Wednesday roundup: WAMU revises schedule; pubcasters enter Mass. hall of fame

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• Washington, D.C.’s WAMU is using the occasion of the Aug. 1 departure of NPR’s Tell Me More to revise its schedule. It’s adding NPR’s Here & Now and the BBC Newshour on weekdays, retiring a Sunday rebroadcast of Car Talk and adding American Public Media’s Marketplace Weekend in its place, among other changes. Meanwhile, Minnesota Public Radio announced July 21 that it will replace Tell Me More, which airs at 9 p.m. on its news stations, with a rebroadcast of local show MPR News Presents.

Former WGBH President David Ives, who died in 2003, joins the Massachusetts Broadcasting Hall of Fame in September. (Photo: Current archives)

Former WGBH President David Ives, who died in 2003, joins the Massachusetts Broadcasting Hall of Fame in September.

• Three pubcasters are being inducted posthumously into the Massachusetts Broadcasting Hall of Fame. A Sept. 12 luncheon will honor Julia Child, whose legendary French Chef program was produced at WGBH in Boston; David Ives, who served as WGBH’s president from 1970-84 and built it into a production powerhouse; and Dave MacNeill, voice of the Boston Pops for half a century on WCRB-FM, sister station to WGBH-FM. Read the full list of honorees.

• Mississippi Public Broadcasting radio reporter Lawayne Childrey talked with the Jackson Clarion-Ledger about his traumatic past, the subject of a book he’s writing. Childrey witnessed the death of his cousin at a young age, was molested as a child and tested HIV-positive in the early 1990s. At 40, he entered community college and followed his idol Walter Cronkite to become a Murrow Award–winning news reporter. “What is the point of living your life . . . if nobody knows who you are?” he told columnist Gary Pettus.

• Retired NPR mascot Carl Kasell is still delighting listeners. At a recent retirement party at his home station of Chapel Hill’s WUNC, Kasell assisted station member Howie Sanborn — an Army veteran who became paralyzed on his military base — with his marriage proposal to fiancee Faith Klein. Sanborn only expected Kasell to autograph the ring box, but Kasell quieted the room and announced the occasion.

• PBS announced several new programs Tuesday at the Television Critics Press Association Summer Tour, including a four-hour, two-part American Experience biopic on Walt Disney. Also, filmmaker Ken Burns’s 14-hour The Roosevelts: An Intimate History will stream online Sept. 15-29.

• The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Satellite Television Extension and Localism Reauthorization Act (STELA) Tuesday, which would allow satellite transmission of TV services to continue in rural areas. The bill heads to the Senate. “The House reauthorization of STELA is an important step toward assuring that millions of public television viewers will continue to receive their local public television stations’ programming and education, public safety and citizenship services via satellite,” Pat Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations, said in a statement.

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