Current participates as information
provider in a series of forums
Urgency: Recession is just the latest thing to go worse for public television. Here's the revenue picture through 2010.
Upsides: Dennis Haarsager suggests that reconceived public stations can 'be more PBS' and be more local
Capacity: Michael Marcotte on the six weight classes of public radio's local newsrooms, and what reporting they can do
Capital: Without federal aid for equipment, staying 'on' just got a lot harder
Scale: Wisconsin Public Radio's long experience, both centralized 'n localized
About the USC/AU forums: Survival, resurgence, expansion for public media?
What do you think? Comments invited to the right of each article.
FEATURED STORIES
Commercial FMs join pursuit of news audience
More commercial FM news stations are signing on in major markets around the country, intensifying radio's pursuit of news listeners and testing the readiness of public news outlets in Chicago, Seattle, New York and elsewhere to hold their own against the new competition.
Swipe this program guide!
WGBH puts listings on an iPad
Boston's WGBH has begun distributing its monthly program guide, Explore!, in a package that brings video and audio promos along with it to iPad tablets. It can also use Wi-Fi to pull in updated “live listings” from the Web even after it’s in the viewers’ hands.
Localore backs crowdsourcing, collaborative doc projects
Localore, a $2 million innovation initiative pairing independent producers with public stations, unveiled this week 10 projects designed to help reimagine how local pubcasters serve and engage their communities.
Public radio's Project Argo: 11 of 12 stations to continue niche blogs
All but one of the dozen pubradio stations in NPR’s Project Argo plan to keep their specialized beat-bloggers working, even though the project’s original grant money is running out...
PBS's Tuesday schedule is the latest to go for the flow
If this is Tuesday, it must be history. At least, that’s what PBS hopes viewers think as the service moves forward with plans to identify specific program genres with days of the week.
As NBC partners, pubmedia may expand reporting, visibility
NBC will share stories, resources and content distribution with two public broadcasters, ProPublica and two local nonprofit newsrooms under the FCC agreement clearing Comcast’s 2011 takeover of NBC Universal.
Unusual rights delay: hint of budget strife between PBS and WGBH?
PBS’s ongoing negotiations to curb per-hour costs of producing programs and to assert more control over content are increasing friction with its largest producer, Boston’s powerhouse WGBH, according to sources at other stations with knowledge of the situation.
For a period until just four days before the second-season premiere of the gem of this season’s PBS schedule, Downton Abbey from Masterpiece Classic, the approval of PBS broadcast rights for the series hung in the balance as WGBH protested the network’s contract demands....
Obituaries
Jim Fellows, 77, diplomat at the center of public TV;
Dave Creagh, 60, national producer and station leader; Robert A. Woods, 80, attorney for public stations, NAEB; Judy Jankowski, 61, manager of prominent jazz stations; Bob O'Rourke, 72, Caltech executive behind Loh Down on Science, other science programs; and
Lynn Samuels, 69, fiery talk-show host
Output: Content for public media
Arlen Specter's proposed debate platform and APM's national plans for a western newsmag with Madeleine Brand. And more...
People: New V-me chief veteran producer from V-me's Madrid-based majority owner
Also, Keillor unretires again, Clemetson moves from Pew to NPR StateImpact, TPT's boomer service NextAvenue staffs up...
Sports: a real community that some public TV stations join
There’s a new game in town — relatively new to public television, anyway. Blessed with digital multicast channels and eager to attract new viewers, PBS stations are finding success with high-school football and other sports as varied as NASCAR and Special Olympics on their schedules....
A year after KCET left PBS: PubTV in L.A. not yet a case of win-win-win-win
When KCET announced in October 2010 that it would quit PBS after four decades as its primary Los Angeles affiliate, the task facing PBS was enormous: Find a local outlet to step into the breach, establish new branding, arrange for cable carriage, find homes for orphaned shows, and, most importantly, change long-term tuning habits so 16 million-plus potential viewers could find their favorite programs. All in less than three months....
Fair use: What public media makers are doing right and how they can do even better
Commentary by Patricia Aufderheide: Fair use, the right to employ copyrighted material in certain situations without licensing it, is in resurgence after two dismal decades of widespread misinterpretation — and nowhere is the right getting more exercise than in public broadcasting....
Albany gets a lot of Chartock, but how much is too much?
When Alan Chartock, president of Northeast Public Radio in Albany, N.Y., was on a wife-imposed Mexican vacation, despite her objections he still found a way to call in for his five-day-a-week 7:34 a.m. spot.
Chartock, 70, lives and breathes the media institution he created nearly single-handedly in 1981. He’s on air most days and often hosts two weekly shows, one about medicine and the other about media.
Conflicting appraisals: Minutes on Roadshow are pay enough for some
An 11-page diatribe from a former Antiques Roadshow appraiser to producing station WGBH provides a look deep inside public television’s most popular national show as Roadshow knockoffs proliferate on cable channels. The issues raised by Gary Sohmers, a Hawaiian shirt-clad, Converse sneaker-wearing pop-culture expert, reveal in particular how intensely the program works to protect its brand. (Pictured: Producer Marsha Bemko and pop-antiques appraiser Gary Sohmers: Is somebody getting a bad deal on the Roadshow?)
State aid down 42% or $85 mil in four years
In four years that include the deepening recession, fiscal 2008 through 2012, public broadcasting stations in 24 states have lost a total of $85 million in financial support from state governments, according to a study released last week by Free Press, a progressive media-reform group. Those states reduced spending on public media by 42 percent of their 2008 amount....
Western stations ask for new election to fill McTaggart’s seat on NPR Board
When a candidate wins re-election but withdraws from service before taking office, does the electorate get another chance to vote? Given the irregular turnover after NPR Board elections this summer, station leaders in Western States Public Radio think so. After American Public Media President Jon McTaggart won re-election to a three-year term and resigned before taking the director’s seat, WSPR objected to the NPR Board’s decision to appoint a replacement rather than hold a new election....
What do you think? Moyers calls for a convention to remake public media system
PubTV newsman Bill Moyers, speaking Nov. 10 at the American Public Television Fall Marketplace in Memphis, called for a “makeover” of the public broadcasting system — “a rebirth, yes, of vision, imagination, and creativity, but above all a structure and scheme for the 2lst century. He'd begin with a weeklong brainstorming convention of station managers, programmers, producers, viewers and other interested parties. It’s the latest inspirational message to the system from Moyers, who often speaks with an evangelical optimism on the power of public media.
