People

PRPD honors Oliver, JazzWeek recognizes community stations, and more awards in public media

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PUBLIC RADIO PROGRAM DIRECTORS
Craig Oliver, a public radio audience research consultant, received the Don Otto award for career contributions to the field. Oliver is the owner of Craig Oliver Consulting, which provides audience research and insight to Public Radio International, Greater Public, and several public radio stations. Oliver co-founded PRPD in 1987 and served as its first president. He was also president of the Radio Research Consortium, where he is now a board member. The Otto award is given annually by PRPD and Audience Research Analysis to recognize creative contributions to public radio.

Programs/Content

Eclectic24 goes from online to on-air in Santa Barbara

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An FM signal in Santa Barbara, Calif., recently acquired by KCRW, became the first broadcast home this week for Eclectic24, a previously web-only music stream produced by the Santa Monica–based station. KCRW broadcasts on two signals in the market and is using its former repeater at 106.9 FM as the first over-the-air outlet for Eclectic24. Since June, the station has also been simulcasting its Santa Monica station’s programming on 88.7 FM in Santa Barbara, which it purchased earlier this year. “We’ve never had the opportunity to do an all-music station in L.A., so when this opportunity came up, we grabbed it,” KCRW General Manager Jennifer Ferro said in an email. “It’s always a good thing to have so much programming to share.”

If it proves successful, Eclectic24 might appear on other signals, Ferro said.

Journalism

Tiny news team at Lakeland Public Television fills gap left by commercial TV

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Station managers who worry they can’t afford to do news and public affairs have only to look at Lakeland Public Television in Bemidji, Minn., for inspiration. Since 1998, the station has produced a full half-hour weeknight news program. It currently operates on a yearly budget of just $375,000 to $400,000. Lakeland News is “structured like a commercial newscast, without commercials,” said Bill Sanford, the station’s chief executive and director of engineering. It was conceived after the station secured funding to evaluate how to reinvent itself.

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.