The FCC has released its notice of proposed rule making for the digital conversion of low-power TV stations, translators and booster stations. The commission announced the proposal at its Aug. 6 meeting (PDF). The agency also extended the filing deadline by a month for comments on an interference study of low-power FM. NPR and IAAIS had asked for 90 days. [Coverage in Current.]

The performing rights organization SESAC will use a new "digital fingerprinting technology" to keep tabs on which of its artists are being played on college and other noncommercial radio stations, reports Radio World.

Bill Moyers discusses the Bush administration's environmental record in the online mag Grist: "You have to go all the way back to the crony capitalism of the Harding administration to find a president who invited such open and crass exploitation of the common wealth."

Isothermal Community College in Spindale, N.C., will hold on to noncommercial station WNCW-FM, reports The Greenville News.

Members of the Association of Independents in Radio recently discussed the Public Radio Exchange at length with PRX's executive director, Jake Shapiro.

KQED in San Francisco has produced i5, its first web-only documentary.

The Pacifica Foundation adopted new bylaws Aug. 23, allowing for the election of a new national board and Local Advisory Boards.

Washington Week's Gwen Ifill shares her favorite foods, books, music and so forth with the Washingtonian. (Second item.)

The folks at Public Radio Weekend have posted a new pilot episode of their show. This time they're going for more substance and more of a "live" sound.

New Hampshire Public Radio is sharing its classical music library with a new low-power FM station in Concord devoted to classical, reports the Concord Monitor.

FCC Chairman Michael Powell says he'll soon open a low-power FM settlement window as part of a new "Localism in Broadcasting" initiative. (Release in PDF, Word document.)

San Francisco Chronicle critic Jon Carroll calls NPR's new Day to Day "regrettable" and says KQED's TV lineup needs a boost. [Current coverage of Day to Day.]

Tavis Smiley will host a late-night talk show on PBS, starting Jan. 5. [Earlier Current coverage of Smiley's NPR show.]

NPR and the International Association of Audio Information Services have asked the FCC for more time to reply to a study of low-power FM interference. They requested a 90-day extension of the deadline, originally set for Sept. 12.

Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bob Graham showed up on a recent (off-the-air) performance of Garrison Keillor's A Prairie Home Companion, reports the Concord Monitor.

Radio drama isn't dead, notes the New York Times, but it's not exactly thriving either.

Bob Edwards tells The Tennessean that union-management relations at NPR have been "a little testy" lately: "A nonprofit thinks it's doing God's work, whether it's NPR, the Red Cross or NATO. They're doing God's work and how can you argue with God? -- that's their attitude. So sometimes you need a union to just cut through that."

A decision on the fate of WNCW-FM in Spindale, N.C., has been postponed for two weeks, reports the Asheville Citizen-Times. [More coverage in the Rutherford County Daily Courier and the Hendersonville Times-News.]

iBiquity Digital Corp. says it has resolved problems with audio encoding at low bit rates by using HDC, a newly developed codec. Engineers who have heard tests back up iBiquity's claims. iBiquity has also extended its licensing fee waiver to public stations until Aug. 29 and agreed to waive royalties on ancillary data services used for noncommercial programming.

Psychologist Shirley Glass (Ira Glass's mom!) talks about marriage and infidelity in the Baltimore Sun.

Read the advance hype for Naked in Baghdad, in which NPR's Anne Garrels details her experiences covering the war in Iraq.

Trustees at Isothermal Community College in Spindale, N.C., meet tonight to decide the future of WNCW-FM, which belongs to the school. A sale is unlikely, but the board wants to spend less on the station, reports the Ashville Citizen-Times.

Today's Doonesbury digs on NPR.

Officials at WETA in Washington, D.C., have resigned themselves to the prospect of day laborers--mostly Latino men--gathering at a new pavilion near their offices, reports the Washington Post.

A Dayton Daily News report revisits a year-long dispute between WYSO-FM in Yellow Springs, Ohio, and disgruntled listeners who protest the station's decision to end locally produced jazz and folk programs.

Two Stanford profs have started Philosophy Talk, a public radio show concerned more with timeless conundrums than with car repair.

Geov Parrish writes that MITRE's recent report on low-power FM may mark a welcome swing toward localized broadcasting. "The damage that LPFM would supposedly cause to broadcasters simply didn't exist, and the case for re-instating the original proposal is overwhelming," he writes for AlterNet. (Coverage in Current.)

"Their shows are making money, that's why I air them over and over again," says a Maryland Public TV pledge producer, referring to pledge programs produced by Long Island station WLIW. Newsday examines the growth of WLIW's pledge production business.

BE Radio gives an engineer's view of NPR's West Coast production facility.

KUOW-FM in Seattle is paying tribute to Cynthia Doyon, a swing jazz host for the station who committed suicide earlier this week. The Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran obituaries.

"Because public radio is a resource for us as citizens, it makes sense to have our participation," says Jay Allison of Transom, his watering hole for independent producers, in the New York Times.

The University of Massachusetts in Lowell has upset students and community activists by giving 25 hours a week of its FM station's airtime to a local newspaper, according to the Boston Phoenix. [More coverage in the Lowell Sun and the Boston Globe.]

Newsweek previews David Isay's latest project, StoryCorps.

KCTS cut 30 jobs in layoffs that targeted production staff, report the Seattle Weekly and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

The Las Vegas Mercury previews changes at the city's KNPR, which begins operating a second FM signal this fall.

Tyne Daly and Ruby Dee star in a staged reading of John Hersey's Hiroshima, airing today on Pacifica stations. [More coverage in the New York Daily News.]

Chicago's WBEZ-FM is studying ways to acquire a second frequency in the city, reports the Sun-Times.

Public radio engineers say that iBiquity Digital Corp. has improved its digital audio codec, reports BE Radio. Meanwhile, WGUC-FM in Cincinnati has gone digital.

KPCC-FM in Los Angeles and K-Mozart, a local commercial classical station, will promote each other on their airwaves, reports the Los Angeles Times.

The New York Times reports on choices in cable and satellite TV for video-on-demand and high-def programming, and how these services may change in the next year.