Programs/Content

Mitchell probes Buster’s detour into controversy

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PBS has launched an internal review to find out why the gay mommies episode
of Postcards from Buster took so many people by surprise — especially
the show’s main funder, the U.S. Department of Education, and numerous aggravated conservatives. Two weeks after new Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings blasted the
children’s program for depicting same-sex parental couples, Minnesota conservatives were urging the state legislature to slash aid to Twin Cities PTV for airing the “Sugartime!” episode. Though PBS dropped the episode Jan. 25, mere hours before receiving Spellings’ searing letter, a quarter of public TV’s licensees — 46 of about 170 — have aired the show or plan to. Some aired it promptly and at the program’s usual hour.

System/Policy

Finale for music as WETA goes all-news

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To stop a long slide in audience, WETA-FM in Washington, D.C., will adopt an all-news format Feb. 28. With almost unanimous approval from its board of trustees, the station will add news programs from the BBC, NPR and other sources, replacing classical music during middays and evenings, Monday through Friday. Saturday broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera and a weekly folk show will be WETA’s last music offerings. Middays will feature NPR’s Day to Day, as well as News and Notes with Ed Gordon, the replacement of Tavis Smiley’s program that is also aimed at black listeners.

Quick Takes

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The website for James Dobson’s Focus on the Family reports on new public TV funding proposals. “What they want to do is create an endowment so that they’re insulated from Congress and from the taxpayer so they can go do whatever they want,” says a spokesman for the Media Research Center.

Quick Takes

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Update on the affair that almost nobody calls Mommygate: In a Houston Chronicle interview, Education Secretary Margaret Spellings positions herself as an opponent of federal intervention in curriculum about homosexuality, evolution and other topics.”I’m not going to sit up here in Washington, D.C., and try to dictate that,” she said. Meanwhile, PBS President Pat Mitchell has asked for an internal probe into the gay moms blowup, says the Los Angeles Times. Stations reaching at least half of U.S. households have aired the Buster episode condemned by Spellings, Current will report in its Feb. 14 issue, which features an extended interview with Mitchell on pubTV’s recent weeks of Heck.

Quick Takes

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A report released by the Miami-Dade school superintendent calls for the district to exert more control over programming decisions at WLRN-TV/FM, according to the Miami Herald.

Quick Takes

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Read the “Special Non-Gay Edition” of comic strip Tom the Dancing Bug.

Quick Takes

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Three Senators introduced a bill today that would allow the licensing of more low-power FM radio stations.

Quick Takes

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Karl Haas, host of Adventures in Good Music, died Feb. 6 at the age of 91. He had hosted the classical music show since 1959.

Quick Takes

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More than 20 pubTV stations have aired the gay moms episode of Postcards from Buster, or plan to, producing station WGBH told the press. Included are big ones in Chicago (says the Tribune), Los Angeles (says UPI), San Francisco (says Insidebayarea.com), San Diego (says the Union-Tribune) and Seattle (says the Post-Intelligencer). Also: the Oregon network (press release), the North Carolina’s UNC-TV (says ABC11, Durham), Buffalo (says the gay paper Outcome Buffalo) and Spokane (ABC affiliate KXLY-TV). Some are airing it in daytime hours when kids are watching (S.F., San Diego, Seattle, Buffalo, Spokane). Among those choosing not to air the show, at least for now, are those closest to Capitol Hill: WETA and Maryland PTV (says DC’s gay Blade), as well as stations in Kentucky and Cincinnati (Cincinnati Post) and Moline, Ill.

Quick Takes

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Salon asks: has PBS become the White House’s lap dog?

Quick Takes

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Mommygate is prompting a dialogue about tolerance. Columnist Ellen Goodman asks: “… how did acceptance become translated into propaganda? And what on Earth happens if tolerance is defined as intolerable?” (in the Seattle Times and other papers).

Quick Takes

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The Los Angeles Times profiles Pacific Drift, a new show on the city’s KPCC-FM that aims “to create a community of creative people getting to know each other and interacting through the show,” in the words of producer Ben Adair.

Quick Takes

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The Washington Post’s gossip column bids farewell to Tucker Carlson, who is moving to New Jersey for his new job with MSNBC.

Quick Takes

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New York Times culture critic Frank Rich takes aim at Bustergate, among other flaps, in this column about content cops and the campaign against indecency.

Quick Takes

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WETA-FM in Washington, D.C., may switch to an all-news format, reports the Washington Post.

Quick Takes

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Education Secretary Margaret Spellings defended her Buster sanction yesterday, saying PBS viewers expect educational programming that is “very straight down the line,” according to the Toledo Blade. We think the pun was unintentional. (via mediabistro.com)

Quick Takes

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An installment of The Gillmor Gang features Hearts of Space host Stephen Hill discussing public radio’s reaction to podcasting and other developments in new media. (Via ILoveRadio.org.)

Quick Takes

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“I didn’t understand what all the hullabaloo was about,” KQED President and PBS Board member Jeff Clarke told the San Francisco Chronicle after screening cartoon bunny Buster’s visit with children in Vermont. The Boston Globe reports that the controversy over the “Sugartime” episode of Postcards from Buster coincides with talks over whether the PBS Kids series will be renewed for a second season.

Quick Takes

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We’ve added some new podcasters to our list, including Hearing Voices, Benjamen Walker and the Canadian Broadcasting Corp.