For our RSS readers, don’t miss this Current exclusive: “WPBT sells Nightly Business Report to entrepreneur with history of legal disputes.”

“Most public television stations will merge or go broke in the next five years … and PBS in its current configuration can’t be far behind,” predicts Jack Shakely, president emeritus of the California Community Foundation, in the Aug. 22 Los Angeles Times. And why is pubTV “awash in red ink” while networks including the History Channel, A&E, National Geographic and Animal Planet make money? “PBS should market itself as a network to cable and satellite providers rather than having each individual affiliated station across the country offer itself for free,” Shakely says.

Masterpiece’s “Cranford” and Ken Burns’ National Parks documentary won two Emmys each at the Creative Arts Emmy Awards over the weekend (Aug. 21). PBS took seven statuettes in all. “The National Parks: America’s Best Idea” won for nonfiction series and writing for nonfiction programming. Exceptional merit in nonfiction filmmaking went to “Nerakhoon (The Betrayal),” on P.O.V., about the members of a Laotian family forced to leave their homeland due to the secret war waged there by America. Directing for nonfiction programming went to Barak Goodman for “My Lai” on American Experience. The majority of the 70-category Creative Arts Emmy Awards, are dedicated to technical disciplines and direction, cinematography, hairstyling, makeup, music, picture editing, sound editing and mixing, special visual effects, stunts and more.

Now here (boing) is a great way (boing) to start off your week (boing). Check out KUER’s (boing) coverage of Pogopalooza 7 (boing) last weekend in Salt (boing) Lake City. “Extreme pogosticking” — who knew?

KBBG, the largest African-American owned and operated noncom radio station in Iowa, has set a goal of $200,000 to establish an endowment, reports the Waterloo Cedar Falls Courier. The station hopes to reach that figure within three years. “Given what we’re facing– whether it’s the economic turndown, or even closer to home with the surge in crime and incidents and invasions — the station is probably more important to the community it serves at this point in history than perhaps at any other time,” said KBBG President Louise Porter. “And the best way to secure the future of the radio station is to establish an endowment fund.”

WPBT sells to entrepreneur with history of legal disputes: Mykalai Kontilai, whose NBR Worldwide this month purchased Nightly Business Report, a staple of public TV carried five nights a week on 250 stations, talks about how his years as an instructional television distributor gave him a strong sense of public broadcasting values. ¶ He talks about how he’ll use that background to develop an educational outreach using the show to teach real-world financial responsibility. He talks of his plans to bring NBR to international audiences. ¶ What he doesn’t want to discuss are more than 20 lawsuits from 1999 through 2010 filed in San Diego County Superior Court against him or his companies — including five alleging breach of contract.

KCPT in Kansas City, Mo., has launched a monthly pubaffairs show in the midst of struggling with funding and staff cutbacks, reports Kansas City Star TV critic Aaron Barnhart. The Local Show will spotlight local nonprofits, and then those groups may use the segments as promotional material. The “Difference Makers” features are underwritten by Hallmark’s corporate foundation. Local Show Producer Nick Haines said the greeting-card company “was interested in funding nonprofits to tell their story.” Inspiration for the show was the Minnesota Channel, a 24-hour station created by Twin Cities Public Television, which airs programming that the station creates through a partnership among TPT and nonprofits.

KIXE in Redding, Calif., is “angering progressives” by dropping Democracy Now!, says the local Record Searchlight newspaper. General Manager Philip Smith arrived in July from KLRU in Austin, Texas, where he was oversaw engineering and programming. Smith told the paper he hadn’t seen the show, which airs on more than 850 pubtv and pubradio stations, until he got to the station. “If it were properly couched as a progressive informational or opinion show … that would be OK,” Smith said. “Then I’d probably line it up with something with an opposing viewpoint. … (But) they present it as newscast.

A company headed by “a former manager of mixed martial artists” has purchased Nightly Business Report, according to the New York Times. Mykalai Kontilai told the paper that the deal was completed Aug. 13 and the staff was informed today (Aug. 18). Kontilai’s partner in the venture is Gary Ferrell, a former president and chief executive of North Texas Public Broadcasting, parent company of KERA in Dallas. The two also own Public Media, identified on its website as a “design, advertising and production” company. Rick Schneider, president of NBR‘s producing station WPBT in Miami, told the New York Times that NBR wasn’t in play when Kontilai approached him in February, but the sale “made sense,” adding, “it is at a point where they as a company can do more things with it than we as a station could.”

A former videotape librarian for pubstation WTTW in Chicago was the jury foreman in the high-profile corruption trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. James Matsumoto, 66, told the local NBC affiliate that deliberations were “frustrating” and “exhausting,” and that he knew from early on that the jury would have trouble reaching a unanimous verdict. On Tuesday (Aug. 17) that verdict came down: Guilty on one count of lying to the FBI, hung jury on 23 other counts. Matsumoto worked at WTTW from December 1978 to October 2006, according to the station.

The city council of Green Bay, Wisc., voted 10-2 on Tuesday (Aug. 17) to waive $10,000 of its $48,000 bill for law enforcement for Wisconsin Public TV’s LZ Lambeau event in May, according to local ABC affiliate WBAY. The outreach event, a belated “welcome home” to Vietnam veterans, drew some 70,000 vets and supporters to Lambeau Field (Current, June 7, 2010). The Packers NFL team, the Chamber of Commerce and Brown County also have pledged contributions to assist the station, which ran $350,000 over budget for the $1 million event.

Rice University students have launched a “sincere and civil” protest to block the sale of their campus radio station KRTU to the University of Houston, the Houston Chronicle reports. “We are totally opposed to the sale,” KTRU p.d. Joey Yang tells the newspaper. “This is our radio station, and we’d like to keep it.” The UH Board of Regents approved the $9.5 million purchase yesterday, but the FCC must also approve the license transfer. UH plans to expand its public broadcasting operations by converting KRTU into a classical music service broadcasting on 91.7 as KUHC; KUHF on 88.7 FM, the hybrid-format NPR station that it put on the air in 1950 with student volunteers, is to devote its schedule to news.

WUNC-FM reporter Laura Leslie in Chapel Hill, N.C., continues to doggedly pursue the perpetually breaking news story on UNC-TV’s Alcoa coverage controversy (Current, July 26). The Raleigh station was widely criticized for turning over reporter Eszter Vajda’s notes and unbroadcast footage from her story on Alcoa’s bid to re-license four dams. Leslie reveals that internal UNC-TV e-mails show that station management did not want to comply with the lawmakers’ request. “They fully intended to fight it on journalistic grounds,” she writes in her station blog. “But they got no backing on that from UNC President [Erskine] Bowles, from board members, or from the AG’s office, where they sought legal expertise.”

The funeral for former Sen. Ted Stevens, a strong champion for pubcasting on Capitol Hill, will be streamed live today (Aug. 18) at 2 p.m. Alaska Daylight Time (6 p.m. Eastern) on several pubstations, including KTOO via its 360 North statewide channel. Stevens died Aug. 9 in a plane crash. KFSK in Petersburg, Alaska, has an audio segment online about Stevens’ importance to pubcasting, particularly in that state.

Public Radio Program Directors will take over the NPR-backed Local News Initiative (LNI) and Morning Edition Grad School (MEGS) projects, a four-year national effort to provide training, conduct research and promote best practices in public radio newsrooms. Research and information resources developed through the projects since 2006 will be integrated into PRPD.org, and PRPD is planning a series of webinars based on the MEGS workshop findings. LNI began with the 2006 PRPD study, “A Sense of Place,” focus group research that examined how listeners valued the local news produced by their public radio stations. Morning Edition Grad School, a series of workshops and toolkits for enhancing local presentation of public radio’s most important national program, was the biggest of several projects aimed at improving local news.