John Willis, WGBH’s new national production chief, is returning to the U.K. to direct BBC’s Factual and Learning programs, reports the Guardian. In a February speech to documentarians, he said an “infection of entertainment” dilutes news programs in the U.S.

Sesame Street launches its 34th season on PBS today. The long-running series is as “creative and vibrant as ever,” writes Lynne Heffley in an LA Times review. Heffley also reviews

The New York Times reports on how war coverage has altered the TV habits of viewers in Millville, N.J.

Corey Flintoff name-checked in the Apr. 5 Zippy comic strip.

The Chicago Sun-Times‘ Lloyd Sachs praises NPR’s Anne Garrels, one of the few American journalists still in Baghdad. “There may be no one on the air who better conveys the difficult mood swings that this kind of assignment can produce, or its utter lack of glamor,” he writes. (Via Romenesko.)

“The spirit of documentary filmmaking is thriving, but it is against the odds that you will make money doing it,” comments filmmaker Thom Powers, in an LA Times feature about the financial struggles of documentarians. Powers’ film “Guns and Mothers,” about women who lost sons to gun violence, airs on PBS’s Independent Lens in May.

PBS has initiated fast-track development of a new 10 p.m. public affairs series to supplement its two-hour Friday night block. The half-hour show — to be chosen from proposals submitted last week — will debut by July. Coby Atlas, the network’s co-chief program executive, already has commissioned a pilot adapting a pubradio series — KCRW-FM’s weekly Left, Right and Center. She expects to ask for minipilots of up to four proposals before green-lighting the winning concept next month. CPB, which is jointly funding the new series, is also “in the mix of decision-making,” she said. The objective of the new show, according to Atlas and station execs, is to extend the range of political views expressed on PBS.

Public television and radio producers won 11 of this year’s George Foster Peabody Awards.

In tonight’s Frontline documentary, “Blair’s War,” the British Prime Minister “comes across as a valiant lead guitarist who struggles to keep two intransigent divas from destroying a long and highly successful collaboration,” writes New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley.

NPR’s round-the-clock war coverage has some listeners restless. “You’re neither Fox nor CNN, and shouldn’t pretend or aspire to be,” writes one. But NPR ombudsman Jeffrey Dvorkin writes that NPR’s “normal” coverage may not resume for some time–and may really have ended Sept. 11, 2001.

“When real drama is going on in the world, people are less interested in watching the drama created in reality television shows.” The New York Times reports on how the Iraq war is affecting the reality genre.

“I got writers’ block. I had no ideas whatever. It was like a mild depression.” The Los Angeles Times profiles British television dramatist Andrew Davies. The conclusion of his latest adaptation, George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda, airs on Masterpiece Theatre tonight.

War coverage on NPR calls for sensitive music selection and a possible cutback on April 1 hijinks, reports the L.A. Times.

Satirist Barry Crimmins details his square-peg encounter with public radio’s On Point: “That’s right; NPR was soliciting me to satirize democracy for showing signs of vibrancy.”

Does it make sense to stop advertising during war? Two pubcasters weigh in on the question posed by an AdAge.com opinion poll.