A Republican Congressman hoping to keep his key committee chairmanship is citing CPB as an example of what funding he would cut, according to a story in today’s (Dec. 1) Press-Enterprise of Riverside, Calif. Rep. Jerry Lewis (Calif.) yesterday made a presentation to the Republican Steering Committee, which will decide who will head the House Appropriations Committee, which oversees federal spending. Lewis, the top Republican on the committee for six years, declined to reveal the specifics of his presentation, but cited to the reporter three examples of funding cuts he supports: $12 billion in unobligated stimulus funding, $40 million in the elimination of grants for green jobs and $440 million in savings by ending federal support of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

In a Nov. 23 online op-ed and analysis for the Guardian, media blogger and j-school professor Dan Kennedy describes the political campaign to defund NPR as part of a “culture war being waged by the right.” Kennedy examines the arguments of Republican lawmakers who are calling for an end to federal funding, including the assertion that NPR programming is “liberal,” and finds that they don’t hold water. Much of NPR’s programming, he writes, ” exudes a liberal sensibility reflected in cultural references and, to an extent, story selection. But the reporting itself is balanced and, if anything, errs on the side of caution.”

The FCC today (Nov. 30) unanimously approved a three-part rulemaking to begin to free up TV spectrum for wireless devices, TVNewsCheck is reporting. “These actions will lay the groundwork for the goals set in the National Broadband Plan to make available up to 120 MHz from the broadcast television bands for new wireless broadband services,” said Alan Stillwell, the FCC staffer who presented the proposals at the meeting. Pubcasters and other broadcasters will be faced with the decision to give up spectrum for cash, or keep it for future use (Current, Feb. 8).

AM: still used by several dozen pubcasters AM radio uses the low frequencies where radio began, which have much longer wavelengths. While FM antennas are relatively small and mounted high on towers, AM’s longer wavelengths use the entire tower as an antenna, along with a network of underground wires that typically surround the tower in a circle as wide as the tower is high. Experts in the black art of AM facility design recommend that AM towers’ height be a precise fraction, such as one-quarter, of the station’s wavelength so that the tower will resonate with the frequency. Stations with lower frequencies tend to have higher towers.

Noel Gunther remembers the moment when he realized that public broadcasting had to get involved in traumatic brain injury education. It was 2001. Gunther was producing a segment for WETA’s documentary series Exploring Your Brain. He was interviewing hockey Hall of Famer Pat LaFontaine, who had been forced to retire at age 34 after several concussions. The first, in 1990, knocked him unconscious and put him into convulsions — and yet LaFontaine was back on the ice 10 days later. After he retired in 1999, LaFontaine suffered from chronic piercing headaches and depression; his mind was in a fog. “Pat told me about trying to read a book to his daughter — a simple book,” Gunther said.

The CPB  Board’s 2011 business plan, now online (PDF), was approved during its meeting Nov. 15 and 16  in New Orleans. CPB’s six priorities for 2011: digital and innovation; diversity; dialogue, engagement and awareness; education; journalism; and core system support. That plan promotes station mergers and consolidations of functions such as joint master control operations — concepts the corporation has long encouraged (Current, March 1). CPB also will continue working to promote stations’ financial stability. “If that proves to be unfeasible” with a particular station, the document notes, “CPB will explore alternatives to maintain public broadcasting service to the affected community.”

Talk about collaboration! A typical FM/TV tower can be home to dozens of antennas for stations and other spectrum users. Five full-power TV stations and five FM broadcast from Pinnacle Hill in Rochester, N.Y. (right). Some FM translators and two-way radio and mobile users also share the tower. Pubcaster WXXI owns the middle tower and uses it to broadcast its TV signal and two FMs. 1 These are UHF TV antennas, typically 40-50 feet in length. The two on the crossbar atop WXXI’s tower aired analog signals until the analog turnoff and now will be removed. WXXI-TV’s DTV antenna is on the opposite side of the tower.

The FCC has extended the deadline for complying with new Emergency Alert System rules, reports Television Broadcast today (Nov. 24). The new deadline for all EAS participants to implement Common Alerting Protocol technology is now Sept. 30, 2011, instead of March 29, 2011.

Traveling for Turkey Day? Check out PBS NewsHour’s handy TSA Time page, which organizes Tweets by airport. This from O’Hare in Chicago: “OHare super nice. No line, arrived @ perfect time. Now 5 hour wait for flight.” Oops.

Cookie Monster wants to host Saturday Night Live. (Hey, if octogenarian Betty White can do it . . .) Want to help? Watch Sesame Street’s latest soon-to-be-viral video: Cookie Monster’s audition tape for Saturday Night Live, then visit the “Cookie Monster should host Saturday Night Live!” Facebook page. As of Wednesday (Nov. 23) morning, more than 44,000 folks have signed up. As one wrote, “OMG!! This will be awesome!!!!!”

Brian Reddington, senior v.p., development, has moved from supervision of its Online Giving Initiative to focus solely on the PBS Foundation, Michael Jones, PBS c.o.o, said in a memo today (Nov. 23). PBS’s controversial national online fundraising campaign, set to begin on PBS.org in January, will now be overseen by Jason Seiken’s PBS Interactive team. Bob Minai and Kristin Calhoun will head up the effort. Keith Brengle, recently hired as director, online giving, will now report to Minai. “Jason Seiken clearly has serious online expertise and credibility, and the experience of working with PBS member stations,” said longtime development pro Michael Soper, PBS’s head development officer, 1978-92, and now a nonprofit consultant.

PBS has hired a director of station development services to plug the hole created in June when laid off four staffers in the development unit (Current, Nov. 1). Valerie Pletcher will be a director of station development services beginning Dec. 1, Joyce Herring, s.v.p. of station services, announced to staff in a memo. Pletcher will work as a liaison with system development professionals on informational and training needs, best practices and the development portion of the Annual Meeting. From 1997 to ’99, Pletcher was manager of sponsorships and marketing for the PBS Sponsorship Group; from ’94 to ’96 she was underwriting manager at WVPT/Virginia Public Television.

Robert Feder, longtime Chicago media columnist, is departing Chicago Public Media and its Vocalo blog. He said in a post today (Nov. 23) that he’ll reveal his new online home soon. “With the recent redesign of the Vocalo blogs and their move to a new site at WBEZ.org, I have decided it’s time for me to leave,” he said. Before signing on with Vocalo — a mashup of traditional and new media designed to engage a diverse audience — in November 2009, Feder spent 20 years covering media at the Sun-Times. Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Tribune media columnist, said Vocalo’s move to the WBEZ site, “puzzling for its urgency and lack of necessity, has been snarled in technical difficulties.”

Chicago’s WFMT-FM (98.7) set a record with fall pledge, bringing in $695,000, General Manager Steve Robinson said in a Sun-Times story today (Nov. 23). Then two trustees kicked in to round that up to $700,000. The previous top figure was $620,000. Average contributions increased 17 percent to $199 from last year’s $170. Robinson also asked contributors if they wanted to donate CD premiums to local schools, and many did.

Hiki Nō, PBS Hawaii’s new and innovative student news network, has secured the funding it needs and will launch in February 2011, blogs station President Leslie Wilcox today (Nov. 23). It has raised $1.2 million from local and national funders including the Wallace Alexander Gerbode Foundation and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. CPB and the the Clarence T.C. Ching Foundation provided seed money. Hiki Nō will partner with teachers and middle and high school students from all of Hawaii’s islands to create a collaborative network to deliver community-based news and information to the state via PBS Hawaii’s broadcast and web platforms.