Although it had been negotiating with KCET for nearly a year over a dues disagreement, PBS was taken aback with the Oct. 8 announcement that the station was dropping its membership. “How quickly it happened was a surprise,” PBS President Paula Kerger said in the Los Angeles Times on Sunday (Oct. 10). The decision left confusion in its wake. KOCE President Mel Rogers says it has to “ramp up in a hurry” to assume primary station status. “It’s in our interest to make sure viewers get the same content at the time they’re accustomed to watching it,” he said. “That’s the goal we’re shooting for.”

KOCE in Huntington Beach, Calif., will assume primary PBS station responsibilities in the Los Angeles area when KCET severs its ties with PBS, writes station president Mel Rogers in a short note on the KOCE website. Rogers also called area PBS affiliates KLCS and KVCR its “partner stations.” He said the three will work together “to ensure all PBS shows are not only available, but are easy to find for our viewers.” Those stations, along with KCET, have been discussing a four-way partnership in an attempt to solve the tricky overlap situation in the L.A. market (Current, Aug.

KCET, public television’s major station in the nation’s second-largest media market, is dropping its PBS membership as of Jan. 1, 2011, station President Al Jerome told Current Friday (Oct. 8). The Los Angeles station will be the largest independent pubcaster in America. Jerome said he and Gordon Bava, chairman of KCET’s board of directors, came to the decision “very recently.” Jerome told his staff at 3:30 p.m. Eastern Friday, and also informed PBS that afternoon. The station had petitioned the PBS board for a dues reduction or a shift to PDP (Program Differentiation Plan) status but was rebuffed (Current, Aug.

The 11th season of what may be the only locally produced kids’ show on public TV premieres today (Oct. 8) on WTIU in Bloomington, Ind. The Friday Zone is a weekly program for children ages 8 to 11 with guests, projects and on-location segments — the Thanksgiving edition includes a trip to an orchard and corn maze. Co-hosts are Indiana University students Emily Fergason, a junior, who returns from last season; and newcomer Taylor Crousore, a sophomore. The show won a regional Emmy last year. (Image: Scott Witzke, WTIU)

At 5:15 a.m. today (Oct. 8), NPR and AFTRA (the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists) reached agreement on a five-year contract, NPR President Vivian Schiller told pubradio staff in an e-mail message. The deal is subject to ratification by the bargaining unit. Details later today, Schiller added, “after some of us get some sleep.” Get a feel for how the deal unfolded on the NPR AFTRA Twitter feed.

Lisa Fowlkes, deputy chief of the FCC’s Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, addressed the upcoming station Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) update at last week’s Radio Show convention in D.C. Broadcasters must update to CAP within six months as part of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) — which could cost stations up to $2,000 per full-power transmitter. “Absent authority from Congress, the FCC has no authority to provide any type of funding, including credits from annual regulatory fees, for broadcasters to purchase new equipment, if that is necessary,” Fowlkes said during the discussion moderated by a reporter from Radio World.

This year’s 12 selections for the Independent Television Service’s Global Perspectives Project tell stories in places as varied as Cambodia, Nicaragua, Iceland, Ethiopia and Uganda. The dozen films were selected from 489 submissions from 117 countries representing 75 languages, ITVS announced today (Oct. 7). The films will be featured on Independent Lens, P.O.V. and Global Voices, all on PBS. They’ll also run on commercial outlets such as the Sundance Channel and HBO, and online. For details on the films, click here.

Leslie Wilcox, president of Hawaii PBS, blogs about a generous “major donor.”

Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), on Wednesday (Oct. 6) was declared an official Super Reader during a visit to Marshalltown, Iowa, to honor his work in promoting and helping fund public television, according to the local Times-Republican. As such, Harkin is now eligible to wear his very own Super Reader Cape. “Where I work, they will probably not let me wear it,” Harkin told kids at the Marshalltown Public Library. “But when I go back to my office, I can wear it.” Presenting the honor was Dan Wardell, Iowa Public Television Kids Club host. Super Reader is part of PBS’s Super Why!

The Writers Guild of America East, which reps writers at several pubcasting stations, has written to FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski with a suggestion: Comcast should donate $10 million annually over 10 years for news and public affairs programming as a requirement of its merger with NBC Universal. The Los Angeles Times reports that Michael Winship, president of the guild, and Lowell Peterson, its executive director, wrote that the merger “would further consolidate the production and distribution of news and public affairs programming relied on by the American public.” So they think Comcast should “contribute significant resources to the production of truly independent content.”

Lots going on at Mister Rogers’s production company in Pittsburgh. First, it’s no longer known as Family Communications Inc.; it’s now the Fred Rogers Co.  There’s a website redesign. And it just received a two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Justice’s office of Community Oriented Policing Services. The $496,000 is for a nationwide roll-out of the company’s video-based police training program, “One on One: Connecting Cops & Kids.” It was one of only 19 recipients of 321 applications, and one of the four largest grants, according to the production company. It began developing “Cops & Kids” about a decade ago.

Several stations have joined to continue coverage of the BP oil spill in the Gulf Coast region, WBHM-FM in Birmingham, Ala., announced today (Oct. 6). Producing content under a $538,000 CPB grant are: lead station Louisiana Public Broadcasting; Alabama Public Television; Mississippi Public Broadcasting; WEDU-TV/FM, Tampa, Fla.; WUSF-TV/FM, Tampa; WWNO-FM, New Orleans; WSRE-TV/FM, Pensacola, Fla.; WVAS-FM, Montgomery, Ala.; and KRVS-FM in Lafayette, La. In addition to creating and sharing broadcast and digital content, the Gulf Coast Consortium will conduct community engagement activities through social media sites and town hall meetings.

The redesign of PBS.org will emphasize broadcast promotions, feature a “Today’s Video” clip for users to catch up on shows that have already aired, and offer web-only content from member stations, reports PaidContent.org, a news site on the economics of new media. There’ll also be a new iPad app for users to preview shows and watch select full-length videos. No word yet from PBS on the launch date.

In a memo to staff today (Oct. 6), WNET/Thirteen President Neal Shapiro announced a four-day furlough for time during the week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve. The savings in salaries and operational costs will amount to “upwards of $1 million,” Shapiro said. Employees will take four days of unpaid leave between Dec. 27 and Dec. 30. The WNET workforce had a three-day furlough the same week last year.

“Public Media in a Digital Age” was the topic of the panel discussion Tuesday (Oct. 5) organized by Free Press at the New America Foundation in D.C. The conversation ranged from localism to relevance and funding of pubmedia. “It is profoundly important that local public broadcasting stations are controlled by people in their communities . . . That’s where the funding comes from,” PBS President Paula Kerger said. Also appearing was Mark Thompson, director general of the BBC. He noted that measuring share of audience isn’t what ultimately matters in public broadcasting. “One program can change someone’s life,” he said.