Years later, columnist still thinks NPR is a "cultish echo chamber"

The Miami Herald's columnist Glen Garvin recently came across a piece he wrote in June 1993 bashing NPR. Now he writes: "NPR remains a cultish echo chamber with a tiny audience anchored in a dying medium, funded almost entirely with money extorted from taxpayers. Other than that, public radio is great." Here's the original 7,300-word column that ran in the Chicago Reader.

"The Old Scout" steps aside, for now

Garrison Keillor is taking a hiatus. Nope, not from pubradio's popular Prairie Home Companion, but rather from "The Old Scout," his weekly newspaper column. The Star Tribune in Minneapolis says Keillor told his syndicator, Tribune Media Services, that he wants to complete a screenplay and start writing a novel. No word on when he'll return to his newspaper writing.

N.C. college station hopes to become the latest NPR affiliate

The radio station at Gaston College in Dallas, N.C., is beginning the process of becoming an NPR affiliate, according to the Gaston Gazette. The catalyst, officials at the community college say, was losing a state grant when the Legislature zeroed out college radio funding this year. Fundraisers weren’t bringing in enough money to WSGE and the college had to make up the shortfall. The station has applied for a CPB grant that would help pay for becoming an NPR affiliate; it will hear on that in July.

Kerger signs on for three more years at PBS

PBS CEO Paula Kerger has inked another three-year contract, according to PBS. No word on salary. According to a 2009 survey of nonprofits by the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Kerger was making $534,500 at the end of fiscal 2008, up from $424,209 in 2007. During 2008 she had $60,198 in benefits and an expense account of $11,225.

Uproar in Charlottesville over pubradio format change

A change in format at WTJU, the University of Virginia pubradio station in Charlottesville, is the subject of dueling forums, a walkout by a longtime DJ and an upcoming town hall meeting. The furor began, according to the C-Ville arts and news site, when new g.m. Burr Beard sent an internal e-mail describing “The All New Consistent and Reliable WTJU." The station currently plays an eclectic mixture of music selected by DJs. The proposal would drop the number of weekly hours for rock and jazz and institute a rotation of four songs per hour, chosen by department directors from 20 releases and electronically placed on a DJ’s program log for airplay each hour. All this has not gone over well with DJ's, notes C-Ville. WTJU’s former Rock Music Director Nick Rubin told Radio Survivor that station staffers and fans were “shocked and appalled” about the short notice and little debate over the change. But as Burr said in the internal email, obtained by C-Ville: "It’s not enough to expose people to new music when it’s just a smattering of all kinds of music." He added that the overhaul is a response to a downturn in fundraising and low station listenership—"7,500 weekly, the smallest of any noncomm station serving Charlottesville." In addition to his previous work as g.m. and program director of WXLV-FM at Lehigh Carbon Community College, Beard is "one of the great hammer dulcimer players of the late 20th and early 21st centuries," according to his website.

WV pubcasters seeking permission for staffers to work pledge drives

The West Virginia governor's office is attempting to determine whether Educational Broadcasting Authority employees can still participate in on-air pledge drives for West Virginia Public Broadcasting, the Charleston Gazette is reporting. A recent legislative audit determined that pubcasting staff should not provide services for the network's two fundraising nonprofs, the Public Broadcasting Foundation and the Friends of Public Broadcasting. Friends organizations supporting pubcasting in both West Virginia and Florida have recently come under scrutiny (Current, June 21, 2010). The groups give pubcasters more flexibility and speed in purchasing and contracting than government procedures usually permit and they can pay for programming or other mission-related activities that the stations couldn’t otherwise afford.

Vegas PBS opens $60 million facility

Vegas PBS's $60 million Educational Technology Campus was dedicated Monday (June 28), reports the Las Vegas Business Press. The 112,000-square-foot facility houses operations and production for the station, as well as the Clark County School District's Virtual High School and educational media database. "Our role in the community as a local media company is to work with organizations to empower them through the use of the technologies and the distribution networks we have," said g.m. Tom Axtell. Vegas PBS has seven broadcast channels and oversees six closed-circuit channels, and a Homeland Security database of building blueprints for police and fire departments to access during civil emergencies. KLVX is the first totally "green" television station in the United States or Canada to seek LEED gold certification for its facilities (Current, Jan. 8, 2010).

NJ Senate okays study of NJN assets as part of break from state

The New Jersey Senate today (June 28) approved a study of New Jersey Network's assets and its plan to break from the state, NorthJersey.com is reporting. Under the legislation, a panel would investigate the value of equipment and licenses held by dual pubcasting licensee NJN, and ascertain if it could operate as an independent nonprofit without state funding. The network's state support in fiscal 2011, beginning July 1, falls to $1.98 million from $3.9 million in FY10. Howard Blumenthal, NJN's interim executive director, wanted the stations to go independent July 1 (his plan, PDF). The network has been asking for independence as far back as 2008 (Current, May 12, 2008).

Pubmedia trust fund hopes dim after White House announces broadband plans

The administration's fast-track plan for broadband spectrum reallocation does not include the much-anticipated public media trust fund created by auction proceeds (background, Current, Feb. 8, 2010). A four-point White House fact sheet released today (June 28) for the media says auction revenue instead will be used to "promote public safety, job-creating infrastructure investment and deficit reduction." In a statement (PDF), Federal Communications Chairman Julius Genachowski endorsed President Obama's plan, including the spectrum auction "generating revenue to fund a world-class mobile broadband network for our nation’s emergency responders." Neither the White House memo nor FCC statement specifically mentioned public broadcasting.

However, the National Broadband Plan did, recommending that "Congress should consider dedicating all the proceeds from the auctioned spectrum contributed by public broadcasters to endow a trust fund for the production, distribution and archiving of digital public media. There would be multiple benefits to public television stations who participate in this auction. First, it could provide significant savings in operational expenses to stations that share transmission facilities. Second, 100 percent of proceeds from the public television spectrum auction would be used to fund digital multimedia content. The proceeds should be distributed so that a significant portion of revenues generated by the sale of spectrum go to public media in the communities from which spectrum was contributed."

In a conference call with reporters, Jason Furman, deputy director of the National Economic Council, announced the administration's four steps for achieving a release of 500 MHz of spectrum for the growing number of wireless devices: Identify spectrum for reallocation, provide tools to free it up, enable spectrum to be put to "highest value uses" (mobile broadband, unlicensed bandwith for tech startups, and spectrum sharing), and use auction proceeds to benefit public safety, job growth and deficit reduction. The White House has no official estimate of revenues from a spectrum auction but notes it "could reach the tens of billions of dollars."

A White House official told Broadcasting & Cable that President Obama does not favor mandatory spectrum give-backs, which some broadcasters fear.

Vermont gets new chief content officer

Vermont Public Television has hired Kathryn A. Scott as its chief content officer, the Burlington Free-Press reports. "I am doing my level best to stimulate the local economy through the purchase of a new car and some new appliances," Scott quipped. She produced American Public Media's Weekend America from 2005 to '07, and Sound Money from '02 to '05. In the 1990s she was series producer for Newton's Apple on PBS. She's also produced news and docs for USA Today on TV, Discovery and Tech TV News. (Image: VPT)