System/Policy

Spending bill in Congress keeps CPB funding intact

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CPB is set to receive its full requested appropriation in the spending bill nearing passage in Congress, which will fund the government through next September. The 1,603-page bill, already passed by the House of Representatives, includes the full $445 million appropriation for CPB in fiscal year 2017. CPB traditionally receives its appropriation two years in advance to help facilitate production pipelines. Ready to Learn will also receive its requested funding of $25.7 million if the bill passes as written. No critics of public media have surfaced to call for zeroing out CPB funding, said Patrick Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations and public TV’s chief lobbyist on the Hill.

System/Policy

FCC reps tell CPB board of growing interest in spectrum auction

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — An increasing number of public broadcasters have been contacting the FCC in recent weeks for information about participating in the upcoming spectrum auction, according to commission representatives who spoke at a CPB board meeting here Tuesday. The uptick began after an Oct. 1 report by investment banking firm Greenhill & Co. projected massive paydays for television stations if they sell spectrum to wireless carriers in next year’s congressionally mandated auction. Most pubTV stations, the representatives said, have been asking the FCC for details about transitioning from UHF to VHF channels.

System/Policy

Citing persistent errors, CPB’s IG recommends changes to stations’ reporting of in-kind funds

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CPB’s Inspector General has recommended that CPB end the crediting of in-kind donations toward stations’ nonfederal financial support after the IG’s office found six stations had overstated NFFS by claiming invalid donations and incorrectly valuing the contributions. The IG’s office said in a Sept. 30 report that it found stations had inappropriately claimed in-kind donations such as venue space, merchandise and services as NFFS, amounting to misclassifying of hundreds of thousands of dollars. “CPB should evaluate the practicality of continuing to allow stations to claim in-kind trades as NFFS given the historical and continuing challenges in valuing trades and documenting that trades were received by the stations,” the report said. CPB uses NFFS to calculate the annual Community Service Grants it doles out to public broadcasters.

System/Policy

CPB funds will go toward helping pubTV execs make spectrum decisions

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CPB will spend $3 million to give public television executives access to expert advice on the upcoming broadcast spectrum auction. The extremely high value of spectrum as appraised by an Oct. 1 FCC report, “Incentive Auction Opportunities for Broadcasters,” created a “considerable amount of confusion” among managers, said Michael Levy, CPB e.v.p. Previous estimates had been much lower. CPB now believes, based on conversations with general managers after the report was released, that “perhaps as many as 50 to 60” of those executives now feel compelled to “revisit their thinking” about whether to participate in the auction, Levy said. The topic generated discussion at a CPB/PBS General Managers Strategy Meeting Monday and Tuesday in Washington, D.C., Levy said.

Programs/Content

D.C. American Graduate event amplifies youth voices

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The five winners of American Graduate’s Raise Up hip-hop and spoken-word competition performed their original poems on the stage of Washington, D.C.’s Kennedy Center during a star-studded celebration Sept. 28. The Raise Up competition aimed to include more young people in conversations about high-school dropout rates. It came about through a partnership between CPB’s American Graduate initiative and Youth Speaks, a San Francisco–based nonprofit that seeks to empower young people through writing and performing. The contest was part of the American Graduate: Lets Make It Happen initiative, which focuses on helping communities reduce dropout rates.

CPB

Senate approves three Obama nominees for CPB Board of Directors

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The Senate approved three members of the CPB Board Thursday, one returning and two new. The three were nominated by President Obama earlier this year. New to the governing body for a term expiring in 2016 is David Arroyo of Brooklyn, N.Y., s.v.p. for legal affairs at Scripps Network Interactive. From 2008-12 Arroyo chaired the Board of Latino Justice, formerly the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund. He also was recognized by the Imagen Foundation as one of the most influential Latinos in entertainment in 2012.

Development

Former iMA director leaves Greater Public amid shift in planned services

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Greater Public, the organization providing fundraising resources and support to public media stations, has opted not to renew the contract of Jeannie Ericson, executive director of its digital division. Ericson formerly worked directly with stations as executive director of the Integrated Media Association, which merged with Greater Public in August 2013. Under a yearlong contract that expired Aug. 29, she helped Greater Public evaluate how to integrate iMA’s digital services for stations into its existing portfolio of development-focused activities. Ericson had not expected that Greater Public would decline to renew her contract, she said.

System/Policy

CPB eyes TV CSG rules in anticipation of spectrum auctions

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CPB will review its television Community Service Grant policies to clarify how to handle station revenues from the upcoming spectrum auction. The auctions, mandated by Congress to be conducted by the FCC before 2022, will clear spectrum for wireless devices. All broadcasters must decide whether to participate, and a station’s sale of spectrum could bring in millions of dollars. So far, two recent noncom TV deals in California and Maryland, in which a speculator paid stations up front for a share of future spectrum proceeds, each topped $1 million. The value of a similar deal in Connecticut was not made public.

System/Policy

CPB gives $2.5 million to Firelight Media diversity initiative

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Firelight Media, the documentary filmmaking nonprofit founded by Stanley Nelson, received a $2.55 million grant from CPB Aug. 20 to expand Producers’ Lab, a public television documentary mentorship project. Producers’ Lab recruits filmmakers and producers from underrepresented regions across the country to work with Nelson and Firelight Media to create documentaries that include a more diverse range of voices. The grant will allow the lab to add 30 to 40 more producers to the program over three years and expand its recruiting to all regions of the country. The program’s goal of adding more diversity to public TV’s airwaves was a main selling point for CPB, according to Joseph Tovares, senior vice president of diversity and innovation at CPB.

Community Service Grants

KEET steps up membership efforts to hold on to federal funding

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KEET-TV, one of the smallest PBS member stations, has grown its membership by 40 percent and raised more than $600,000 over the past six months in an effort to keep its federal Community Service Grant. Local businesses in Eureka, Calif., have posted banners pushing “The Power of One,” the motto of KEET’s campaign. Website pop-ups show viewers holding signs with titles of their favorite public TV shows. A local utility provider is pitching in, donating a portion of each paid petroleum bill to the station. At issue is KEET’s inability to meet the $800,000 minimum in nonfederal financial support that CPB requires of CSG grantees, which the station has never done in its 45-year history.

Programs/Content

CPB backs new episodes of Hinojosa’s America By The Numbers

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The Corporation for Public Broadcasting awarded an $850,000 grant for eight new half-hour episodes of America By The Numbers, a series featuring journalist Maria Hinojosa that had a pilot run as a PBS election special. Programs in the series, which will air on PBS and the World Channel, will cover topics such as health disparities revealed by infant mortality rates, military service by residents of non-voting territories of the Pacific Islands and the effects of the domestic oil boom on Native American lands. “Consistent with the mission of public broadcasting – to give voice to the extraordinary diversity of this country – I am excited that PBS and the World Channel will premiere America by the Numbers,” said Maria Hinojosa, series host and project leader, in a statement. “This eight-part series is the first national TV program dedicated to documenting massive and historic demographic change in the US using hard data and powerful storytelling.”

America By The Numbers is a collaboration between Hinojosa’s Futuro Media Group and Boston’s WGBH. CPB backed the production through its Diversity and Innovation Fund, according to its June 5 grant announcement.

System/Policy

CPB, RTL award $2.2 million for public TV school-readiness projects

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CPB and Ready to Learn, a U.S. Department of Education program supporting preschool learning, will provide $2.2 million in grants to 21 public television stations to create new or expand existing school-readiness projects. One of the new grants, announced June 3, will establish an Illinois Ready to Learn transmedia network with pubTV partners WILL in Champaign-Urbana, WSIU in Carbondale and WTVP in Peoria, to reach 12,000 educators and 13,000 school children. Partnering with community coalitions in central and southern Illinois, the effort will provide educational programs to three low-income communities, as well as offer professional development for educators. The stations received just over $105,000 for that work. Since 2011, pubTV stations nationwide have used Ready to Learn grants specifically to extend the educational benefits of PBS Kids content by providing interactive math and literacy programs and services to local communities.