Former FCCer Mark Seifert will head the policy side of the NTIA’s allocation of broadband stimulus grant and loan funding. Seifert is a past staffer for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, and was a Common Carrier Bureau deputy chief. Reps of the NTIA, the FCC and the Rural Utilities Service are meeting next week to decide how to distribute the $7 billion-plus in the economic stimulus package to provide broadband to unserved and underserved areas.

Ruby Calvert, g.m. of Wyoming PBS, reports that the station has secured $75,000 from the state to remove its tower and analog antenna. Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed a supplemental appropriation bill March 5 that provides the station’s funds. Removal of the deteriorating, 50-year-old tower, which stands nearly 9,000 feet up Limestone Mountain near Lander, will take place this summer. See Current’s story detailing Wyoming’s challenges.

Cable channel PBS Sprout, a joint venture of PBS, Sesame Workshop, Hit Entertainment and Comcast begun in 2005, has released two iPhone apps for preschoolers, available for free at Apple’s App Store. Sprout Player streams 3- to 4-minute Sprout shows and offers parents a peek at Sprout’s programming schedule. Dress Chica is an extension of a Sprout website game where kids can drag items of clothing onto the chicken mascot. Kids can also make Chica dance by shaking their parents’–or their own?–phone. The apps were created with the New Wave Entertainment studio.

In a filing to the FCC, the Association for Public Television Stations is asking that pubTV stations wishing to do so be allowed to transition to digital this month or next. Numerous stations want to switch to digital as soon as possible for technical and financial reasons. But the commission last week proposed no more analog shutdowns until April 16. Also in an FCC filing, Wisconsin Public TV asked that it be permitted to transition on April 5. The FCC has proposed various deadlines and requirements for the new June 12 deadline.

The Foundation Center has compiled information detailing how the economic climate may be affecting foundation giving. The list includes several longtime pubcasting supporters, such as the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which “will maintain or increase grantmaking in 2009, despite the performance of the market to date,” and the Ford Foundation, which “will honor all outstanding commitments to its grantees and will increase the percentage of its endowment that is paid out in grants in 2009 and 2010.”

Some four million viewers on the waiting list to receive DTV converter coupons should start getting those soon. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration has its funding and coupons should be flowing next week. On Jan. 5, NTIA announced it had run out of money for the $40 federal coupons that subsidize purchase of converters. The Obama administration put $650 million in the economic stimulus package to allow NTIA to start sending out the coupons once again.

As was expected, President Barack Obama has announced his intent to nominate Julius Genachowski to head the FCC. The president cited Genachowski’s “diverse and unparalleled experience in communications and technology, with two decades of accomplishment in the private sector and public service.” Genachowski formerly worked at the commission as chief counsel to Chairman Reed Hundt, and as special counsel to FCC General Counsel (later Chairman) William Kennard.

The Diversity Committee of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers sent this letter to PBS about its November 2008 Report on the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content. The letter was released by Defend the Honor, a Latino civil rights group that led the protests against Ken Burns’ series 2008 The War. March 4, 2009 Ms. Paula Kerger, Chief Executive Officer Ms. Haydee M. Rodriguez, Director, Diversity Initiative Public Broadcasting Service 2100 Crystal Drive Arlington, VA 22202-3785 Dear Ms. Kerger and Ms. Rodriguez: We would like to thank you for the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content (November, 2008). As you know, NALIP strongly supports and encourages PBS in its efforts to accurately reflect the diversity of American life in its programming and staffing.

WEAO in Northeast Ohio has made salary and publication cutbacks and added three pledge drives in an attempt to get back into the black for the end of its fiscal year in June. One employee was laid off, full-time salaries were cut by 10 percent, weekly work hours were reduced 10 percent and overtime was frozen, all as of March 1. The station’s monthly program guide for members went from 20 to 12 pages, and three additional publications were suspended through June. Extra pledge drives are planned for April, May and June.

DISH Network viewers of KWBU in Waco, Texas, may be without their local pubTV station for up to two years, reports the Waco Tribune. Interim station g.m. Clare Paul said problems began when a retransmission notification from DISH was mistakenly sent to KWBU’s previous CEO, who left the station in August. Paul said she tried to contact DISH but did not hear back until New Year’s Eve 2008, when the staff was away. The next day, area DISH subscribers had no KWBU. “We have contacted our attorney in Washington, D.C., and he’s contacted their attorney,” Paul said. “Right now, it’s legal talking to legal.

The Diversity Committee of the National Association of Latino Independent Producers sent this letter to PBS about its November 2008 Report on the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content.  The letter was released by Defend the Honor, a Latino civil rights group that led the protests against Ken Burns’ series 2008 The War. March 4, 2009 Ms. Paula Kerger, Chief Executive Officer Ms. Haydee M. Rodriguez, Director, Diversity Initiative Public Broadcasting Service 2100 Crystal Drive Arlington, VA 22202-3785 Dear Ms. Kerger and Ms. Rodriguez: We would like to thank you for the PBS Diversity Initiative on Content (November, 2008). As you know, NALIP strongly supports and encourages PBS in its efforts to accurately reflect the diversity of American life in its programming and staffing.

The Conference Board reports 45 percent of businesses have reduced donations to nonprofits this year, and another 16 percent were considering doing so. Thirty-five percent of companies said they would make fewer grants this year, and 21 percent said those grants would be smaller. The figures are based on a February 2009 survey of 158 companies.

The Knight Center for Specialized Journalism has extended its application deadline to March 12 for its seminar on economic reporting. The seminar on “The Economy: Bringing the Big Picture Home,” the recession’s effects and possible remedies, will be held April 14-17 at the University of Maryland, College Park. The center covers costs of the seminar, meals and lodging. Details online.

Pubcasting leaders have been talking up the opportunity to fill the void left by ailing newspapers by stepping up online coverage of local news, and the NYTimes.com has already unveiled an experimental website aimed in that direction. The Local, which launched yesterday with coverage of three New Jersey communities, is exploring “how to serve and engage audiences in new ways,” writes Times‘ veteran Tina Kelley, who runs the site with three journalism students. “This is not a we-talk-at-you-and-you-listen kind of site,” Kelly writes. “The Local will be built and maintained with your help, contributions, advice, admonitions, creations, words and pictures.

Vermont Public Radio is cutting executive pay 7.5 percent and the other 43 full-time employees’ salaries will be cut 2 percent, due to a sharp decline in business underwriting, according to the Times Argus in Barre, Vt. The station was originally expecting $2.1 million in revenue for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1, but has revised that projection to $1.5 million. So far this fiscal year the station has received $544,245 in underwriting revenue. VPR has nine full-power stations around Vermont. Underwriting support is also down at nearby New Hampshire Public Radio, although no cuts are planned.