Tech

National Datacast closing ‘substantial portion’ of operations

By |

National Datacast Inc., which since 1988 has leased data-transmission space to commercial clients on participating public television stations’ analog channels, is closing “a substantial portion of its business operations” by June 30, according to the PBS fiscal 2014 budget. PBS Enterprises, a for-profit subsidiary of PBS, owns 88.58 percent of NDI. Denise Wise, NDI chief financial officer, said the company is “exploring opportunities to achieve the most value from assets held by the company,” which include investments in technology firms. Wise declined to provide information about those investments or reveal the number of pubTV clients or size of the NDI staff. Wise said details on the future of NDI may become available “over the next few months.”

Jacqueline Weiss, NDI chief executive officer and co-founder, declined Current’s request for an interview. “In this new phase of the company,” Wise wrote in an email, “the NDI Board of Directors will play a key role in evaluating a range of options as we move forward and chart the course for our future.” Board Chair Lloyd Wright, president of WFYI in Indianapolis, also declined comment.

Quick Takes

Next Masterpiece drama set in hospital gynecology unit in 1961

By |

Masterpiece and ITV Studios, production home to Downton Abbey, will partner again on Breathless, a medical drama set in a London hospital’s busy gynecology unit in 1961, the two announced last week. According to a press release, “Breathless follows the lives of a group of doctors and nurses working in a London hospital, a world in which everything and everyone has their place. But underneath this veneer simmers a cauldron of lies and guilty secrets, driven by love, ambition and sex.” Rebecca Eaton, Masterpiece e.p., said in the announcement that “television dramas that tell good stories about womens’ lives in the 20th century are endlessly interesting to me, and apparently to lots of other people — look at the appeal of Call the Midwife and Mad Men. We’re all fascinated by the enormous changes that happened just a short time ago.

Programs/Content

Preparing public media newsrooms to cover local crises

By |

Crisis coverage will stress several layers of a public station’s operating systems — from newsroom layout to editorial decision-making; from the flexibility of web-hosting services to interpersonal relationships among key staff members, each of whom will be asked to step up and work under conditions they have never faced.

Quick Takes

Neil Diamond to debut song on Capitol Fourth honoring Marathon bombing victims

By |

On A Capitol Fourth, the annual musical celebration of Independence Day on PBS, Neil Diamond will premiere a tribute song for victims of the Boston Marathon bombings. All proceeds from the sale of the tune, “Freedom Song (They’ll Never Take Us Down”), will benefit One Fund Boston, formed to assist those victims and their families, and the Wounded Warrior Project, which supports injured service members. “I was inspired to devote myself to the creation of a new song which expressed my love for this country and its two greatest assets: the spirit of its people and the freedoms it has afforded us all by law,” Diamond said. A Capitol Fourth is broadcast live from the West Lawn of the U.S. Capitol and is one of PBS’s most popular programs. Last year, the concert averaged 6.3 million viewers, a 3.8 household rating, according to Nielsen.

The program is also heard live in stereo over NPR member stations nationwide.

Development

Sesame Workshop trims 10 percent of workforce as financial losses mount

By |

Sesame Workshop, production home to the iconic pubTV children’s program Sesame Street, announced Tuesday that it is laying off 10 percent of its workforce, or about 30 positions. The workshop’s most recent audited statements, for fiscal 2012, reflect a $24.3 million loss. That compares with a $10.8 million loss for the previous fiscal year and a $130,000 loss for FY10. Cash on-hand also plunged over the past several years, from $50.5 million in FY10, to $29.1 million in FY11 and $10 million in FY12. For FY12, Sesame Workshop was able to pare $9 million in expenses from year-to-year, largely from a reduction in production and development.

Quick Takes

CNN Radio is shutting down

By |

CNN Radio, the cable channel’s digital-only audio news platform, is shutting down effective immediately, according to a CNN press release. Today will be its last day of broadcast, and staff’s final day will be Friday. The decision will affect about 12 staffers, according to the release. The network had been digital-only since April 2012. In February 2011, former Georgia Public Broadcasting News Director Susanna Capelouto left her job to become a producer at CNN Radio.

Tech

Demo Day marks ‘rite of passage’ for Matter startups

By |

Matter, the first startup accelerator backed by public media, unveiled the latest iterations of its inaugural class’s technology products June 13, introducing its first six teams of entrepreneurs to the venture capitalists of Silicon Valley.