Benedict Cumberbatch, right, and Martin Freeman will reprise their sleuthing in a fourth season of Sherlock, to film in 2015. (Photo: Robert Viglasky/Hartswood Films 2013 for Masterpiece)
• Good news for fans of London’s super-sleuth. The BBC announced Wednesday it will bring back Sherlock with all principal cast members, first for a one-off special to film in early 2015, then for a fourth three-episode season to film later in the year. No announcement yet from PBS regarding plans to air the show stateside, but the program’s first three seasons have been a ratings goldmine for pubTV. So it’s not hard to deduce whether the detective will return to the U.S.
• Georgia Public Broadcasting fired producer Clay Bolton last week, a day after offering him a promotion, according to Creative Loafing Atlanta. The reason: The station discovered Bolton’s side business of selling T-shirts that say “Fuck Cobb County,” referring to the Atlanta suburb that will soon be home to the Atlanta Braves. GPB told Bolton he “violated policies related to political activities and ethics,” according to Bolton’s interview with Creative Loafing. “I told my colleagues I got Chip Roger’d,” he told CL.
• Along with the news that This American Life is launching a new podcast, a New York Times profile reveals that host Ira Glass requested to nearly halve his salary between 2013 and 2014. Though the board of WBEZ had boosted his pay from $170,000 to $278,000 in fiscal year 2013, Glass asked for a reduction to $146,000, according to the Times. He pulls in the bulk of his income from speaking engagements and other activities like his dance show 3 Acts, 2 Dancers, 1 Radio Host, which he hopes to take to Broadway.
• Reading Rainbow hit its Kickstarter goal of $5 million Wednesday, which means Seth MacFarlane will also throw in $1 million. Actor LeVar Burton is partnering with pubcaster WNED in Buffalo, N.Y., on the digital revamp of the popular public television brand.
• “This morning I found quite a bit of blood spattered and smeared on the mailroom copy machine,” read a Tuesday internal memo at Los Angeles Pacifica station KPFK. “I cleaned and sterilized it, so it’s safe to use,” wrote KPFK Operations Director Anyel Fields.