Nice Above Fold - Page 568
NPR back as a House target: Draft bill seeks ban on aid
The draft for the House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal year 2012 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education appropriations bill, introduced Sept. 29 by subcommittee Chair Denny Rehburg (R-Mont.), would prohibit CPB from funding NPR and requests a report from CPB on how to remove NPR totally from federal funding by 2014. Under the bill, CPB would receive the already-appropriated amount of $445 million for that year, including $6 million for digital projects. Other agencies in the draft bill would fare worse for the year that began Oct. 1. Discretionary funding in the multiagency bill would shrink 2.5 percent; the sum is 15.2 percent less than President Obama proposed.Mix of local programs gives a pubTV station its ‘secret sauce’
For stations that are revered local institutions with loyal audiences and financial resources, standards for success are higher.CPB to equip 2 pubTV facilities as multistation master controls
By having two or three big master-control facilities oversee the digital assembly and transmission of broadcast schedules for all of the nation’s public TV stations, the field could save tens of millions of dollars a year, according to Mark Erstling, CPB senior v.p., system development and media strategy. CPB will cover a big part of the costs of public TV’s first two “centralcasting” setups this year, Erstling says. On Sept. 19, the CPB Board approved a $6.6 million grant to equip a centralcasting facility in Syracuse, N.Y., for all nine pubTV stations in New York State plus New Jersey’s four-station network.
Sesame Workshop names its c.o.o. Ming as new president and c.e.o.
Sesame Workshop’s new president and c.e.o. is H. Melvin Ming, currently the Workshop’s chief operating officer. Ming succeeds Gary Knell, who was just named president of NPR. Ming joined the nonprofit home to Sesame Street in 1999 as chief financial officer, and was promoted to c.o.o. in 2002. As c.o.o. he oversees content, product licensing, distribution, research, communications and business strategies. Prior to joining the Workshop, Ming served as chief financial officer of the Museum of Television and Radio in New York; chief operating officer at WQED in Pittsburgh; and chief financial officer and chief administrative officer at WNET in New York.Two more feeds syndicate jazz to public radio
Public radio stations shopping for a plug-and-play jazz stream now have double the options to consider, with two newcomers to the field offering mainstream jazz services. Last month KPLU in Seattle/Tacoma announced that it will soon offer its Jazz24 stream, which it now broadcasts online and locally on an HD channel, to stations around the country. KPLU says the channel now draws a monthly web audience of 100,000 listeners, 90 percent outside the Seattle area. Meanwhile, some former hosts and creators of JazzWorks, a service that changed hands in May along with Pittsburgh’s WDUQ-FM, are now offering a jazz service under the name of Pubradio Network, competing with their old channel.Public radio ‘dancing at the edge of change’
There’s some heavy-duty soul-searching going on in public radio. The Public Radio Program Directors conference, Sept. 20–23 in Baltimore, sidelined its usual celebrations of pubradio’s audience growth and its journalistic ascendency. Instead, participants grappled with big questions about challenges ahead and wondered aloud about how to move forward after a year of political calamity at NPR. Progress reports about ongoing reforms were freighted with a new urgency: giving exposure to innovative new programs, raising stations’ ambitions for local reporting, opening the field to more diverse voices and listeners. Podium speeches promoting the ideals of creative risk-taking and collaboration generated plenty of conversation among station programmers as well as a big turnout of independent producers — 120 were attracted to this year’s PRPD by discounted admissions and indie-oriented events.
Gary Knell, Sesame Workshop c.e.o., hired as NPR president
Gary E. Knell, president and c.e.o. of Sesame Workshop for a decade, will start work Dec. 1 with the same titles at NPR, the network announced today. The NPR Board voted unanimously to hire the widely experienced leader of a comparably prominent, esteemed and successful public media institution who had preparatory stints as a legislative aide and in private media and public TV. An NPR spokesperson said Knell would take a reduction pay. His Sesame Workshop compensation came to more than $746,000, NPR’s David Folkenflik reported today [Mark Memmott’s blog]. Though the production company behind Sesame Street and other children’s shows is a nonprofit, it has benefited from toy licensing and media sales revenues at a private-sector level.Pubcaster elected chairman of Radio Television Digital News Association
Michigan Radio News Director Vincent Duffy is the new chairman of the board of the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA), the first public media news director elected to the position. Members chose Duffy during the 2011 Excellence in Journalism Conference this week in New Orleans. Here’s a roundup of other news from the meeting.Alvarado, Jackson, Taylor named to FCC Diversity Committee
Three public broadcasters have been named to the Federal Communication Commission’s Diversity Committee (PDF). Joaquin Alvarado, senior vice president for digital innovation for American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio; Maxie Jackson, president of the National Federation of Community Broadcasters; and Loris Ann Taylor, president of Native Public Media, will serve on the committee, which advises the commission on policies and practices to enhance diversity in telecommunications. It is chaired by former FCC Commissioner Henry Rivera. The committee’s first meeting will be Dec. 6.Labor HHS proposal would block NPR funds, asks CPB to wean radio money by 2014
The draft for the House Appropriations Committee’s fiscal 2012 Labor, Health and Human Services bill, introduced Thursday (Sept. 29) by the subcommittee chairman Denny Rehburg (R-Mont.), would prohibit the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from funding NPR, and requests a report from CPB on how to remove NPR from federal funding by 2014. CPB receives the expected $445 million in funding over the upcoming year. In all, the bill proposes a 2.5 percent reduction in total discretionary funding over 2011, and 15.2 percent less than President Barack Obama’s budget request. Details from the committee here. A spokesperson for the House Appropriations Committee told Current that specifics on the report requested from CPB regarding NPR will be made public when the bill moves to the full committee for mark up.Cops nab WNET MetroFocus journalist at Wall Street protests
A Web editor with WNET’s new MetroFocus local news and culture site was arrested while reporting on citizen journalism at this week’s protests on Wall Street. John Farley wrote that he was “thrown against a wall and handcuffed with hard plastic zip-tie restraints. I sat on the sidewalk with about 50 others. I yelled over and over, ‘I’m press! I’m with WNET MetroFocus! Please do not arrest me.'” Farley said he didn’t have press credentials because MetroFocus is less than three months old, so it doesn’t yet meet NYPD’s criteria for news organizations. He was in custody for nine hours, eight of which were in a jail cell at the 1st Precinct, and released around 10:30 p.m.DeAnne Hamilton to lead WESA in Pittsburgh
DeAnne Hamilton becomes president of WESA-90.5 FM in Pittsburgh on Oct. 17, Essential Public Radio announced today (Sept. 28). She previously was general manager of WKAR at Michigan State University, and was a vice president and station manager of KQED Public Television in San Francisco. Hamilton also is a member of the PBS Board of Directors. Essential Public Media finalized its $6 million deal this month to buy the former WDUQ from Duquesne University.New PBS primary in Orlando raises $60,000 in first pledge drive
WUCF-TV, the new PBS primary station in Orlando, Fla., has raised $60,000 in its first pledge drive, reports the Orlando Sentinel. Grant Heston, assistant vice president of news and information at licensee University of Central Florida, said he was “very pleased,” and looking forward to larger numbers for its next fundraiser in December. The station took a “low-key approach” to the drive, the paper noted, with no announced goal. WUCF-TV, a partnership between the university and Brevard Community College, signed on as the primary on July 1, in the wake of the sale announcement of WMFE-TV (Current, April 18, 2011).Documents reveal financial struggles for Michigan State's WKAR
In recent years, Michigan State University has provided an average annual subsidy of $3.5 million for WKAR-TV and radio — about one-third of its budget, according to financial statements obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request by the the State Journal in Lansing, Mich. Neither Gary Reid, director of broadcasting, nor Pamela Whitten, college dean, could say what future MSU funding levels will be for WKAR, the paper said. Last month WKAR laid off 10 employees. The pubTV and radio station had combined operating shortfalls of $411,158 in fiscal year 2008, $929,237 in 2009 and $634,991 in 2010, according to financial documents.Rep. Yarmuth introduces bill to reauthorize Ready To Learn
Congressman John Yarmuth (D-Ky.) has introduced the Ready To Compete Act, H.R. 3036, which would reauthorize public television’s longtime education program, Ready To Learn.“We are extremely grateful to Congressman Yarmuth for his unwavering support of public broadcasting’s educational mission and recognizing the important role local stations play in educating communities across the country,” said Patrick Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, in a statement. RTL uses public television’s on-air and online educational content to build the math, science and reading skills of children ages 2 to 8, especially targeting those from low-income families and underserved communities. In addition, Yarmuth’s bill, introduced Sept.
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