A proposed merger of Alaska pubcasting stations not only fell apart over the summer, but also has now created a larger rift: KUAC-TV in Fairbanks, which participated in the AlaskaOne consortium with Juneau and Bethel stations since 1995, will withdraw from that as of July 1, 2012, according to a press release from KUAC licensee University of Alaska Fairbanks. “Interior Alaska’s public television station is returning to its roots,” the statement said. The Alaska Public Broadcasting Service, corporate entity for AlaskaOne, last month approved a motion to merge its centralized feed with Anchorage-based KAKM, run by Alaska Public Telecommunications Inc.

As expected, the San Mateo (Calif.) Community College announced today (Dec. 7) it is seeking a buyer for public broadcaster KCSM-TV. In June, the board said the sale was due to the station’s projected $800,000 structural deficit. Independent Public Media, a nonprofit consortium headed by WYBE founder John Schwarz and Ken Devine, former WNET executive, has already signaled its interest (Current, Oct. 17). Parties may find information and download bid packets from the college district’s purchasing page online. Bids may be filed through Feb. 14, 2012.

Next year’s Public Media Development and Marketing Conference, the annual event organized by pubradio’s Development Exchange, will include a new track for pubTV professionals, produced by PBS, on pledge practices, fundraising and community engagement around children’s programming, and television-specific research. DEI and PBS announced the collaboration in a statement today (Dec. 6). “For the first time, the whole public media family will have the opportunity to focus together on the very best fundraising ideas and practices,” said DEI President Doug Eichten. The partnership “demonstrates the spirit of institutional collaboration that is critical at the national and station levels,” said PBS President Paula Kerger.

CPB announced today that it has awarded Southern California Public Radio in Los Angeles $1.8 million to support the One Nation Media Project, which will focus on reporting and programming for and about Latinos and other people of color in the Los Angeles area. As one element of the project, SCPR will expand The Madeleine Brand Show, its locally produced morning newsmagazine, into a national two-hour show “with a focus on the Latino and other ethnic communities/interests/issues,” according to an SCPR job listing. In addition, SCPR will launch “three distinct online channels,” says the CPB release, each hosted by a dedicated journalist.

Pubcasting stations WHYY and KPCC are two new noncom partners with NBC, effective immediately. The network is making good on its promise to join forces with nonprofit news organizations, made as part of NBC Universal’s merger with Comcast approved by the Federal Communications Commission in January. The New York Times is reporting that NBC stations in Chicago, Philadelphia and Los Angeles will partner with noncom outlets in those cities, and all 10 NBC stations will collaborate with ProPublica, the investigative journalism organization. NBC in Chicago will work with The Chicago Reporter blog and magazine. In Philadelphia, NBC is partnering with with NPR station WHYY and its community site NewsWorks.

NET (Nebraska Educational Telecommunications) is exploring a partnership with KVNO/Classical 90.7 at University of Nebraska at Omaha, reports the Lincoln Journal-Star. “This is not a wholesale swap or merger here,” NET General Manager Rod Bates told the paper. “That would be too dramatic. We’re trying to build a relationship.” First up is a programming collaboration. Afternoon Concerts and Classics by Request, both hosted by NET Radio personality Lora Black, will be simulcast on NET Radio and KVNO beginning early next year. KVNO will then provide NET Radio with its overnight classical music production; NET Radio currently subscribes to a service for overnight shows.

Acorn Media, a leading U.S. distributor of British programming on DVD, now is offering a streaming video Web site of classic British shows — a genre once considered just PBS’s territory. For $24.99 a year, subscribers to Acorn TV get full seasons of 10 shows at a time, rotating every week, reports the Washington Post. “Acorn TV is similar to Netflix streaming,” the paper notes, “but with more-plentiful pleasing accents and less rage from customers about confusing practices.” The service launched in July and expanded in September. Acorn Media Group started in 1984 as Atlas Video in the suburban Washington, D.C.,

Well, American Public Media’s former president Bill Kling was right — Garrison Keillor wasn’t serious about retiring in spring 2013, as Keillor had announced earlier this year. Keillor told the Sioux City Journal on Dec. 1 that he “thought about” leaving his hosting duties at A Prairie Home Companion, “and then it panicked me . . . which got me to rethinking the whole brilliant idea. The show is going well. I love doing it. Why quit?” Keillor has become notorious for startling fans of the popular show by talking about leaving, then changing his mind. In March, Kling had dismissed Keillor’s statement as a publicity stunt, intended to tease supporters and bring new contributors into the Prairie Home Companion talent mix.

Mike Newell, a longtime producer at Iowa Public Television, died Thursday night (Dec. 1) at Mercy Medical Center in Des Moines, after suffering a heart attack the previous week and undergoing surgery on Nov. 29, reports the Des Moines Register. He was 66. “Iowa Public Television’s public affairs series Iowa Press lost its leader this week when longtime coordinating producer Mike Newell passed away,” the station said on its website. “For the past 20 years, Mike’s hands were at the helm of this program, steering a steady course through the sometimes murky waters of public policy and politics. While you never heard his voice on Iowa Press, he was undoubtedly the heart and soul of the program.”

Nonprofit newsrooms, often critical of lobbies and political players that hide their funding sources, increasingly are open about their own fiscal support. Of 60 nonprofit news orgs, surveyed last year and again this year, the number disclosing their major donors grew from 47 to 53 (from 78 percent to 88 percent), American University’s Investigative Reporting Workshop said this week. The IRW survey doesn’t include public broadcasters. Its authors speculated that the gain may be related to the adoption in January of formal membership standards, including donor transparency, by the Investigative News Network, a consortium of news orgs. INN requires member news orgs to disclose donations above $1,000.

Oregon Public Broadcasting has fired KC Cowan from Oregon Art Beat. She was the original host of the show and worked on it for 10 years, according to Portland’s Willamette Week, most recently as a producer and writer for the web. “I’m deeply saddened that my relationship with OPB has come to an end,” Cowan told WW in an email. Dave Davis, OPB’s v.p. for television production, told the publication, “She no longer works here, we wish her well, and we thank her for the great work she did on Oregon Art Beat. Beyond that, we can’t say anything else.

NPR took four honors, and Minnesota Public Radio received one, in the 16th annual EPPY Awards, announced Wednesday (Nov. 30) by Editor & Publisher. The international awards recognize the best media-affilated websites in 43 categories. NPR.org won for journalism website with more than 1 million unique monthly visitors. NPR’s “Wanna Live Forever? Become A Noun” by Adam Cole and Robert Krulwich on Morning Edition also was awarded best animation on a website with more than 1 million unique monthly visitors. The enterprise/investigative video with more than 1 million unique monthly visitors was went to NPR for “Brain Wars: How The Military Is Failing Its Wounded”, an investigation with ProPublica.

The House Communications Subcommittee today (Dec. 1) approved a GOP spectrum auction bill that would give the Federal Communications Commission authority to conduct auctions and share proceeds with participating broadcasters, reports TVNewsCheck. The measure passed 17-6.

In an op-ed pegged to Gary Knell’s first day on the job as president of NPR, journalist and author Barbara Cochran urges the veteran pubcasting exec to ignore those who say public radio should shield itself from political pressures by giving up federal funding. Such a move would make a small dent in NPR’s budget — the news organization derives only 2 percent of its revenues from the congressional appropriations provided to CPB — but would do “tremendous damage” to local stations, writes Cochran, former president of the Radio and Television Digital News Association, for Huffington Post. Nearly all of the $100 million in federal funding distributed to public radio goes to 400 stations, and outlets in small markets and rural areas depend on this aid to continue operating.

Roger Ebert has pulled the plug on his movie review show, for now. “At the end of December, our public television program Ebert Presents At The Movies will go on hiatus,” he wrote Wednesday (Nov. 30) on his blog, “while we find necessary funding. This move is necessary to allow the public television stations that carry our show to plan their programs for the beginning of the new year. We held off as long as possible but we had to give notice today.” Ebert said he hopes the hiatus will be brief, and the show is considering a Kickstarter campaign.