You may have recently reacquainted yourself with this classic public TV mini-series. The American Program Service and 20 stations have brought it back for a third set of broadcasts this year, after a few runs on Bravo. Here, David Stewart reminds us of the quality, scope and impact of the production when it premiered in this country 14 years ago. On Monday evening, Jan. 18, 1982, the 11-part, 13-hour television series Brideshead Revisited broke over the PBS audience with the suddenness of a storm.
Talking about the current status of drama on public radio, NPR’s cultural programmer Andy Trudeau thinks back 10, 15 years ago, to a panel session on audience building. Someone had asked the speakers, “When is the best time to air drama?,” and a panelist shot back, “1939.” Despite this pervasive belief among station programmers — that radio drama doesn’t draw or hold modern audiences — Trudeau is spearheading an effort to revive the genre. At the very least, his is an attempt — perhaps a last-ditch one — to bolster the only regularly distributed national outlet for radio drama, NPR Playhouse. Trudeau is asking the National Endowment of the Arts (NEA) to fund research on the appeal of drama to NPR’s core audience, and he is asking drama producers to be signatories to the proposal and give the project some cash.
Ralph P. Forbes, and The People, Appellant, v. The Arkansas Educational Television
Commission, and its Board of Directors in their Official Capacities; The Arkansas
Educational Telecommunications Network Foundation, and its Members and Officers
Susan J. Howarth, in her Official Capacity as Executive Director; Victor Fleming,
in his Official Capacity as Chairman; G. E. Campbell, in his Official Capacity
as Vice-Chairman; Dr. Caroline Whitson, in her Official Capacity as Secretary;
Diane Blair, in her Official Capacity as Commissioner; S. McAdams, in his
Official Capacity as Commissioner; James Ross, in his Official Capacity as
Commissioner; Jerry McIntosh, in his Official Capacity as Commissioner; Lillian
Springer, in her Official Capacity as Commissioner; Amy L. Oliver, in her
Official Capacity as Production Manager; Bill Clinton, his Official Capacity
as Governor of the State of Arkansas; John Does, Sued as certain “John Doe”
crooked, lying politicians and political “dirty tricks” operatives and special
interests, etc.; KHBS TV/Channel 40 UHF; KHOG TV/Channel 29 UHF; American
Broadcasting Company, Agent Darrel Cunningham; Steve Barnes, KARK TV, 4 Eye-Witness News and AETN Producer; Oscar Eugene Goss, Arkansas Educational Television
Network; Carol Adornetto; Larry Foley; Lavenia Craig, in her Official Capacity
as Commissioner; Robert Doubleday, in his Official Capacity as Commissioner,
Appellees. No. 95-2722WA
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT
93 F.3d 497; 1996 U.S. App. LEXIS 21152
April 11, 1996, Submitted
August 21, 1996, Filed
PRIOR HISTORY: [*1] On Appeal from the United States District Court for the
Western District of Arkansas. Civil 92-2190.
Death row inmate, journalist, and international cause celebre Mumia Abu-Jamal has filed a $2 million censorship lawsuit against NPR over the network’s 1994 decision not to air his commentaries recorded for All Things Considered. The suit, filed by Abu-Jamal and the Prison Radio Project in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., argues that NPR nixed the commentaries under pressure from Sen. Bob Dole (R-Kan.), other members of Congress and the Fraternal Order of Police. In addition to seeking damages, Abu-Jamal asks the court to force NPR to air the essays on ATC and then turn over the tapes to him. NPR and the Prison Radio Project recorded 10 of Abu-Jamal’s essays in Pennsylvania’s Huntingdon prison in April 1994. He was convicted in 1982 of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.