The Public Radio Program Directors Association gave its 2012 Don Otto Award to audience researcher Peter Dominowski, who co-founded PRPD in 1987. PRPD bestowed the award Sept. 13 in Las Vegas, where it observed its 25th anniversary as an organization. Dominowski is president of Market Trends Research, a market-research company based in Matheson, Colo. In presenting the award, Jeff Hansen, p.d. at Seattle’s KUOW, cited Dominowski’s many focus groups and research studies, and his work with the Morning Edition Grad School training sessions for stations and as a member of the Strategic Programming Partners consultancy. “His work has improved the listening experience for millions of our audience members around the country,” Hansen said.

PBS topped all the other broadcast networks, as runners-up ABC and CBS each won seven. POV’s “Last Train Home,” a film about Chinese migrant workers who go home to celebrate New Year’s, won in two categories — best documentary and outstanding business and economic reporting (long form) — while “Armadillo,” which tracked Danish soldiers in Afghanistan, was cited for editing in the documentary and long form category. Also in the long-form category, “Enemies of the People,” which examined Cambodia’s killing fields, won for outstanding investigative journalism; and “Where Soldiers Come From,” about National Guard recruits from northern Michigan, was cited for its continuing coverage of a news story.

Masterpiece has signed a co-production deal with BBC World America for two titles. The eight-episode, hourlong Victorian-era series The Paradise finds a young shop girl navigating her way through the power struggles behind the scenes in Britain’s first department store. And The Lady Vanishes, a 90-minute film, is an adaptation of the 1930’s thriller about a woman aboard a train who unwittingly becomes embroiled in a dangerous plot. In the Oct. 9 announcement, Masterpiece Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton said the two are “the latest in a long line of beautifully-made, award-winning co-productions. The BBC has been our trusted partner, and fellow public broadcaster, for over 40 years.”

As a Masterpiece production competing against other miniseries, movies and specials, Great Expectations received Emmys for outstanding achievement in costume design (Annie Symons, Yvonne Duckett), art direction (David Roger, Paul Ghirardani, Jo Kornstein), main title design (Nic Benns, Rodi Kaya, Tom Browich) and cinematography (Florian Hoffmeister). In addition, the Masterpiece production Page Eight won an Emmy for original main title theme music (Paul Englishby). Other PBS winners included the Independent Lens production Have You Heard From Johannesburg, a seven-part series about the global anti-apartheid movement that received a juried award for exceptional merit in documentary filmmaking.

In the first of a two-part interview on the NetNewsCheck website, Planet Money reporters Adam Davidson and Alex Blumberg talk to writer Michael Depp about what he calls the “curious, humane, approachable style” of the multimedia team covering the global economy for pubradio. Exactly what the program is continues to evolve, Blumburg said. “We’ve been searching for the one word answer. We’re an economics reporting unit, a project. What is the core thing that we do? That’s the question we’re asking all the time.” “Do we want to do more cohesive projects where there’s a huge digital component and there’s an audio component and they’re all working together.

The Lyda Hill Foundation has donated $1 million to Dallas pubcaster KERA to expand regional news coverage. The donation comes on the heels of the foundation’s 2011 support for KERA’s reporting on health and science issues that included sponsorship of the station’s weekly “Health Checkup” segment. The Lyda Hill Foundation focuses on funding organizations “that make game-changing advances in nature and science research.” “As a KERA viewer, listener and donor, I recognized the importance of funding such a vital community resource,” Hill said in a prepared statement. “This gift is also meant to inspire others to support the kind of local news stories and reporting not found anywhere else in North Texas.”

The Independent Television Service has launched a social-media campaign to steer viewers from Thursdays to Monday nights, as Independent Lens prepares to take its new spot in the PBS lineup, with POV. ITVS is urging fans to fans to download an “I stand with independents” sign, take a photo, tweet the picture to #StandWithMe, add it to a Facebook page and submit it to the ITVS Tumblr. “We need your help in the long haul to drive audiences to Monday nights,” ITVS President Sally Jo Fifer said on the organization’s website.

In an interview Hispanic news site Voxxi, Sandie Viquez Pedlow, executive director of Latino Public Broadcasting, talks about raising the profile of a growing segment of America. “If you look at the Census, you see that Latinos right now are 50 million strong and represent 16 percent of the American population,” Pedlow said. “By 2050, nearly one-third of the total American workforce is going to be Hispanic. We, organizations such as Latino Public Broadcasting and other Latino organizations, really need to look at that and we need to translate those numbers into the many stories that are out there and distribute them across all media platforms, so that these stories can be seen and understood by the American public.”

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney may have said during last week’s debate that he would eliminate funding to public television, but during his time as Massachusetts governor WGBH in Boston received millions from the state’s film tax credit program that Romney signed into law, according to the Boston Globe. Last year alone WGBH received $4.2 million for programs including American Experience, Antiques Roadshow and Nova. Also, Watertown, Mass., animation studio Soup2Nuts received about $300,000 in subsidies last year, mainly for the PBS series WordGirl. “It has been very helpful for us to make our budget,” WGBH spokesperson Jeanne Hopkins told the newspaper.

Margaret Drain, longtime head of national programming for production powerhouse WGBH in Boston, is stepping down in February 2013, the pubTV station announced today. Drain has overseen the production of icon series such as American Experience, Frontline, Masterpiece, NOVA and Antiques Roadshow, as well as numerous specials. During her 10 years in the position, the station has won 44 Emmys, 10 du-Pont-Columbia awards and 14 George Foster Peabody awards. “Through her deep commitment to quality journalism, Margaret Drain has advanced WGBH’s mission to serve our audiences across the country with programming that sets the standard for public television,” said WGBH President Jon Abbott.

St. Louis Public Radio and the nonprofit St. Louis Beacon have signed a letter of intent to explore an alliance, they announced today. The two already work together in a Beacon news bureau in Washington, D.C., and on “Beyond November,” a comprehensive election-coverage project that also includes a partnership with the Nine Network of Public Media. “We see the digital revolution as a historic opportunity to further establish St. Louis as a leader in journalism innovation,” said Tim Eby, St. Louis Public Radio g.m. “As we plan together, the core idea that will guide us is the question ‘Will this help us better serve the community?’”

Public broadcasting became a trending topic during and after Wednesday night’s presidential debate, as GOP nominee Mitt Romney repeated his pledge to defund PBS and the NewsHour’s Jim Lehrer was roundly criticized for his performace as debate moderator.