KCET Joins Link TV in New Venture

Two California-based public television businesses are merging. Link Media, the San Francisco-based parent of the Link TV satellite-distributed network and online international news portal, and KCET, the independent Los Angeles public television station that quit PBS last year, said they would join forces in a new venture known as KCETLink.

After the merger, effective Jan. 1, the two brands and most of their programming will remain separate. But Link TV, which airs cultural and news shows and series like the Danish import “Borgen,” will get an immediate visibility boost in Los Angeles, where KCET will begin to broadcast it on one its digital multicast channels.

Currently, Link TV is available in just 33 million DirecTV and Dish Network homes nationwide. “We have a bit of a cult following and we want it to be bigger,” said Paul S. Mason, Link TV's chief executive and president, who will be chief strategy officer of the new company.

Al Jerome, the he ad of KCET who will become the chief executive of KCETLink, said the merger would create a more sustainable economic model for both entities, and entice more production partners with the promise of both local and national distribution for shows, some of which may end up being shared between the two.

No money will change hands and the new company will be based at KCET's new Los Angeles headquarters. Between them, the two have about 150 employees and that number will be reduced as some business functions, including fund-raising, are consolidated, Mr. Jerome said.

KCET Joins Link TV in New Venture

Two California-based public television businesses are merging. Link Media, the San Francisco-based parent of the Link TV satellite-distributed network and online international news portal, and KCET, the independent Los Angeles public television station that quit PBS last year, said they would join forces in a new venture known as KCETLink.

After the merger, effective Jan. 1, the two brands and most of their programming will remain separate. But Link TV, which airs cultural and news shows and series like the Danish import “Borgen,” will get an immediate visibility boost in Los Angeles, where KCET will begin to broadcast it on one its digital multicast channels.

Currently, Link TV is available in just 33 million DirecTV and Dish Network homes nationwide. “We have a bit of a cult following and we want it to be bigger,” said Paul S. Mason, Link TV's chief executive and president, who will be chief strategy officer of the new company.

Al Jerome, the he ad of KCET who will become the chief executive of KCETLink, said the merger would create a more sustainable economic model for both entities, and entice more production partners with the promise of both local and national distribution for shows, some of which may end up being shared between the two.

No money will change hands and the new company will be based at KCET's new Los Angeles headquarters. Between them, the two have about 150 employees and that number will be reduced as some business functions, including fund-raising, are consolidated, Mr. Jerome said.

Morningstar\'s Latest Ratings of College Saving Plans

Morningstar Inc. has updated its rankings of the country's largest 529 college savings plans, giving its top rating to plans offered by four states: Alaska, Maryland, Nevada and Utah.

Morningstar, a provider of investment research, is best known for its rating of mutual funds. But it also tracks 529 plans, which are state-sponsored plans named for the tax code that created them. Money in the plans grows tax free, and  stays that way as long as it's used for educational expenses when you withdraw it. Many states also give tax breaks for money saved in the plans. (Families aren't restricted to investing in the plan in the state where they live.)

Morningstar rated 64 plans representing 95 percent of assets held in the plans. Factors that it said it used in the rankings included the plan's strategy and investment process; the plan's risk-adjusted performance; the skill of the plan's manager; the practices of the plans administrator and parent firm; and the fees in volved in managing the plans.

Over the last year, many plans have showed a trend toward better-quality investments and lower fees, said Laura Pavlenko Lutton, who oversees Morningstar's 529 Ratings.

Twenty-seven of the plans were given medal rankings (gold, silver and bronze) and are “likely to outperform their peers, based on Morningstar's analysis. But just four plans were given a “gold” rating, meaning they were “highly regarded” by Morningstar analysts. “Over all, these plans stand out as best of breed for their ability to help college savers meet their goals,” the company explained in a statement.

The gold star plans went to these plans:
- Alaska's T. Rowe Price College Savings Plan, managed by T. Rowe Price;
- Maryland College Investment Plan, managed by T. Rowe Price;
- Nevada's The Vanguard 529 Savings Plan, managed by Upromise Investments; and
- Utah Educational Savings Plan, manage d by the agency of the same name.

Four more plans were rated silver, and 19 were rated bronze.

A “neutral” rating means the analysts don't think the plans are likely to deliver “standout” returns, but also that they're unlikely to significantly under-perform. Most plans - 33 of them - fell into this category.

And these four plans were rated negative because of poor-quality investments or high fees:

- Kansas' Schwab 529 College Savings Plan, managed by American Century Investment Management;
- Minnesota's College Savings Plan, managed by TIAA Tuition Financing;
- Rhode Island's CollegeBoundfund (Advisor-sold), managed by AllianceBernstein; and
- Rhode Island's CollegeBoundfund (Direct-sold), managed by AllianceBernstein.

More details on the plans and their rankings are available on Morningstar.com's 529 plan Web site, but a subscription is required.

Are you surprised by your 529 plan's Morningstar rating? What has been your experience with your 529 plan?

Wednesday Reading: The Magic Kingdom Will Be Dry No More

A variety of consumer-focused articles appears daily in The New York Times and on our blogs. Each weekday morning, we gather them together here so you can quickly scan the news that could hit you in your wallet.

• Adult cholesterol levels are falling, study finds. (Well)
• Small increase for Social Security recipients. (National)
• Taxi hailing app pulls out of N.Y.C. (N.Y./Region)
• An adventure in group cooking. (Dining)
• After a ban, Waygu beef returns from Japan. (Dining)
• Financial survival in a time of fiscal peril. (Wealth)
• Parceling out a nest egg, without emptying it. (Wealth)
• Just the thing for those who have it all. (Wealth)
• Why private Medicare plans don't cost less. (Economix)
• Apple expected to debut smaller iPad next week. (Bits)
• How Chrome knows where you are. (Gadgetwise)
• Disney's Magic Kingdom will be dry no more. (In Transit)
• Seven Manhattan hotel rooms for $1 50, more or less. (Frugal Traveler)

Breakfast Meeting: A Moderator\'s Lot Is Not a Happy One

You can't please everyone, and that is never more true than when you are moderating a presidential debate. Candy Crowley of CNN discovered that on Tuesday night when she served as master of ceremonies for Round II between President Obama and Mitt Romney. Ms. Crowley tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep the candidates within the guidelines of the debate's format, and was criticized by conservative commentators for seeming to favor President Obama, especially when she fact-checked an assertion Mr. Romney made about Mr. Obama's handling of the attack in Libya last month.

Ross Douthat wrote in The Times that “she seemed to be taking sides against him,” inappropriately, at that moment, and even the left-leaning Huffington Post pointed out the significance of the incident.

But Dylan Byers said on Politico that she basically had an impossible job, trying to contain two candidates intent on breaking the rules and ignoring her. And Nicholas Kristof succinctly defen ded Ms. Crowley with a remark on Twitter that criticized the candidates for the way they mostly trampled on her attempts to guide the debate. “Since both candidates are trying to convince voters that they respect women, they might start by respecting Candy Crowley,” he wrote.

One Booker Prize is a distinguished honor for a fiction writer, and to win two is extremely rare. Two in four years might seem downright greedy, except that there was little disagreement on Tuesday. Sarah Lyall writes in The Times that Hilary Mantel had written an exceptional novel in “Bring Up the Bodies.” She won Britain's distinguished Man Booker Prize for that work, the second in a trilogy about Oliver Cromwell, after winning a first Booker in 2009 for the first installment, “Wolf Hall.”

Rupert Murdoch continued to be contrite on Tuesday for the phone-hacking scandal that has besieged News Corporation the last 15 months, but that does not mean he was ready to embrace suggesti ons for significant changes at his company. At the annual shareholder meeting, Ben Sisario writes in The Times, all of the company's 14 proposed board members were elected, and several proposals for restructuring were defeated, including one to eliminate the dual-stock structure that ensures Murdoch family control.

Google's issues regarding the privacy of its users was in the spotlight again on Tuesday, when European data collection agencies urged the company to modify its policies. The goal, Kevin O'Brien and Eric Pfanner write in The Times, is to ensure that users have a clear understanding of what information about them is being collected.