System/Policy
Channel-share agreements bring Connecticut station $32.6M in spectrum auction
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Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network is holding on to its stations in Bridgeport and Hartford-New Haven.
System/Policy
CPBN cuts costs by laying off five staffers
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Adjusting to a $300,000 budget deficit from last fiscal year, CEO Jerry Franklin told staff that his leadership team is also cutting expenses in ways that won’t significantly affect the network’s audiences.
System/Policy
Despite snags, Connecticut network pushes ahead with reinvention
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New programs such as “The Cobblestone Corridor” are part of a sweeping plan to overhaul Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network.
System/Policy
As it follows new “playbook,” Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network trims budget, adds execs
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“We may fail greatly or achieve something great,” says CPBN’s c.o.o., “but either way, we’re going to try.”
System/Policy
How Connecticut’s largest public media outlet worked with IDEO to reimagine its future
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Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network takes a page from human-centered design to build a playbook to transform its programming, education programs, and fundraising.
Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network
Conn. network strikes deal with LocusPoint on proceeds from spectrum auction
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The Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network plans to relinquish the spectrum assigned to WEDW-TV in Bridgeport, one of four stations in its statewide network, in the FCC’s upcoming auction, according to documents filed with the FCC. Under its agreement with spectrum speculator LocusPoint Networks, the pubcaster received an undisclosed cash payout from LocusPoint and will share a portion of its future auction proceeds with the company. Financial details of the contract, approved by the network’s board of trustees in June 2013, have been redacted from FCC records due to a mutual confidentiality agreement. Connecticut Public Broadcasting Inc. is among the sole-service public TV licensees identified in a July CPB white paper warning of the creation of a “white area” — the loss of PTV broadcast service — if pubcasters choose to auction off their spectrum. But that won’t happen in this case, according to officials from LocusPoint and CPBN.
Quick Takes
Monday roundup: Idaho PTV’s strange debate, overstated “emergency” in CPBN fundraising email
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Plus: The University of Missouri’s j-school welcomes “institutional fellows,” and Bill Buzenberg steps down from the Center for Public Integrity.
Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network
NPR and WBUR partner in ‘Here & Now’ expansion
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More than 100 public radio stations have picked up the midday NPR news show Here & Now with its expansion to two hours July 1, many of them to fill the void left by the cancellation of NPR’s long-running call-in show Talk of the Nation.
Programs/Content
Scarce funding limits public media’s response to gun debate
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The mass shootings last year in Colorado, Wisconsin and Connecticut reawakened Americans to recurring tragedies of gun violence and rekindled a national debate about gun control — one that public radio and television have chronicled and analyzed through ongoing programs and the package of special broadcasts that aired on PBS last month.
Programs/Content
UConn’s ratings-rich lady hoopsters desert CPTV
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The 18-year partnership that helped prove there’s an audience for collegiate women’s basketball came to an end last week when the University of Connecticut dumped the state’s public TV network for SportsNet New York, a regional cable network with vastly greater reach than Connecticut Public Television. Women’s basketball has been a ratings winner for CPTV, boosting its membership and underwriting revenues, and President Jerry Franklin moved quickly to try to stem the losses. Two days after UConn announced its new contract with SportsNet, Franklin unveiled a licensing deal with Connecticut Sun of the Women’s National Basketball Association. Broadcasts begin airing May 20 on “CPTV Sports.”
Still, Franklin anticipates repercussions from the loss of UConn women’s basketball — for both CPTV and UConn. “We have about 100,000 members — radio and television — and about one-third are members because of UConn women’s basketball,” he said.
Quick Takes
Conn. network inks deal with schools for media academy
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Connecticut Public Broadcasting Network has signed an agreement with the Hartford public school system to establish at CPBN headquarters a hands-on lab where students will learn how to produce TV, radio and online media. Starting with the 2013–14 school year, 100 seniors in the Hartford Journalism & Media Academy will take all of their classes, including core subjects, in the new Learning Lab. “No other public broadcasting institution in the country is taking a third of its facility and building a school there,” said Jerry Franklin, CPBN president. The net plans to invest $3.5 million to convert 20,000 square feet of space into classrooms and production studios for the lab. CPBN has raised about $1.6 million so far from corporate donors and foundations.
Programs/Content
Does public TV get a big enough piece of Barney?
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While earning the adulation of the nation’s toddlers, the six-foot dinosaur with his own PBS show has received an adverse response from some adults, among whom Barney-bashing is now in vogue.