Which would be worse? Raising ungrounded fears about DTV technology that spook the public and delay the transition for years? Or ignoring those worries and finding out later that the system is a dog? Public TV’s engineers are divided on question of reopening the three-year-old U.S. standard for DTV transmission, a course of action championed by Sinclair Broadcast Group and now festering on the body technological. “I’m conflicted — it’s a thing that an engineer doesn’t like to be,” admits Bruce Jacobs, chief technology officer at KTCA in Twin Cities. “We like to have answers.” The outcome of FCC decisions quite likely won’t hinge on public TV’s position on the matter, of course, but so far the pubcasters have not taken a unified position on the question.

PBS’s new president is Pat Mitchell, departing head of CNN Productions and Time Inc. Television, whose appointment was ratified by the PBS Board Feb. 4. She is the first producer to take PBS’s top job, and is as comfortable in front of cameras as behind them, having performed in numerous on-air roles. Her major projects for CNN included the Peabody-winning Cold War, a 24-part documentary series that she executive produced with Jeremy Isaacs, and Millenium: A Thousand Years of History, also supervised with Isaacs. A search committee reached an “enthusiastically unanimous” decision to recommend Mitchell as the best candidate for the post last week, said Wayne Godwin, committee co-chair and president of WCET in Cincinnati.

A weekly half-hour program about space aliens — probably the only one in public radio (but who knows?) — has just been renewed for 26 weeks. Starting last Halloween, SETLAB Radio (the acronym means “Study of Extra-Terrestrial Life and Answers from Beyond”) has aired Sunday afternoons in south Texas — on KMBH in Harlingen and its repeater, KHID in McAllen. Host Russell Dowden says he’s gotten dozens of reports from Rio Grande Valley listeners that they, too, have seen unidentified flying objects. Then, several weeks ago, someone anonymously sent in a “very weird and very real-looking” image of a bulb-headed alien supposedly photographed aboard a U.S.

This is the PBS Board’s governing document as amended Feb. 6, 2000. For comparison, see also the original PBS bylaws of 1969, and the most recent version, amended November 2011. Article I Name The Corporation shall be known as the PUBLIC BROADCASTING SERVICE (PBS). Article II Offices 2.1 Registered Office. The Corporation shall maintain a registered office in the City of Washington, District of Columbia. 2.2 Other Offices. The Corporation may also have offices at such other places, either within or without the District of Columbia, as the business of the Corporation may require. Article III Members 3.1 Membership.

Five months after the conflict developed between Wake Forest University (Winston-Salem, N.C.) and its public radio station, WFDD, the faculty’s Senate Ad Hoc Committee on WFDD released this report Feb. 2, 2000. See also coverage in Current and case study on the conflict in the Public Radio News Directors Guide. Events Triggering This Inquiry Proposed Guidelines on Confidentiality Policy The Public Trust and Internal Management at WFDD The Committee’s Process Conclusions Memo from university Vice President Sandra Boyette to university Counsel Leon Corbett Appendix Separate statement by member Michael Curtis Report to the University Senate on the WFDD Matter Introduction In October 1999, the President of the University Senate appointed an Ad Hoc Committee on WFDD.

Undated document supplied by NPR, January 2000. No Commercial Obligations or Influence NPR is an independent, nonprofit organization that carries no on-air advertising. One of the ways NPR helps fund its programming and general operations is by seeking underwriting support from corporations, foundations and associations. These tax-deductible donations provide virtually all of NPR’s contributed income. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations govern all underwriting announcements by NPR and public radio stations. The regulations require NPR and stations to provide on-air recognition of funders while stipulating that these credit announcements are strictly for identification; they cannot be promotional. In establishing its on-air credit guidelines, NPR is sensitive to the expectations of the public radio audience and NPR member stations.

The FCC’s establishment of two low-power FM (LPFM) classes of stations — 10-watt and 100-watt — could populate radio dials with more than a thousand tiny noncommercial broadcasters, assuming the plan weathers possible challenges from Congress and existing broadcasters. FCC officials say the initial LPFM proposal, unveiled a year ago, generated a record volume of public comment, with churches, high schools, minorities, microradio activists and others defending the plan against attacks from established broadcasters. The plan that won approval by a 4-1 vote is more modest than its predecessor. It nixed the idea of commercial LPFM stations — which may allow a boom in noncommercial radio beyond the reserved band.

Seventeen million dollars slipped through WQED’s fingers last week when a partner in its long-delayed deal to sell sister channel WQEX abruptly backed out, even though they had won a go-ahead at the FCC a month earlier. George Miles, president of the Pittsburgh station, paraphrased a newspaper report on the turnabout: “We have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.” Important issues about pubcasting’s reserved channels were at stake in both WQED’s victory and its defeat, but they got little attention as all eyes turned to a couple waves of explosive controversy surrounding the FCC decision: First, in mid-December [1999], reporters swarmed over the news that Presidential candidate and FCC overseer Sen.

FCC members approved the proposed sale of WQED’s second station, WQEX, in a split vote. See also the text of the order, Dec. 15, 1999.William Kennard and Gloria Tristani (Democrats) Michael Powell and Harold Furchtgott-Roth (Republicans) Susan Ness (Democrat)   Statement of Chairman William Kennard and Commissioner Gloria Tristani, dissenting in part We disagree with the majority’s decision not to designate Cornerstone’s application for hearing. Under Section 73.621 of our rules, an applicant for a reserved channel must demonstrate that the station “will be used primarily to serve the educational needs of the community.” If there is any substantial and material question of fact on that issue, the Commission must designate the application for hearing on the issue of whether the applicant’s proposed programming is primarily educational.

On Dec. 15, 1999, the FCC approved a swap/sale deal that would have enabled Pittsburgh public TV station WQED to sell its second channel, WQEX, to raise capital and pay longstanding debts. (The deal fell through Jan. 18, 2000, when Cornerstone TeleVision backed out.) See also separate statements by the commissioners. WQED developed the complex plan after the commission in 1996 declined to drop the noncommercial reservation on WQEX. (In FCC references to Channel *16, the asterisk indicates a reserved channel.) A controversial section of the text below, Additional Guidance, attempted to clarify FCC policy toward religious broadcasters using reserved noncommercial educational channels, but it prompted legislation including Rep.

When producer Robert Saudek died in 1998, his New York Times obituary called him “the alchemist-in-­chief of what is often called the golden age of television.” From 1952 to 1961, the product of Saudek’s alchemy was Omnibus, a weekly that did what public TV now aspires to do, but on commercial network TV. It turned out to be one of the last but finest gasps of the Cooperation Doctrine — the notion that commercial broadcasting could ignore the bottom line and the largest available audience. [More on the Cooperation Doctrine.] For the December 1999 pledge drives, PBS distributed the first-ever TV retrospective on the famous series, “Omnibus: Television’s Golden Age,” from New River Media.

This American Life is hot. The weekly radio program produced by WBEZ, Chicago, and distributed nationally since June 1996, airs on 325 public radio stations. Ira Glass, TAL‘s creator and producer, has become something of a celebrity. The subject of lengthy feature stories in national magazines, he now turns up in TV and radio interviews to publicize a Rhino Records CD, “Lies, Sissies and Fiascos: The Best of This American Life.” His own life, frequently described by himself and others, emerges as one of frenetic activity, a contemporary Scheherazade, obsessively devoted to creating stories that he hopes “will give voice to those outside the mainstream.”

"Credibility is the currency of our programming."

Not every American will buy what Ric Burns and Lisa Ades are selling, but in the 10 hours airing this week on many public TV stations they make the strongest possible case for the greatness of New York City. Diehard New York–haters will quickly overdose on the soaring rhetoric and the flyovers of the fantastical Chrysler Building, but that’s no surprise to Burns. “The ambivalence toward New York is very powerful and a central component of the story,” he says. “It has only gotten stronger as power has accumulated there.” The story was so big that the producers gave up squeezing it into 10 hours and will deliver two more hours early next year — a sixth episode covering 1931-99.

With the search for Ervin Duggan’s successor now underway, public broadcasting has an opportunity to reflect on how the next PBS president should deal with the many controversial issues facing the system — 30-second spots, leasing of the digital spectrum, and delivery of PBS programs on DBS, to name a few.Amidst these raging debates, we should not lose sight of our commitment to diversity and multiculturalism. How will we provide a narrative space for different ethnic and racial groups to express their hopes and fears, their struggles and triumphs, their successes and failures? How will we allow various ethnic minorities to speak in what one commentator calls the “voice of color.”