Salt Lake City’s KCPW hits fundraising goal to keep programming

With a day to spare, Salt Lake City’s KCPW-FM hit its goal of raising $42,000 to pay off delinquent programming fees and avoid going dark. KCPW was six months in arrears on payments in programming fees to American Public Media. Station staffers took to the airwaves, sidewalks and online starting June 29 to try raising the money by July 3. The station hit the goal Wednesday afternoon. Of the $42,000, $12,765 came in from an Indiegogo crowdsourcing campaign.

Dotcom entrepreneur invests $250K in Swell app

Jason Calacanis is betting big on Swell, the five-month-old app that curates podcasts and news reports. The angel investor, who co-founded the blog network Weblogs Inc., the search engine Mahalo.com and the podcast network ThisWeekIn, announced Dec. 3 that he would invest $250,000 in the app. In a blog post on his tech website Launch, Calacanis cited the app’s pedigree, mission, design and focus on podcasting as reasons for his investment. He had been interested in the similar apps Stitcher and TuneIn, he said, but wasn’t able to invest in them in time.

WKGC dropping NPR affiliation, picking up BBC, APM shows

WKGC in Panama City, Fla., will replace NPR’s newsmagazines with BBC news programs distributed by American Public Media. The station, which is also dropping its NPR membership, cited duplication of NPR programs in the market as the reason for the schedule change, which takes effect Oct. 1, reports the local News Herald. During morning and afternoon drive times, BBC World News and NewsHour will air on the WKGC instead of NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered. WKGC is licensed to Gulf Coast State Community College and shares its service area with WFSU in Tallahassee, operated by Florida State University.

NPR, APM join forces with mobile app Swell

NPR and American Public Media are partnering with a new mobile app that curates talk radio and podcasts according to listener taste. Swell, which launched June 27, is the latest venture to bring digital radio programs to listeners through digital rather than terrestrial means.