System/Policy
Texas Public Radio employees seek to unionize amid leadership transition
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The staffers say the union would “safeguard our organization’s future success.”
Current (https://current.org/page/571/)
The staffers say the union would “safeguard our organization’s future success.”
“As traditional broadcast gives way to new media, public television needs to dust off its early spirit of scrappy, decentralized innovation.”
An analysis of the most popular syndicated program on pubTV from two longtime industry advisors.
After letting their BBQ grillmaster marinate on YouTube, Austin’s KLRU is taking him to TV. The station will produce the 10-episode series BBQ With Franklin for national pubTV distribution in early 2015, based on a popular series of YouTube videos featuring Austin BBQ legend Aaron Franklin. The YouTube series, launched in 2012 with support in part from crowdfunding and PBS Digital Studios, has racked up more than one million viewers. While the YouTube series is mostly instructional in nature, the TV show will follow Franklin as he travels around central Texas learning about BBQ history and culture. KLRU will continue to produce new web-exclusive episodes concurrently with the broadcast series.
• The U.S. Supreme Court has set a date for ABC TV v. Aereo, a challenge to the startup service that allows subscribers to watch TV programs over the Internet via miniature antennae. Oral arguments are scheduled for April 21. Though ABC brought the lawsuit, filed in New York and Boston, PBS and New York’s WNET are also among the parties claiming Aereo violates copyright law. • Ken Burns participated in his first Reddit Ask Me Anything session Tuesday as part of the promotion for his new app. He laid out the planned release schedule for his next decade of films: The Roosevelts in September, A History of Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies and Jackie Robinson in 2015, Vietnam in 2016, Country Music in 2018 and Ernest Hemingway in 2019.
Radiotopia, which launched Tuesday, is a collection of shows designed to help connect content producers with a broader digital audience.
Everything But The News is a comedy web series following the exploits of a technology-illiterate producer attempting to file reports on the San Francisco tech sector for the PBS NewsHour.
• NPR sports reporter Mike Pesca is leaving the network to host a daily current-events podcast for Slate, Business Insider reports. The show will begin this April. Pesca has co-hosted Slate’s sports podcast, “Hang Up And Listen,” since 2009. He tells BI he will have more license to share personal opinions as a podcast host, something he couldn’t do as an NPR reporter. Slate earns upwards of 10 percent of its total advertising revenue from podcasts and expects to grow that share in coming months, according to BI.
Pubcasting execs and elected officials welcomed the American Archive of Public Broadcasting to the Library of Congress Feb. 10 during a celebration ceremony in Washington, D.C.
The FCC is giving interested parties another 30 days to weigh in on comments already made regarding proposed rule changes that would benefit AM radio stations. For the first time since 1987, the FCC is taking a comprehensive look at AM radio to review possible policy changes. A window for filing comments closed Jan. 24, and the deadline for responses to those comments was set to close Feb. 18.
After going off the air last fall, Free Speech Radio News is resuming production, but on a relaunched version of its website. Beginning Feb. 11, FSRN producers will post audio, photos and articles online as the progressive news operation charts a path back to ongoing radio production. The FSRN board drew on support from major donors and other contributors for the web-based relaunch, wrote Sang Hea Kil, FSRN’s president, in a Feb. 2 post on FSRN’s website.
PBS filmmaker Ken Burns put a new spin on U.S. history today, debuting his first app and a new website dedicated to his films.