A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor mentioned the “R” word — retirement — this week on Charlie Rose. “I think retirement is a beautiful thing and I think about it a lot,” Keillor said. “But then I think how lucky I am to have this show and it’s two hours every Saturday. Nobody tells me what I have to do and I work with these wonderful people. and I have all of these listeners and when I walk down the street and people recognize me, they smile, and that’s really all you need in a world.” It’s a topic Keillor has discussed in the past.

KQED in San Francisco has received $2.5 million from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for a two-year collaborative national multimedia science reporting initiative, Quest Beyond Local, with five public broadcasting partners, building on the popularity of Quest, its Emmy award-winning science and environment series that grew into science-reporting hub for several stations last year. Quest Beyond Local partners will create content on the theme of “Science of Sustainability” on television, radio and online, with educational assets and community outreach. Work will commence in January, with new content ready for broadcast in fall 2013. Participating are NET, Lincoln, Neb.;

NPR has added two journalists to its six-person race, ethnicity and culture unit backed by CPB and preparing for launch in the spring. The network hired Gene Demby, a Huffington Post editor and founder of the blog PostBourgie, as blogger and correspondent; and Shereen Marisol Meraji, a Marketplace reporter and former NPR producer, as a reporter. Demby started PostBourgie in 2007 and continues to contribute to the group blog, which covers race, class, gender, politics and other subjects. In 2009 the blog won a Black Weblog Award for best news/politics website. Demby also worked for the New York Times for six years as a writer and news assistant.

The Lens, a Murrow Award-winning nonprofit news organization in New Orleans, has finally received its 501(c)3 designation from the Internal Revenue Service. Its official nonprofit status now opens more funding opportunities and streamlines individual donations, it said in an announcement. As many as a dozen journalism startups, most of them run largely by volunteers and accepting no advertising, have had their requests to be recognized as tax-exempt organizations delayed for many months and, in some cases, years (Current, May 14).

In a new video, hosts at New York’s WNYC and others bring to life “Saint Dude.” The song is one of the compositions from Song Reader, a new collection of sheet music released by the musician Beck. Rather than release his own recording of the tunes, Beck suggests that you play the songs on your own. WNYC’s band includes On the Media host Brooke Gladstone on vocals, Soundcheck host John Schaefer on guitar, and Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen playing a glockenspiel with a Sharpie.

Frontline, the PBS investigative news program, and ESPN’s Outside the Lines today launched the Concussion Watch website, a public database of the confirmed head injuries reported by the NFL this season. Through the site, users may track the injuries by week, team, opponent and position. Football fans may report hits they feel could cause concussions on an online tip form, or submit via Twitter using the hashtag #ConcussionWatch. The site was originally developed as a database tool for the yearlong reporting project by the joint Frontline and ESPN news team. “We realized there was a lack of information publicly available about player head injuries in the NFL,” said Frontline producer Tom Jennings in the announcement.

Basic memberships offered during pledge drives and in direct-mail appeals are a time-tested enticement for converting pubcasting viewers and listeners into contributors, but station-based development staff are perplexed about how to set the rate for this donation level. Some pubcasters are weighing whether to stop offering basic memberships altogether. A survey conducted this fall by Plymouth, Mass.–based direct-marketing consultant DMW Direct found that most stations charge below $50 for a basic membership, and few have adjusted the rate within the last five years. The basic median rate among the 41 public TV and radio stations that participated in the survey is $40, but 16 stations reported to DMW that they charge less.

Nightly Business Report has laid off at least seven staffers and closed its Chicago bureau, Chicago media critic Robert Feder is reporting. “These are all broadcast professionals,” Tom Hudson, the show’s managing editor and co-anchor, told Feder. “They possess the unique ability to cut through economic jargon and dense statistics to uncover stories with meaning and impact. I consider it an honor to call them colleagues.” The past several years have been tumultuous for NBR. Longtime owner WBPT-TV in Miami sold the program to a controversial educational video salesman, Mykalai Kontilai, in 2010. His firm, NBR Worldwide, cut eight positions, including two top newsroom managers.

This item has been updated and reposted with additional information. Independent Public Media this week unveiled a new program to provide bridge funding to financially troubled pubTV stations. The loans will help them stay on-the-air through the FCC’s incentive spectrum auction, and require a pay out from auction proceeds. IPM designed the loan program to assist noncommercial broadcasters until they can sell off some, but not all, of their spectrum bandwidth through the FCC auction, and assumed that stations will gain a big pay-off by participating. Once auction proceeds begin rolling in, IPM will recover the costs of auction expenses and then principal and interest on its loan.

What do the holidays sound like in Austin, Texas? Austin’s KUT-FM is answering that question with an “Austin-centric” stream of holiday music, now airing on its new station, KUTX 98.9 FM, and on its website at kut.org. The holiday tunes are airing while KUT prepares the launch of its new all-music format on KUTX Jan. 2, when it will also move KUT to an all-news format. Music shows now on KUT will migrate to the station, which will pick up some additional music programs and air performances from a new studio at KUT as well. This post has been updated and reposted with additional information.

The Latino Public Radio Consortium and the National Federation of Community Broadcasters are joining the Austin, Texas-based Artists for Media Diversity (A4MD) to premiere a virtual online album, “Artists for Vieques.” The fundraiser will support construction of WVQR-FM, which will be the only public radio station on the small Puerto Rican island. The U.S. Navy used Vieques as a bombing range and testing ground until protests forced it from the island in 2003. Artists including the popular Puerto Rican band Calle 13, Willie Nelson and  Los Lonely Boys donated songs for exclusive use. Funds generated by sales will go toward building and launching Radio Vieques before its June 30, 2013, FCC deadline.

Lloyd Wright received the 2012 William Kobin Public Television Leadership Award from public TV’s Major Market Group. Wright has served as president of WFYI Public Media in Indianapolis for more than 23 years and was recently re-elected to his fourth term on the PBS Board of Directors. For the past two years he’s also served as chair of the MMG’s Board of Directors. The award was established in 2010 in honor of Bill Kobin, among the first producers of national programs for National Educational Television (NET), the forerunner of PBS. Kobin also headed stations in Minneapolis and Los Angeles, and led the MMG for 14 years until retiring in 2011.

Conrad, president and co-founder of the 50-year-old Cleveland-based classical music station, received ideastream’s “Great Idea Award” for his service as a leading classical musical broadcaster, producer and distributor of cultural programming. Ideastream praised Conrad and his colleagues for ensuring that WCLV remains a treasured resource by donating the commercial station to the nonprofit ideastream, operator of WVIZ-TV and WCPN-FM. The transfer takes effect Jan. 1, 2013. “This will complete the transition of WCLV into the ideastream family and will give listeners who appreciate classical music on the radio as well as businesses, foundations and other organizations, the opportunity to support this institution,” wrote Conrad on the WCLV website.

PBS has restructured its senior management, effective immediately, elevating programmer/producer Beth Hoppe to chief programming executive and general manager, according to a memo circulated to PBS stations today. Chief programmer John Wilson, who has worn many hats since joining PBS in 1994, will focus on fundraising programs as senior v.p., pledge strategy and special projects. Wilson will “build on the experiments undertaken this year to reshape our pledge programming and will continue to work closely with PBS colleagues, producers and stations to develop these plans,” said PBS Chief Operating Officer Michael Jones, in his memo announcing the management changes. Hoppe signed on at PBS last year as one of Wilson’s deputies.

WNYC's Toms River, N.J.-based transmitter, which had gone dark when Superstorm Sandy devastated the Jersey Shore community Oct. 29, came back on the air Dec. 14, according to WNYC spokesperson Jennifer Houlihan.