The House yesterday approved the Local Community Radio Act, which would effectively remove channel-spacing regs that have previously blocked new low power FM stations in urban areas (Current, Sept. 20). Reclaim the Media reports that the Act “would allow for the creation of hundreds, possibly thousands, of new, low power FM radio stations dedicated to broadcasting community news and local perspectives to neighborhoods across the country.” The Senate version has been okayed by the Commerce Committee, but a full Senate vote has not been scheduled.

NPR news voice Carl Kasell, who’ll do his final broadcast for Morning Edition on Dec. 30, chatted with Ozarks Public Radio yesterday about his past and future. Topics included his North Carolina accent (“All of us who were born below the Mason-Dixon line, at some time had to deal with it, to get rid of it. . . . I read some books on the subject and worked with some very good people who did not have an accent and who would help me along the way to get rid of it”) and his next adventures (“I’m going to be NPR’s roving ambassador.

Frequent producers for public radio Scott Carrier of Salt Lake City (Hearing Voices), and Elizabeth Meister and Dan Collison of Three Oaks, Mich. (Long Haul Productions), were among 50 individuals named United States Artists fellows for 2009. Also three film/video producers: Cruz Angeles of New York (Sundance 2009 debut Don’t Let Me Drown), Charles Burnett of Los Angeles (first episode of The Blues, Killer of Sheep), Heather Courtney of Austin, Texas (Los Trabajadores on Independent Lens) and Renée Tajima-Peña of Los Angeles (Calavera Highway on P.O.V., 2008). Each will receive an unrestricted $50,000 grant.

Eighteen broadband stimulus projects in 17 states worth $182 million will be announced today by Vice President Joseph Biden in Dawsonville, Ga. Public broadcasters are among the many nonprofit and commercial entities vying for the funds (Current, Sept. 21) in four categories: middle mile, to build or improve high-speed connections to communities; last mile, connecting users to their community’s broadband infrastructure; public computing, to expand computer centers; and sustainable broadband, for projects that promote broadband demand. UPDATE: No public broadcasting projects announced in this round. Biggest single grant this time is $39.7 million with $9.9 million in matching funds, to Albany, N.Y.-based

Peconic Public Broadcasting, the new owner of WLIU 88.3 in Southampton, N.Y., could not pay most employees this month. And despite an impressive list of supporters for the station, large donations previously promised have not yet materialized, reports the Southampton Press. Station manager Wally Smith said Peconic didn’t expect to have to cover payroll this month as per its transfer agreement with former owner Long Island University. Smith expects the station will meet full payroll for its 13-person staff after the new year. “There’s nothing unusual about the fact that there are rough patches,” Smith told the paper, which referred to the “complicated transfer of the station” that is expected to be completed in early January.

AARP Broadcast, a media arm of the nation’s largest membership organization for adults 50 and older, just shot a pilot of Viva su Segunda Juventud, its first Spanish-language show, reports Multichannel News. There’s no distributor yet and an AARP spokesperson declined further comment to that reporter. Is the new program perhaps PBS-bound? AARP Broadcast currently produces two half-hour titles that aired on Retirement Living TV in 2009 but will be distributed to pubTV stations by Maryland Public Television starting in 2010. The partnership is a good fit, considering the pedigrees of both the shows’ hosts: On Inside E Street it’s Sheilah Kast of WYPR in Baltimore, and on My Generation it’s Cynthia Steele Vance, a WETA trustee and former pubcasting reporter.

Fairness & Accuracy in Media, a national news watchdog organization tracking bias and censorship, is encouraging the public to sign a petition urging PBS to replace the departing public affairs programs Bill Moyers Journal and PBS Now with “similarly thoughtful shows” that continue the tradition of “hard-hitting, independent programming that should thrive on public television.” It adds: “What replaces those programs will be a test of its commitment to the very foundations of public broadcasting itself.” Here’s a link to the petition.

PBS Teachers is giving instructors a way to help students become more economically and financially literate through its new Access, Analyze and Act project. It’s a unique collection of educational digital media resources focused on the economy. According to a statement today from PBS, Eight lessons plans offer real-world case studies on four economic topics that explore economic and financial issues from a young person’s point of view. There’s an introduction on the site by PBS Now host and senior editor David Brancaccio encouraging teachers to make the study of economics a personal story, and a video appearance by Michael Mandel, chief economist for BusinessWeek.

People magazine puts Dinosaur Train, the new PBS show from the Jim Henson Co., on its “Year’s Best Kids Shows” list, according to the Muncie, Ind., Star Press. Also included: Jungle Junction from Disney, The Superhero Squad Show on Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon’s The Fresh Beat Band and Cartoon Network’s The Garfield Show. (Garfield creator Jim Davis’s company, Paws Inc., is based in rural Albany, Ind., hence the announcement via the Star Press.)

Keith Woods, a Poynter Institute dean who was consulting with NPR on newsroom diversity, will join the network as vice president, diversity in news and operations, in February. The position, a newly created senior management role, will lead development and implementation of strategies for diversity within NPR and public radio as a whole. Newsroom diversity–as well as NPR’s commitment to training, hiring and retaining journalists of color–have come under criticism this year as NPR laid off staff, canceled its African-American oriented show News and Notes, and fired one of its few black newsroom managers. “We are extremely fortunate to have found a leader who offers a combination of strong journalistic credentials, diversity expertise and a passion for teaching,” said NPR President Vivian Schiller, in a news release.

Many of the most popular websites for kids contain advertisements for junk food, reports Reuters on a study in the latest American Journal of Public Health. One of the websites examined was PBSKids.org, which averages 9 million unique visitors per month. Lesli Rotenberg, s.v.p. of children’s media at PBS, noted that the site’s appearance in the study is “misleading,” as it does not accept advertising nor market food products to children. The site carries logos of PBS sponsors at the bottom of some pages, including McDonald’s and Chick-fil-A. Children never see images of food products, she said, adding that the Fizzy’s Lunch Lab and Don’t Buy It pages actually teach kids about healthy eating — and how to avoid media influences in their purchase decisions.

A documentary on North Carolina is “caught in a hissing contest” between pubTV stations UNC-TV and WTVI, reports the News & Observer in Raleigh. Mike Lassiter, an attorney in Statesville, and videographer Scott Galloway captured businesses throughout the state and the people behind them in their film, Vanishing Americana. But it probably will only be seen in 13 of the state’s 100 counties, on WTVI alone. Statewide pubcaster UNC-TV refuses to show the film. “It’s a bit of an overstatement to call it a policy, but it’s a general rule that we don’t broadcast things originating from WTVI,” said UNC-TV spokesperson Steve Volstad.

PBS’s Masterpiece received three Golden Globe nominations. Nominees for the prestigious Hollywood Foreign Press Association’s honors were announced this morning. Nods went to Little Dorrit for best miniseries or motion picture made for television, and Kenneth Branaugh in Wallander (above) and Chiwetel Ejiofor for Endgame both in the category of best performance by an actor in a miniseries or motion picture made for television. The awards will be presented Jan. 17. Entire list of nominees here.

Did you catch much-loved, uber-enthusiastic California pubcaster Huell Howser on The Simpsons Sunday? Who’s he? As the LAist blog says, “While we can’t say that no one outside of California knows who Howser is, it’s likely the cameo will only tickle locals who have seen Howser marvel over all manner of landmark, machine, or quirky Californian on his various PBS shows,” seen six nights a week on KCET as well as various other broadcasts on pubTV stations in Oregon, Nevada and Tennessee (he’s a Tennessee native). Also included in the blog item is a link to another, ahem, very quirky Howser tribute video, “Trippin’ with Huell Howser.”

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