Quick Takes

Former KCTS reporter argues that station should sell spectrum

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Writing for The Seattle Times, a communications professor and former reporter and producer for the city’s KCTS-TV argues that the station should sell its broadcast spectrum and cede local public TV service to Tacoma’s KBTC. “Our region deserves better,” writes Barry Mitzman, now a teacher of strategic communications at Seattle University. Stations duplicating PBS programming are “inefficient,” he argues. “Regional consolidation might save money that could be invested in programs,” Mitzman continues. “Many states, including Oregon and Idaho, have unified public-TV systems that produce more original content — often much more — than KCTS does.”

With KBTC airing much the same programming as KCTS, the Tacoma station could take over a KCTS transmitter.

Programs/Content

Output: Producers swarm a conference, an ‘extreme journalist’ trots the globe, and more

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A conference about ideas and creativity provided the latest opportunity for a group of adventurous radio producers to challenge their own inventiveness by producing as much radio as they could in a day and a half. The six producers behind Longshot Radio reconvened in New York May 3 and 4 to create crowd-sourced, socially networked audio in conjunction with the 99% Conference, where speakers discussed how to put ideas into action. Longshot covered the event in conjunction with WNYC’s Radiolab, whose host, Jad Abumrad, was one of the featured speakers. Within 30 hours, Longshot emerged with 75 pieces of raw tape gathered at the conference and contributed via Internet by people in 18 cities in the U.S. and Canada. More than 20 people beyond the core producers contributed, and Hsi-Chang Lin composed original music on the spot to score the pieces.

Frontline

NewsHour picks up Bellantoni, WBEZ personnel changes, and more…

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Bellantoni to oversee all <em>NewsHour</em> political coverage
PBS NewsHour has a new political editor as of Jan. 2. Christina Bellantoni of CQ Roll Call oversees the newsroom’s political coverage on-air and online, including political analysis, elections and personalities. Her predecessor, David Chalain, departed in November to lead the Washington bureau of Yahoo News. Bellantoni has spent more than a decade covering national political and business news in Washington, D.C., and California.