Pipeline addendum: more public TV productions in the works for 2015

This list supplements Current’s Pipeline 2015, published in November 2014 and based on responses to our annual survey of public TV producers. Programs appearing in this update, three of which are offered for national broadcast this winter season, went to contract late last year or were submitted after the deadline for the earlier list. Winter ’15
Mia, A Dancer’s Journey
Producing organizations: Slavenska Dance Preservation Inc., PBS SoCaL. Distributor: NETA. Length: 1 x 60.

Film revisits Freedom Summer for a new generation

Freedom Summer, a documentary directed by Stanley Nelson, recounts the turbulent 10-week period, focusing on efforts by the Council of Federated Organizations and the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party to enfranchise the segregated state’s black population.

Film takes intimate look at lives of Latina actresses

Filmmaker Andrea Meller, born in the U.S. and of Chilean descent, was searching for her identity as a Latina when she came across a New York Times article about a group of voice actresses who dubbed the ABC prime-time soap opera Desperate Housewives into Spanish for the show’s secondary audio program channel.

Pipeline 2013

This year’s Pipeline survey lists 120 television projects planned, underway, or completed for future seasons on public TV, beginning with Winter 2013.

Health coaches in Pledge Pipeline

Pledge Pipeline 2012-13

Current’s Pledge Pipeline previews 17 shows heading to public TV on-air membership drives in December 2012 and March 2013.

Pipeline 2012

This year’s Pipeline survey found projects planned, begun or completed about Francis Scott Key and Phil Ochs … religious pilgrims and itinerant carnies … Shakespeare and NASCAR … Margaret Mitchell and Harper Lee … Col. George Armstrong Custer and Joe Paterno … Johann Bach and Freddie Fender … aging brains and young multitaskers. Mark (Survivor) Burnett does a “reality” show for PBS about prime ministers’ chefs, and David (Farmer’s Wife) Sutherland gives us verite of an aspiring Sioux social worker. Ken Burns follows up on the Central Park jogger case and Ric Burns looks at the blood spilled by the Civil War and the bad blood that still remains.

Pledge Pipeline, 2011-12

Current’s first Pledge Pipeline previews 36 shows heading to public TV on-air membership drives in December 2011, March 2012 and beyond. Producers and distributors provided this information in response to Current’s questionnaire. December ’11
’60s Pop Rock: My Music
Producing organization: TJL Productions. Distributor: PBS. Length: 75 minutes in four acts (SD 4:3).

Pipeline 2011

Some 140 projects are listed in Current’s annual Pipeline survey, including its one-time addendum in December. Among the programs are noninstructional public TV projects one hour or longer in various stages of planning, fundraising and production that will debut nationally in January 2010 and beyond. For space reasons we excluded sequels and episodes of ongoing series that are 60 minutes or shorter. Winter ’11
After the Hunt with Chef John Folse
Producing organization: Louisiana Public Broadcasting. Distributor: APT.

Pipeline 2010

Projects listed in Current’s annual Pipeline survey are down from 162 last year to 128, which may be consistent with the Great Recession, though the survey isn’t complete or formal enough to serve as a leading (or following) economic indicator. The list below incorporates four titles listed in an addendum published in our Dec. 14, 2009, issue. Heading for the screen are vessels potentially full of uplift such as Helen Whitney’s four-hour Forgiveness and TeamWorks Media’s The Street Stops Here, which profiles high-school hoops coach Bob Hurley Sr.

You can also expect docs recollecting dark moments in history — Barak Goodman’s My Lai, Stephen Ives’ Road to Memphis about the killing of Martin Luther King Jr., and John Valadez’s Battle After the War about the blowup over a GI’s funeral that sparked the Latino-American civil rights movement in 1948. There are the usual subject-area clumps, possibly coincidental.

Pipeline 2009

This annual list, now incorporating its Dec. 22 addendum, includes about 180 noninstructional projects one hour or longer in various stages of planning, fundraising and production that will debut nationally in January 2009 and beyond. ¶ Children’s programs don’t appear in this list. We’ll report on them in Current next year. ¶ Responding to Current’s annual Pipeline survey, producers and their distributors supplied most information for this list.

Pipeline 2008

 It won’t cause as many lumps in throats as the highly concentrated preview reel that PBS displays at its Showcase conference each spring, but it offers many jolts of promise for upcoming seasons of public television.Responding to Current’s annual Pipeline survey, producers and their distributors supplied most information for this list of about 140 completed, scripted, proposed and dreamt-of productions. Thanks to all who responded to the survey. Please direct inquiries about specific programs to the contact people listed with each title.Included:only noninstructional projects one hour or longer that will debut nationally in January 2008 or later. Winter/Spring ’08 | Summer ’08 | Sometime in ’08 | Winter/Spring ’09 | Fall ’09
Sometime in ’10 | Sometime in ’11 | Airdate to be determined

Winter/Spring ’08
The Adirondacks

Producing organizations: WNED-TV (Buffalo, N.Y.) and Working Dog Productions. Episodes: 1 x 120 (HD).

Kids’ pipeline

Debut this fall [2007]
Jim Knox’s Wild Zoofari
Producing organizations: Jim Knox’s Wild Zoofari LLC. Producer: Rob Child. Creators: Rob Child, Jim Knox, Bruce Knox. Episodes: 14/30. Status: released on DVD 2006.