Big changes at NewsHour. No, the rumors aren’t true: Jim Lehrer isn’t stepping down. Not exactly. What will happen is he’ll have a co-anchor. That spot will rotate among Gwen Ifill, Judy Woodruff and Jeffrey Brown, all currently with the show. But, e.p. Linda Winslow told The New York Times, “This is not a succession plan in disguise.” It’s part of a major overhaul of the show, including the new name PBS NewsHour, that will be unveiled at PBS Showcase tomorrow.

Ever pondered the possibilities of news shows on PBS such NewsHour, Nightly Business Report and Frontline co-mingling resources and cooperating to produce content? That was a “what if” question posed to PBS’s John Wilson at today’s PTPA meeting in Baltimore. Wilson, the network’s senior veep and chief TV programming executive, hinted that the concept is being eyed. Wilson said that through a Pew grant, the network has hired Tom Bettag, a former producer for ABC’s Nightline and the innovative pubTV series Life 360. Bettag “has been meeting with news and public affairs producers and trying to get at how to integrate, cross-promote and cross-pollinate among the series in a way that will make more sense to the consumer.”

Baltimore Sun TV critic David Zurawik predicts a strong fall pubTV lineup, despite ongoing funding problems. ” … Even in this time of downsizing in media from newspapers to network TV, the people who run the nation’s only free TV service can celebrate a fall lineup as promising as any the commercial networks will show at their previews next week in New York, he writes in today’s paper. PBS Showcase runs today through Thursday in Baltimore, with the Public Television Programmers’ Association also meeting there today.

The Center for Investigative Reporting in Berkeley, Calif., is launching a statewide multimedia reporting initiative with funding from the James Irvine and William and Flora Hewlett foundations. The project, which is hiring journalists and developing collaborations with media partners, will report on key California issues, including education, the environment, immigration, state governance and public safety. It will focus on making statewide data accessible to journalists and the public and emphasize “solutions-based” reporting. “We will monitor government, track private interests and reveal abuses that threaten our democracy,” said Robert J. Rosenthal, CIR’s executive director, and former managing editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and executive editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Roxana Saberi is to be released from Iranian prison today. The freelance Iranian-American journalist, who has reported for NPR and other major news organizations, was convicted of espionage last month and received an eight-year sentence. In an appeals hearing yesterday, an Iranian court issued a two-year suspended sentence. “In the next few days, we will make travel plans to return home,” Reza Saberi, the father, told The Associated Press.

PBS will go public Wednesday with discussion of its News & Public Affairs Initiative — an ongoing study that’s weighing options for cooperation and online collaboration among its news units and with those of public radio. Journalists from public TV and radio have had their “first sit-downs about what might be possible in the syncing of radio and television,” says Tom Thomas, co-c.e.o. of the Station Resource Group. Appearing with PBS officials in a PBS Showcase session, 11 a.m. May 13, will be project facilitator Tom Bettag, former ABC Nightline e.p. The initiative is funded by a Pew Charitable Trusts grant to the public TV network.

In this Q&A, Karen Everhart talks with This American Life producer Alex Blumberg and NPR reporter Adam Davidson.

... Friendly began toying with an idea for a permanent source of funding for noncommercial television. In the spring of 1966 he began considering the possibility that synchronous satellites might provide the magic potion for the fourth network....

We can see much of a new value proposition for public media in a new pattern that we can all copy and adapt.

Pubcasters in Europe are getting serious about comedy. Some 500 met in Lucerne, Switzerland, this week, according to The Associated Press, “to debate ‘The Boundaries of Laughter’ and try to come up with a formula for comedies that would tickle residents from Reykjavik to Dubrovnik.” As Eurovision TV director Bjorn Erichsen said, “We have 75 members at the EBU. Why are we not able to produce comedy for all?” The EBU, or European Broadcasting Union, is made up of public broadcasters serving 650 million viewers in 56 countries.

The local Morning Edition host at WCAI in Cape Cod, Dan Tritle, sure is looking forward to the new Star Trek movie. So he’s a Trekkie? Yes indeed, so much so that he once jogged at a science-fiction convention with George Takei, a.k.a. Sulu in the original 1960s series. “I was a fan from the very first episode” in 1966, he tells South Coast Today.

Talk about multitasking. As part of a whirlwind, 45-plus city promotional tour for National Parks, Ken Burns threw out the first pitch at the Florida Marlins’ game yesterday. He also used the opportunity to pitch something else: His upcoming baseball doc. “We just started editing what we’re calling The Tenth Inning,” he told The Palm Beach Post of the project, tentatively set to air on PBS in September 2010. “There’s so much that’s gone on and we’re going to really tell the story, good and bad. There’s been enough water under the baseball bridge since 1992, (which) was the last action we described.”

Here’s a preview of the “The National Memorial Day Concert.” It’s the 20th annual airing of the presentation from the capitol on PBS. This year performers include pop singer Katharine McPhee; country crooner Trace Adkins; classical artists Denyce Graves, Ling Ling and Robert McDuffie; Broadway singers Brian Stokes Mitchell and Colm Wilkinson; and readings from actors Katie Holmes, Laurence Fishburne, Joe Mantegna, Gary Senise and Dianne Wiest, as well as former Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Three pubTV stations have applied to the FCC for a new class of translators that will help them fill in DTV coverage gaps in their service areas, according to Broadcasting & Cable. KNPB in Reno, Rocky Mountain Public Television in Denver and WTVI in Charlotte, N.C., are among 14 stations have submitted 20 applications for the translators. Eight others are asking for temporary translators.

Springfield, Ill., PBS affiliate WSEC is receiving about 20 calls a day since its channel was recently shifted from its usual spot on Comcast cable to a higher digital tier, according to The State Journal-Register newspaper. “You would have to pay for an upgrade — if you just have the basic service, even those who have a digital set can’t get us,” said Jerold Gruebel, station CEO. The channel’s move was made because of a 2005 agreement between the Association of Public Television Stations and the National Cable & Telecommunications Association which says that in cities with more than one PBS station, cable providers may designate one station as the “primary” and other stations as “secondary.”