CPB okays funding distribution rules

The CPB board this week approved distribution guidelines for funds that may be received from its supplemental appropriations request to the Office of Management and Budget. APTS asked for $211 million and NPR for $96 million, for a total request of $307 million. Two panels of pubcasters advised CPB on the guidelines. The first included members of CPB, PBS, APTS, the Affinity Group Coalition and the Public Radio Station Resource Group; the second was comprised of station reps from 10 pubTV and radio stations nationwide. All agreed that the goals should be should be: Funds are to be spent in accordance to current CSG policy, funds are to be distributed within 45 days or as quickly as possible, and funds are to be distributed in one payment. If the request is approved, the earliest CPB would receive the funds would be Oct. 1. Audio of the meeting is available on the CPB website.

Pop interrupted by porn in Waco

The viewers of KWBU-TV probably weren't expecting a flash of pornography when they tuned in o the pledge program My Music: '50s Pop Parade on Sunday night. Five seconds of adult programming appeared on the Waco, Texas, PBS affiliate, around 6:40 p.m. Interim g.m. Clare Paul said the station received about eight calls. The problem could have originated with the local cable company; it's checking its broadcast logs. Paul told The Waco Tribune: “It absolutely did not come from us.”

Court okays FCC fines on indecent broadcasts, for now at least

The Supreme Court yesterday ruled narrowly in favor of Federal Communications Commission's penalties for broadcasters airing "fleeting expletives," but it did not address questions about whether the FCC's system of policing the airwaves is constitutional. The decision, which backed the $325,000 fines that the FCC began imposing in 2004 for each broadcast of certain "dirty words," makes it "quite easy to imagine a majority coming together to nullify the FCC’s present policy," according to this analysis by SCOTUSblog, which follows the Supreme Court. Meanwhile, political instability at the FCC makes it difficult for Beltway insiders to predict how the commission will react to the decision, according to the Washington Post.

WETA, 20 other nonprofits drop from United Way

PubTV station WETA is among 21 mid-Atlantic nonprofits that have dropped out of United Way and instead joined forces with Community 1st, a new fund-raising consortium. The groups cited declining numbers in workplace donations, as well as "lingering distrust," as The Washington Post reports, of the local United Way. A fraudulent accounting scandal sent the group's former chief executive to prison in 2004.