Current (https://current.org/page/614/)
“I compare what I’m doing here to missionary work in the sense that the idea and knowledge of public radio isn’t well known in Guam,” says News Director Naina Rao.
The Writers Guild of America voted to authorize a strike if the current contract expires Thursday.
The Truth, a podcast of fictional stories whose segments have aired on national pubradio programs, met its fundraising goal for a second 10-episode season.
Michelle Obama is kicking off a special event hosted by Wisconsin Public Television this morning. Appearing in a pre-recorded video, the first lady is welcoming children and parents to the network’s 15th annual PBS Kids Get Up and Go! Day. The event promotes family-friendly ideas on how to stay active, healthy and enjoy the outdoors. “Hi everyone!
President Obama’s five nominees to the CPB Board were approved Thursday night by the U.S. Senate.
WLAE in New Orleans dropped PBS programming as of Aug. 1. General Manager Ron Yager told Current that the decision to forego PBS membership saves the station around $130,000 annually, allowing it to invest in local productions. As an overlap station, WLAE’s lineup of network fare had been limited by its use of the PBS Program Differentiation Plan (PDP). The primary PBS station in the market, community-licensed WYES, continues to air the full national schedule, although for the next month fans of the PBS NewsHour may have trouble finding the weeknightly broadcast.
American Public Media’s Marketplace introduced a new brand identity aimed at building awareness of its programs among audiences across broadcast and digital platforms.
The July 29 roll-out coincided with relaunch of Marketplace.org as a fully responsive, mobile-friendly website. A logo resembling both a stock chart and the letter “M” establishes a shared visual identity for all of Marketplace’s program strands. The new tagline, “Between economics and life” is to be the centerpiece of a consumer-oriented advertising campaign aimed at readers of The Economist, the Wall Street Journal, LA Times and Fast Company. A second campaign will launch later this year. The ads will reach up to 9.8 million print readers and a digital audience of about 4.8 million, according to an APM news release.
Among the new reporters for Al Jazeera America’s 12 U.S. news bureaus are several with public media backgrounds. The New York City–based AJA announced the bureaus and personnel today in anticipation of the network’s Aug. 20 launch. Ash-har Quraishi will be AJA’s Chicago correspondent. Quraishi has reported for WTTW’s Chicago Tonight since 2011.
Pacifica station WPFW in Washington, D.C., is in “a pretty critical financial situation,” according to Summer Reese, interim executive director of the network. Reese discussed the state of WPFW during a July 25 Pacifica board conference call. Responding to a board member’s question about a WPFW on-air fund drive planned for in September, she said: “The concern there is, frankly, that you don’t have enough money to get through until September.”
WPFW has fallen into a “perpetual” state of on-air fund drives, Reese said. “It’s not giving listeners much of a break.”
Reese told the board she was following up with WPFW staff about which of the station’s bills must be paid most urgently. Neither the D.C. station nor WBAI in New York have paid for board election costs from last year, she said.
Ophira Eisenberg, host of NPR and WNYC’s bar trivia game show Ask Me Another, is taking her saucy memoir to the movies.
American Public Media Group is selling off the for-profit arm of its business that publishes boutique magazines in order to concentrate on its public media offerings, the company announced today.
Northern California’s KQED-TV is revamping its Friday evening public affairs show by reviving a title from its distant past.