Quick Takes
After 10 years on PBS, Smiley still weathering challenges
Tavis Smiley may be celebrating 10 years on PBS, but that tenure hasn’t been easy. In a Los Angeles Times interview, the talk show ...Next goal for American Archive: 5,000 more hours of content
The American Archive of Public Broadcasting is aiming to add another 5,000 hours of digitally native or previously digitized content to supplement ...Sloooooooooow TV coming soon to a screen near you
Remember Norwegian Public Television’s marathon broadcasts of five straight hours of knitting and five days of the “action” on a cruise-ship journey? Well, ...PBS partners with UK producers for Nova special on Typhoon Haiyan
PBS and United Kingdom–based Sky Vision Productions are collaborating on a pair of documentaries about Typhoon Haiyan, to air in both countries, ...Guitar allegedly owned by Dylan sets new auction record, thanks to History Detectives
A guitar played by Bob Dylan at his famous Newport Folk Festival appearance in 1965 sold for nearly $1 million Friday, two ...Break out the biscuits, it’s nearly Downton Abbey time
The publicity onslaught preceding the Jan. 5 premiere of Downton Abbey arrives in New York next week in the form of a tea truck. Variety reports that costumed servers ...FCC to delay broadcast spectrum auctions to mid-2015
FCC Chair Tom Wheeler announced today that the agency is shifting broadcast spectrum auctions from 2014 to 2015. In a blog post, Wheeler ...SiriusXM picking up WGBH’s Innovation Hub
Innovation Hub, WGBH-FM’s weekly hourlong dive into big ideas and innovative technologies, goes national Saturday on SiriusXM’s public-radio content channel, XMPR. The program, distributed ...Late WVTF music director’s family sues over his 2011 death
The children of Seth Williamson, a longtime music director and host at pubradio WVTF in Roanoke, Va., have filed a lawsuit against ...Dotcom entrepreneur invests $250K in Swell app
Jason Calacanis is betting big on Swell, the five-month-old app that curates podcasts and news reports. The angel investor, who co-founded the ...FCC details plans for moving ahead on LPFM applications
The FCC announced Tuesday details of its plan for working through the more than 2,800 low-power FM (LPFM) applications that it received during ...Knight and Ford donate $500,000 to reporting projects in Detroit and Michigan
Detroit may have filed for bankruptcy, but public-service reporting efforts there and in Michigan just got a big boost. The Knight Foundation and ...NEA’s Alyce Myatt returns to private sector next month
Alyce Myatt, media arts director for the National Endowment for the Arts and a former PBS executive, is leaving the NEA next ...Ruling reinforces advertising ban on pubcasting airwaves
A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a constitutional ban on political advertising on public television and radio stations, Reuters reports. The 9th ...FCC Chair Wheeler advocates for public TV stations to sell spectrum
The new chair of the FCC, Tom Wheeler, is urging public broadcasters to sell their television bandwidth in upcoming spectrum auctions, reports ...
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