA "if they have issues with the focus of their funding"
In an article in the Deseret News, PBS President Paula Kerger advises viewers to reach out to the National Endowment for the Arts to voice their support for PBS arts programming. “I’ve not tried to encourage any large, grassroots efforts,” Kerger said, “but I think people should let the NEA know if they have issues with the focus of their funding.” The NEA recently broadened its Arts on Radio and Television fund to Arts in Media, resulting in far fewer grants to public radio and TV programs (Current, April 23). Kerger “recommended addressing concerns to Rocco Landesman, NEA chairman, either through direct correspondence or a phone call,” the Salt Lake City, Utah, newspaper said in the Saturday (June 9) story.Academic study on thank-you gifts for donations yields unexpected results
A new study on thank-you gifts in exchange for donations has produced counterintuitive results, according to Psychology Today: Receiving a gift unconditionally, such as with a solicitation letter, can have a positive effect, but conditional gifts — an offer of receiving a gift later, in return for a donation — may actually suppress donations. The research was conducted by George E. Newman, assistant professor of organizational behavior in the Yale School Management, and Y. Jeremy Shen, of Yale’s school of psychology, and will be published in an upcoming Journal of Economic Psychology. Researchers asked study participants who they thought would donate more money to public broadcasting: a group offered a commemorative pen in return for a donation, or a group not offered the pen.
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