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The U.S. public wants more news coverage of climate change, surveys find

As hurricanes, floods, wildfires, and heat waves have intensified over the past decade, public concern about climate change has grown dramatically. Today, 65% of the U.S. public is worried about the issue, up from 52% a decade ago, according to nationally representative surveys conducted by scientists at Yale University and George Mason University.

Journalism

Kansas City’s KCPT picks up gauntlet to expand local news coverage

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Three years ago, a delegation from Kansas City Public Television, including the board chair, trekked out to San Diego’s KPBS to evaluate how that station’s extensive radio, television and online news operation might be adapted in Kansas City. A few months later, an influential visitor to Kansas City, PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer, urged KCPT leaders to act on their nascent ambitions to develop a locally focused news service for the community. Over dinner at the restaurant Lidia’s, Lehrer “kind of threw the gauntlet down,” recalled Kliff Kuehl, KCPT president, challenging executives to step up the station’s commitment to news coverage. But the proposal to transform KCPT into a true local news hub remained mostly an aspiration until a surprise major grant from the Hale Family Foundation arrived in July 2013. Only then was the station able to turn its ambitions into something substantive and seemingly sustainable.

System/Policy

PBS responds to critical essay in latest Harper’s Magazine

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A 12-page essay titled “PBS Self-Destructs: And What It Means for Viewers Like You” in the October issue of Harper’s Magazine has prompted PBS to reply to the magazine and provide stations with talking points in anticipation of viewers’ responses. In the piece, writer Eugenia Williamson traces the history of the network with special attention to conservative interests that have buffeted PBS over the years. “[I]t doesn’t matter that the Republicans couldn’t defund PBS — they really didn’t need to. Twenty years on, the liberal bias they bemoaned has evaporated, if it ever existed to begin with,” Williamson writes. “Today, the only special-interest group the network clearly favors is the aging upper class: their tastes, their pet agendas, their centrist politics.

Education/Engagement

St. Louis stations dedicate Public Media Commons

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Some 800 people attended the Sept. 13 dedication of Public Media Commons in St. Louis, a unique 9,000–square-foot outdoor media environment located between Nine Network and St. Louis Public Radio that features two-story–high video walls and 5-foot interactive touch screens. The $6 million project, funded by local contributions, is a collaboration among the stations and the University of Missouri-St.

System/Policy

Commentary: With shift in plans, Greater Public hits the brakes on digital

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The departure of Jeannie Ericson from Greater Public and the cancellation of the short-lived Digital Day at the Public Media Development and Marketing Conference represent a damaging retreat from public media’s digital future. Over the past 11 years, the Integrated Media Association was one of the only focal points within public media for collaboration on digital strategy and realistic, shareable solutions for public TV and radio stations. Under the leadership of Mark Fuerst and then Jeannie Ericson, with the commitment of lots of smart people at local stations, iMA worked to bring public media into the digital age. When iMA merged with Greater Public last year, it seemed like a positive step toward integrating digital with our marketing strategies and revenue generation. One year later, Greater Public opted not to renew Ericson’s contract and to cancel Digital Day.

Tech

In maintaining towers, stations face higher costs, lack of space

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If any part of the broadcast plant ever merited the label “necessary evil,” a top nominee would be the tower. Expensive to maintain, fraught with potential hazards, bound by an ever-growing web of regulations, unloved by neighbors and often located inconveniently far away, a pubcaster’s tower still serves as the essential link between its program service and its audience. In the early years of public TV and radio — before streaming and podcasting and cable and over-the-top video delivery — pubcasters and their audiences depended completely on the reach of the signals their towers could deliver. When broadcasting was a new and developing communications medium, those towers were much easier to build. As long as they weren’t in an airport flight path, the NIMBY factor was rarely a concern as public TV and FM stations spread across the country from the 1950s into the 1970s.

System/Policy

Public TV organizations ask FCC to protect noncoms when repacking spectrum

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Three national public broadcasting organizations are asking the FCC to change its spectrum auction rules to ensure that channel repacking leaves no community without noncommercial television. The Association for Public Television Stations, PBS and CPB are concerned that repacking, or the channel shifting that will occur after the auction, could create such “white spaces.” Public television’s mission includes universal coverage, providing every American household with access to free educational television content. In a Sept. 15 petition, the organizations asked the FCC to “reconsider and revise” its auction rules based on the precedence that the agency has long recognized noncom TV spectrum as protected and distinct from commercial. The spectrum auction rules make no distinction between commercial and public spectrum.

People

CPB Board members elect Sembler and Gilbert as new leadership

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The CPB Board elected new leadership Tuesday in two unanimous votes. Chairing the governing body is Elizabeth Sembler, a Florida educator, with Nevada broadcaster Lori Gilbert as vice-chair. Each will serve one-year terms.

Outgoing CPB Chair Patricia Cahill presented Sembler with the chair’s gavel at the end of the board’s annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Cahill is the retired head of KCUR-FM in Kansas City, Mo., and was the first radio broadcaster elected chair. Sembler was first nominated to the board by President Bush and originally confirmed by the Senate in 2008. She was renominated by President Obama and confirmed for a second term this month.

Programs/Content

Science Friday producer settles with government over alleged misuse of NSF funds

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A for-profit corporation involved with public radio’s weekly Science Friday show has settled with the U.S. government over alleged misuse of a National Science Foundation grant awarded from August 2009 to July 2011. In the settlement announced Tuesday by the District of Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s Office, ScienceFriday Inc. and Ira Flatow, ScienceFriday’s president and host of the radio show, will pay $145,541 to resolve allegations that they mishandled NSF funds. The company also agreed to exclusion from participation in federal programs, grants and contracts until Sept. 15, 2015. ScienceFriday Inc. is a for-profit corporation based in Stamford, Conn., that produced Science Friday during the time of the contested NSF funding. The show is now produced by Science Friday Initiative, a nonprofit that contracts with the for-profit corporation for Flatow’s time and the show’s branding and logos.