Quick Takes

PBS starting up PBS UK channel in Great Britain

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PBS is launching a digital channel in Great Britain, the New York Times is reporting. The channel, which will run on satellite and cable, will feature “older and current PBS programs for which it is able to secure the rights,” the newspaper said. A PBS spokesperson had confirmed the deal to the British media news website Broadcast in April. Also that month the UK search firm Robert Lindsay Associates reported placing Richard Kingsbury, the former head of two channels owned by Britain’s UKTV, as g.m. of the new channel, PBS UK. PBSd, a joint venture of PBS and WGBH that sells PBS programs to home video, foreign and commercial markets, is heading up the work.

Quick Takes

Masterpiece welcomes new national sponsor as its Trust hits $850,000

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BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — After seven years, Masterpiece has a new national corporate sponsor. The 40-year-old anthology drama series on Sunday (July 31) announced the support of Viking River Cruises, a luxury cruise company with international itineraries. “It’s a marriage made in heaven,” Rebecca Eaton, e.p. of the WGBH series, told reporters at the Television Critics Association summer press tour. The arrangement begins later this year; Eaton declined to provide the specific dollar amount.