Some 140 projects are listed in Current’s annual Pipeline survey, including its one-time addendum in December. Among the programs are noninstructional public TV projects one hour or longer in various stages of planning, fundraising and production that will debut nationally in January 2010 and beyond. For space reasons we excluded sequels and episodes of ongoing series that are 60 minutes or shorter. Winter ’11 After the Hunt with Chef John Folse Producing organization: Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Distributor: APT. Episodes: 26 x 30 (HD). Status: postproduction. Major funders: Baton Rouge Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation and Tourism.

In June 2007, when conservative publisher Rupert Murdoch purchased the venerable Wall Street Journal, actor and philanthropist Paul Newman was upset. Wary of Murdoch’s reputation for buying up and sensationalizing news outlets, Newman sensed trouble ahead for American newspapers. Soon after, Newman called his local PBS member station, Connecticut Public Television. He had a positive relationship with CPTV: President Jerry Franklin says the station once received a donation check written on Newman’s personal account for $300,000. But this time, Newman had a programming idea — and with it, a stunning offer. “Paul thought the Wall Street Journal sale was the beginning of the end of journalism,” says Franklin, who had an ongoing telephone friendship with Newman.

Idaho Public Television has hired Megan Griffin as its new director of development. She will manage a team of 10, including director of membership, director of major giving and director of corporate sponsorship. From 2005 to ’09 she was a program director and director of development at the Children’s Home Society of Idaho, where she created a program that raised more than $3 million.

KPCC President Bill Davis will chair a task force of public radio programmers, researchers and news execs analyzing programming opportunities and economics for NPR, Board Chair Dave Edwards announced today. “[T]here are some dayparts that have traditionally underachieved in their ability to attract an audience,” Edwards wrote in his Dec. 13 memo to NPR member stations. “The economics of new program development also remain a challenge.” Another role for the task force will be to articulate “the role that NPR and stations can play” in programming opportunities. “This work will be very helpful in guiding the NPR Board on future investments in programming,” Edwards wrote.

The controversial online TV provider ivi, which sells worldwide access to broadcast signals, announced today (Dec. 13) that it has added Chicago channels to its lineup. A rep for ivi told Current that the new stations include pubcaster WTTW/Channel 11. ivi, which launched in September, captures and encrypts TV stations’ signals and distributes them through a web app to subscribers. It says stations are paid for the content through the U.S. Copyright Office. PBS, WNET.org, WGBH and 22 other plaintiffs disagree, and filed suit in U.S. District Court in New York on Sept. 28, saying in part: “The defendants are nothing more than publicity-seeking pirates” (Current, Oct.

Should NPR have accepted a $1.8 million reporting grant from the Open Society Foundations, given the antagonism that political conservatives and Fox News has for their founder, philanthropist and financier George Soros? “In retrospect, knowing what I now know, would I rather that the first money had come from somewhere else? Probably yes,” says Oregon Public Broadcasting President and NPR Board member Steve Bass in Politico‘s lengthy Dec. 12 report on how the grant exacerbated the controversy over NPR’s dismissal of news analyst Juan Williams. Politico’s Keach Hagey reveals that the grant, which backs start-up of an NPR news initiative to strengthen enterprise reporting in state capitols, was approved in mid-August after months of discussions.

Current is likely to have a new publisher in January — the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. Details of the contract transferring the print/web publication remain in negotiation, but the governing boards of the university and of Current’s longtime publisher, New York’s WNET, have approved the deal in principle. Approval by the WNET Board, Dec. 9 [2010], prompted coverage in a New York Times blog Dec. 12. WNET accepted responsibility for publishing Current in 1983, after the collapse of the paper’s founding parent, the National Association of Educational Broadcasters. The editor and staff will keep their jobs; and the paper will continue to cover public media.

The big audience statistic reveals for the first time a comprehensive estimate of public media users across all platforms.

Current is likely to have a new publisher in January — the School of Communication at American University in Washington, D.C. Details of the contract to transfer the print/web publication remain in negotiation, but the governing boards of the university and Current’s longtime publisher, New York’s WNET, have approved the deal in principle. The unanimous approval by the WNET Board, Dec. 9, prompted a story in a New York Times blog Dec. 12. WNET has published Current since 1983, for most of its 30 years. The editor and staff will keep their jobs, the publication will continue to cover public media, and the School of Communication has said Current will be editorially independent.

One year ago, on Dec. 10, 2009, Curtis Monk had a heart attack. Monk, president of Commonwealth Public Broadcasting, which operates Virginia’s Community Idea Stations, doesn’t remember anything about that day after his wife called 911. But his rescuers, paramedic Julie Anderson and emergency medical technician Desirée Myers, spent the year wondering how he was doing: They had to shock his heart three times to bring it back to life, and soon after turned Monk over to the hospital. On the anniversary of his rescue, the Richmond (Va.) Ambulance Authority reunited Monk and his lifesavers, as part of an employee appreciation day.

KCET in Los Angeles, going independent of PBS membership on Jan. 1, 2011, has announced its lineup. Pubcasting programmers have been waiting to see how the station will fill its schedule without longtime PBS staples like Frontline, Masterpiece and Antiques Roadshow. According to the station, KCET will have a “new on-air look” and organized “themed viewing blocks” to make it easier for viewers to find shows. On primetime: Sunday: Hollywood movies. First Works looks at how directors approach their craft. The new Roger Ebert Presents At the Movies offers film critiques, and KCET Presents runs popular movie titles. Monday: Action and travel.

The good news: 2011 promises to be a big year for 4G, with new mobile devices hitting the marketplace, and networks upgrading. The bad news: While many industry players remain enthusiastic, few will see much 4G revenue in 2011. That’s the outlook from the Yankee Group, the Boston-based tech research and consulting firm. Among its 21 specific predictions: — Mobile users will flock to the simplicity and savings of hotspots, which will reduce 4G subscriptions in the long run. — Mobile video won’t be “the killer 4G app” everyone is expecting. Consumers will spend more time with music services like Pandora and Slacker.

The New Jersey Network, which Gov. Chris Christie wants to cut from the state coffers, could be heading to a new steward, Richard Stockton College. College President Hermann Saatkamp has asked the governor to make NJN part of a college nonprofit managed as a broadcast and radio operation in conjunction with a group of state colleges. The station would be administered through Stockton’s 501c3 organization. The college has been home to WLFR-FM since 1984. The proposal could keep NJN on television and the radio into next year, when budget cuts were expected to end programming (Current, July 6).

What if PBS NewsHour had been approached by WikiLeaks with its raw, secret diplomatic cables? How would the news staff have handled the material? On Nov. 29, the cache of documents was given to journalists at the Guardian, Der Spiegel and Le Monde (the New York Times also received the data, via the Guardian). That was one question for Hari Sreenivasan, online and on-air correspondent with the show, in today’s (Dec. 9) online Reddit chat marking the one-year anniversary of its revamp (Current, Jan. 11). “We don’t have nearly as many staff members as those institutions but we would have reached out to partner perhaps with someone the likes of ProPublica to help sort through the data,” Sreenivasan replied.

Barrett Golding, indie curator of NPR’s Hearing Voices, on Tuesday (Dec. 7) was named a USA Rasmuson Fellow by United States Artists. He is one of 52 artists receiving $50,000 each from the grant-making and advocacy organization. Winners include “cutting-edge experimenters and traditional practitioners from the fields of architecture and design, crafts and traditional arts, dance, literature, film and media, music, theater arts, and visual arts,” the group said. The fellows were announced at a celebration Wednesday night at Jazz at Lincoln Center in New York City. US Artists has also unveiled USA Projects, an online microphilanthropy initiative to encourage direct connections between artists and the public, catalyzing new funding for artists and helping to complete creative endeavors.