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RRC President Joanne Church dies at 75
Joanne Church, president of the Radio Research Consortium, died Monday after a short illness. She was 75. Church and her late husband Tom Church founded the company based in Olney, Md., in 1981. RCC “introduced audience research to public radio,” it said in a news release Tuesday. It partnered with Arbitron, later acquired by Nielsen, in 1981 to negotiate a group purchase of audience data for stations.
Boston’s GBH lays off 31 staff due to $7M budget gap
Boston’s GBH laid off 31 people Wednesday as it faces a $7 million budget gap in its core business, according to an all-staff note from CEO Susan Goldberg. GBH is also suspending the TV shows Greater Boston, Talking Politics, and Basic Black but plans to “reinvent” them as “digital first programming,” Goldberg said.
Larry Bensky, correspondent and anchor for KPFA and Pacifica, dies at 87
Larry Bensky, former national correspondent for Pacifica Radio who excelled at anchoring live coverage, died at his home in Berkeley, Calif., Sunday after a long illness. He was 87. “He was the signature voice of KPFA,” said Aileen Alfandary, a longtime colleague and former news director at the Pacifica station...
Wife of lawmaker critical of Arkansas PBS joins network’s governing board
A new appointee to the governing board of Arkansas PBS is the wife of a state senator who has tried to cut the network’s spending, according to media reports. Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders announced May 6 that she had appointed Maria Sullivan to the Arkansas Educational Television Commission. Sullivan’s term ends in March 2031, a news release said.
NPR, stations object to proposed FCC rules on reporting outages
NPR and 24 public broadcasters have asked the FCC not to implement a proposed rule that would require radio and TV stations to file paperwork during disasters and when they experience service outages. In two separate comments filed May 13 with the commission, the broadcasters argued that mandatory participation in...
Public eye on NPR spurred editorial additions, says Chapin
NPR Editor in Chief Edith Chapin sees the network’s plan to add 11 new positions, including a team to review its journalism, as a positive outcome of the recent public attention the network has faced. Bias at NPR was the subject of a U.S. House hearing May 8, after...
Comings and goings: GBH News GM Pam Johnston to step down, Radio Bilingüe announces staff changes …
Pam Johnston, GM for the news division of GBH in Boston, will step down from the role May 31. Johnston started the job in 2020. She previously worked for Frontline, produced by GBH, first as senior director of audience development and later as senior director of strategy and audience. “I...
New MPR initiative aims to ‘make news more approachable’ for younger audiences
A new Minnesota Public Radio initiative announced May 7 is expanding the station’s efforts to serve younger audiences with multiplatform coverage of the topics they care about most. Formed initially as the Street Team in the fall of 2022, the project, now titled Reverb, consists of five journalists ages...
It’s time for public radio to fix problems in its foundation
We own a 60-year-old house, which isn’t terribly old by most standards. It was built with quality materials and went through a couple of updates before my husband and I bought it back in 2012. It’s a beautiful home but needs maintenance. While talking to a friend about our...
Four more public media stations receive Next Generation Warning System funding
CPB awarded grants to four public media organizations in Alaska, Colorado and Michigan to help them upgrade their equipment and provide more reliable emergency alerts. The grantees are Delta College Public Media in University Center, Mich.; KSTK in Wrangell, Alaska; KBRW in Silakkuagvik, Alaska; and KSJD in Cortez, Colo. The grants total more than $1.2 million and make up the second round of funding CPB has administered to stations through the Next Generation Warning System, a grant program funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
April CDP Index: High-dollar giving boosts revenue in early 2024
The first quarter of 2024 finds the Membership Revenue Index with a year-over-year increase of 3.4% compared to the same period in 2023. As in the preceding year, revenue growth is being driven by high-dollar giving and supported by a stable sustainer population for Radio and a growing sustainer pool for TV/Joint Licensees. These areas of fundraising are doing some very heavy lifting, as the New Donor Index for the first quarter of 2024 is showing an 8.2% decline, with all station types and sizes feeling the pinch.
NPR will add 11 staff to ‘strengthen’ editorial team
NPR will add 11 staff to “strengthen our editorial operations,” according to a note to staff Wednesday from Edith Chapin, CCO, SVP and editor in chief. The additions will include staff for the network’s Standards & Practices team and a new editorial team that will provide final review of all content before it airs or publishes.
KPBS will boost coverage of elections and democracy with $3 million gift
KPBS in San Diego will launch a three-year initiative focused on democracy after receiving a $3 million gift to increase coverage of elections, politics and local government. The gift, provided by two local donors, will support multiplatform coverage of democratic processes, a position for a “democracy anchor” who will handle social media accounts, a “Voter Hub” web page with bilingual information about candidates and elections, and partnerships with local and national newsrooms and other organizations.
CapRadio, endowment at odds over proposed PBS KVIE merger
Sacramento’s CapRadio is embroiled in a brouhaha after the endowment that supports the station pushed for a merger with the local PBS station. The situation follows CapRadio, whose license holder is Sacramento State, weathering financial trouble late last year, including layoffs. Capital Public Radio Endowment Board members told Sacramento...
KQED to lay off 18 to 25 staff
KQED in San Francisco will resort to layoffs after announcing a voluntary buyout program last month. In an email to staff Monday obtained by Current, CEO Michael Isip said that he anticipates 18 to 25 employees will be laid off pending finalization of buyouts. The Squeeze first reported on the...
How ChatGPT’s new model could transform podcasting and public media
In a groundbreaking announcement this week, OpenAI introduced GPT-4o, the latest iteration of its language model, now boasting enhanced capabilities across multiple modalities. The “o” in GPT-4o stands for “omni,” emphasizing its proficiency in real-time reasoning across audio, vision and text. This development marks a significant...
Radio Bilingüe hires José Martínez-Saldaña as co-executive director
José Martínez-Saldaña will lead Radio Bilingüe alongside founding Executive Director Hugo Morales. The two will serve as co-executive directors, the network announced earlier this month in a press release. Martínez-Saldaña joined the organization April 2. He most recently served as deputy director for Youth Alliance, a...
CPB grant funds Nielsen Local Dashboards for PBS member stations
A CPB grant will help PBS member stations get in-depth audience data through Nielsen Local Dashboards. The grant to PBS was described as “significant” in a Monday news release. A spokesperson said CPB could not speak publicly about the financial terms when asked about the grant’s amount.
Layoffs reveal challenges of sustaining public media’s journalism expansion
Public media is bleeding talent. Public media can’t afford to do this. Public media can’t afford not to. The stream of social media posts and news about layoffs in public media has become a steady drumbeat to our news coverage. You can find and follow this dramatic downsizing trend by visiting the Layoffs page on our website and subscribing to our newsletter.
CPB CEO responds to questions from Ted Cruz about NPR funding
CPB CEO Patricia Harrison responded Thursday to another letter from Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who had sought answers about CPB’s oversight and funding of NPR. Cruz wrote Harrison April 25 to “express deep concern about National Public Radio’s (NPR) departure from its stated mission.” The senator said that “recent developments reveal a deeply entrenched culture of political bias and partisanship” at the network, pointing to the essay published in The Free Press by former editor Uri Berliner.
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