Lakeshore Public Television in Merrillville, Ind., struggling under state budget cuts, is getting a boost from Indiana Senate Democrats. They’ve put the station on their priority list of “Top Ten Things That Need to Change in the Budget,” according to The Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana. The station was “blindsided,” as the paper said, by the $110,000 funding cut. It reduced its staff by 10 percent, leaving four vacant positions unfilled and laying off six people. “It’s one thing to say from the outset ‘this is what you’re going to be getting,'” said Thomas Carroll, station CEO. “But the state told us we could expect that money, and we budgeted accordingly.

PBS unveiled its new online video portal offering full-length episodes of nearly all of its primetime programs. The catalog of shows available for on demand streaming is limited with this beta launch, but PBS aims to add thousands of hours of programs by summer, the Los Angeles Times reports. PBS Video will begin offering programs from local public TV stations in May. Here’s a link to our earlier coverage of PBS Video, which began pilot testing last fall. PBS’s news release on the site launch is here.

Sesame Street’s Elmo appeared today at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington to introduce a show that helps children learn about astronomy, The Associated Press reports. “This is one small step for a monster and one giant leap for monsterkind,” Elmo declared to the delight of kids at the museum. Dressed in a space suit, he dubbed himself an Elmonaut.

The FCC has proposed new rules intended to increase radio service to rural areas (PDF). If approved, they establish new preferences for such areas and make moving licenses out of the locations more difficult. The proposal specifically addresses Native broadcasters, stating that “several tribal groups have expressed concern about their ability to establish radio service to their people and tribal lands.” (Some 30 Native entities received FCC construction permits late last year, see Current story from November 2008.) The proposal tentatively concludes that to serve the public interest, federally recognized tribes should have a priority in FM allotments, AM filing window applications and noncom educational FM filing window applications.

A wayward large stuffed gorilla now has a home at WDSE in Duluth, Minn., according to station promotions director Jodi Hagen. She told Current that the gorilla was bound for a dump site but rejected because it wasn’t construction debris. It fell off the back of the owner’s truck — coincidentally, right into the path of a state Department of Transportation official. The owner returned when he realized it was gone and subsequently offered the nearly 6-foot toy to state troopers. One of them thought WDSE might like the gorilla for its Kids Club Circus, an annual event to thank parents for supporting children’s programming.

Nearly two-thirds of foundations responding to a survey are planning to reduce the number or size of grants they award in 2009. More than 1,200 foundations took part in the new research by the Foundation Center, titled Foundations Address the Impact of the Economic Crisis (PDF). Nearly two out of five respondents expect to dip into endowments to fund grants. More than half are engaging in more nongrantmaking activities, and about two-thirds plan to seek more collaborations and partnerships this year.

Iran’s highest judge ordered a “careful, quick and fair” consideration of an appeal against the eight-year jail sentence imposed on Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist who was tried last week on charges of espionage. Saberi has reported from Iran for NPR, the BBC, ABC News, FOX and other news organizations, and has been held in Iran’s Evin Prison for months. NPR, which joined other major news networks early this month in calling public attention to Saberi’s detention, issued a statement responding to news of the ruling by a secret Iranian court: “We are deeply distressed by this harsh and unwarranted sentence,” said NPR President Vivian Schiller.

The Open Mobile Video Coalition, an alliance of broadcast groups including PBS and APTS, today announced a consumer trial this summer in Washington, D.C., of mobile digital television technology. Taking part will be Washington‘s WHUT. According to Broadcasting & Cable, the trial will enable broadcasters to showcase and test programming, services and features of the technology, and will help prepare broadcasters for the commercial deployment scheduled for later this year. That will include nine pubcasting stations. For a list of those stations and background on the coalition, see this Current story.

If you missed it last week, the NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer’s appearance on The Colbert Report is now online. As the intro on the website reads, “It takes real courage for Jim Lehrer to be boring five nights a week on television.”

Officials from three Native American tribes are signatories to an open letter to PBS concerning the American Experience series “We Shall Remain.” In a piece published in the Indian Country Today newspaper, they contend their tribes, the Wampanoag, Mashpee Wampanoag and Narragansett, were overlooked. “Our ancestors are central to the events following the Mayflower landing, yet our historical guardians … were avoided by this PBS production,” they wrote. ” … We have not struggled to maintain our tribal cultural identities for nearly 400 years since colonization to be disrespectfully ignored and dismissed or to have our history misrepresented for the purpose of entertainment.”

Longtime broadcaster Jane Pauley told an audience at DePauw University Friday what the NewsHour means to her. “I depend on the NewsHour on PBS,” reports the university’s website. “I pray that Jim Lehrer lives forever, because what they do is journalism, and in broadcast journalism it is, in my opinion, the absolute best and I absolutely depend on it. I gotta say the network shows are, to me, I watch them but they’re optional. The NewsHour is not optional.”

New Hampshire Public Television laid off five employees this week, citing the bad economy. Four vacant positions also will not be filled. “We tried in every way we could to reduce expenditures in other areas,” spokeswoman Grace Lessner told Foster’s Daily Democrat. “It’s a very unhappy thing to let people go.” The paper added that last year, NHPTV became a wholly owned nonprofit subsidiary of the University System of New Hampshire after over 40 years of the University of New Hampshire having the authority for the station’s day-to-day operations.

Red, White and Blue, a Houston political pubTV show, is back on the air at KUHT after a months-long controversy. The show, one of the few on local politics, featured one Republican and one Democratic host. It had been suspended after last year’s election. Politicians got involved, asking for the show to be reinstated. And now it has been. The first of the new weekly episodes runs at 8 p.m. tonight, and again at 5 p.m. Sunday.

Audience engagement is the buzz word for Web 2.0 media and Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America describes his approach to it in part three of his interview with Nieman Journalism Lab. For Max Fun Con, a June 12-14 retreat for TSOYA fans, Thorn invited his audience to meet and be entertained by his friends from the world of comedy (and a guy named “Dr. Cocktail”) at a retreat center in Lake Arrowhead, Calif. The event, which sold out when 155 people registered in less than two weeks, is “all my favorite things in this place,” Thorn says.

NPR management and representatives of its technicians’ union yesterday reached tentative agreement on a one-year contract that will furlough employees for up to five days and eliminate NPR contributions to union members’ retirement plans until September 30. NPR tentatively agreed not to lay-off any bargaining unit members for the term of the contract; in exchange, the union will temporarily suspend rules of jurisdiction that define the jobs performed by its broadcast engineers and technicians. Members of the bargaining unit will vote on the proposed contract next Wednesday, April 22. A summary and full text [PDF] of the agreement are posted on the NABET Local 31 website, along with details about a membership meeting tomorrow afternoon for bargaining unit members.