Public TV stations face challenges on West, East Coasts

All of the PBS TV stations in the state of New Jersey may go off the air entirely early next year. The New Jersey network's governing authority meets on Wednesday to consider how to survive – or sell. Kept alive by a subsidy by state taxpayers that is scheduled to end shortly, one option on the table is a merger with New York City's WNET and/or Philadelphia's WHYY. This news comes as KCET in Los Angeles prepares to drop PBS programming in three weeks in favor of an independent public TV schedule that starts next month…….

Public radio is enjoying boom times

Dean Ernest J. Wilson III of USC Annenberg and the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy are preparing for the annual James L. Loper Lecture in Public Broadcasting on November 18, 2010. This year's speaker is NPR president and CEO, Vivian Schiller. Public radio, despite the failings of most media outlets in the US, is experiencing an increase in listeners and in funding. Below is an article published in The Los Angeles Times by James Rainey exploring the growth that is occurring in public radio. ——————————————————————————————————————————————- Larry Mantle, right, host of KPCC's popular "AirTalk" program. (Irfan Khan, Los Angeles Times……

Seib comments on Rally to Restore Sanity

The Internet only amplifies these movements, said Faculty Fellow Philip Seib to the Christian Science Monitor. Seib was commenting on Jon Stewart's "Rally to Restore Sanity" which is now sparking sister rallies from Tel Aviv to the Mt. Everest Base Camp, including one in Downtown Los Angeles. "I would think we're going to have more and more phenomenon that start national and become global." Seib also speculates that internet will help in the creation and coordination of grassroots political movements…….

PBS: End of the Old Boys Network?

Los Angeles station KCET's announcement on Friday that it is canceling all PBS programs is a dramatic, all-stakes-on-the-table gamble. KCET is gambling that, without hefty payments to PBS and substituting a new lineup of independent and international programs for the PBS network feed, it will be a smaller but sustainable public service broadcaster. For its part, PBS is gambling that KCET cannot possibly go through with its plan and will have no alternative but to pay the substantial dues required to keep PBS programs on the station…….

Communication Leadership Open Forum: Bill Boyarsky and Tom Hollihan

Join Geoffrey Cowan, USC Annenberg Professor and director of the Center on Communication Leadership & Policy for a discussion on current events, including media coverage of the debate on health care reform and the history and future of the Los Angeles Times. Special guests include veteran editor and author Bill Boyarsky, author of the new book Inventing L.A.: The Chandlers and Their Times and communication professor Tom Hollihan, author of Uncivil Wars: Political Campaigns in a Media Age. Book signing follows discussion. Lunch will be served. RSVP requested. To RSVP, click here. 12 noon. Annenberg Research Park's Kerckhoff Hall, 734……

Rachlis joins CCLP as senior fellow

Award-winning editor Kit Rachlis has been appointed a 2009-2010 Senior Fellow of the USC Annenberg School for Communication's Center on Communication Leadership & Policy (CCLP). As a Senior Fellow, he will help lead a series of discussions and projects in the area of "Arts, Politics & Society."……