Quick Takes
NBC didn’t think “Downton” would be a hit
NBC turned down Downton Abbey, which is produced by NBCUniversal’s Carnival Films in London, “believing that American audiences wouldn’t have the appetite for a ...“Michael Eric Dyson Show” senior producer says host has left program
The Michael Eric Dyson Show will go off the public radio airwaves at the end of the month, and its host has already left ...Media watchdog aims to air out dispute between KUOW and antiabortion group
A media-oversight nonprofit in Seattle will hold a hearing later this month to consider an antiabortion group’s allegation that KUOW-FM, the city’s ...Update: Chinese execution talk show available via PBS International is abruptly canceled
A pre-execution interview show on death row in China, set to air as a documentary on the BBC next week and available ...CPB, PBS join to offer free educational apps in underserved communities
CPB and PBS are collaborating on free educational apps that will be available at Head Start centers, member stations and other organizations ...Sutton: View stations’ situations in “context of market forces”
Writing on his blog, public radio consultant John Sutton argues that the inability of some stations to support themselves can be blamed ...Breitbart’s “exclusive” Obama video has been on Frontline’s site since 2008
Before his death on March 1, conservative online publisher Andrew Breitbart hinted that he had video of a 1990 speech given by ...Well-schooled in start-up culture, Corey Ford returns to public media
Public Media Accelerator, the incubator launched in December with a $2.5 million grant from the Knight Foundation, will be led by a ...WHYY hires Pulitzer-winning cartoonist for NewsWorks
NewsWorks, WHYY’s collaborative website covering Philadelphia-area news, has hired Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist Tony Auth, formerly of the Philadelphia Inquirer. Chris Satullo, WHYY’s v.p. ...PBS announces second web-based arts program
PBS is launching on March 14 a new series on YouTube, Idea Channel, which it calls an “irreverent, personality-driven” project that “examines the unique ...89.7 WGBH gets a close encounter of the promo kind
A unique new 30-second promo for 89.7 WGBH shows a radio tuned to the Boston station sucked out of a pickup truck ...After its near-death, WSIE-FM is back as St. Louis’s local jazz station
WSIE-FM, broadcasting from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, is back “from its deathbed,” reports the Riverfront Times in St. Louis. The city’s only ...Joaquin Alvarado, four staffers gone from APM/MPR
Joaquin Alvarado, senior vice president for digital innovation for American Public Media/Minnesota Public Radio since January 2010, has been laid off, along ...Fate of translators still an unknown in spectrum legislation
There were “bodies left out on the legislative battlefield,” including TV translator stations, in the recent spectrum legislation, writes telecom attorney Scott ...WFPL in Louisville shifts priorities, triples news staff in one year
News/talk WFPL, part of Louisville Public Media, has added four reporters in the past year, “bucking a national trend that has left ...