More than half of the country’s 357 public TV stations missed the May 1 deadline to begin digital broadcasting, according to APTS. As of late last week, only 163—just 46 percent of public TV stations—had launched their DTV signals. Not that it matters much. The 194 public stations that failed to flip the switch are eligible to petition the FCC for two six-month extensions. When commercial stations faced their deadline a year ago, two-thirds missed it and the FCC freely issued waivers. About 73 percent of TV households now have access to at least one digital public TV signal, APTS says.

White Teeth, a television adaptation of the best-selling book, “captures a more complicated and satisfying aspect of the novel: the poignancy and redemptive sweetness of the losers who populate [Zadie] Smith’s comic vision,” writes a New York Times reviewer. The two-part Masterpiece Theatre mini-series debuts on PBS May 11.

David Isay will unveil StoryCorps, a national oral history project, later this year. As he tells the New York Times, “This is our beachhead against ‘The Bachelor.'”

Walter Cronkite and CNN anchor Aaron Brown are the latest TV journalists to agree to appear on public TV stations in infomercials paid for by manufacturers. The New York Times put the spotlight on American Review and other series of shorts produced for a fee by WJMK Inc. of Boca Raton, Fla. Also featured was Healthology, a series of modules produced in Manhattan. The economics are similar to that of shorts World Business Review and Spotlight On and the series Visionaries, described in Current last year.

A Star Tribune review of Studio 360 calls PRI “public radio’s equivalent of HBO in terms of turning out cutting-edge programming.”

Astronomers have named asteroid #26858 “Misterrogers” in honor of the late children’s TV host, reports NEPA News. (Via randomWalks.) PBS will distribute a live broadcast of Rogers’ memorial service May 3.

The Jewish Action Taskforce has rescheduled protests against NPR’s coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. They will take place at NPR’s D.C. headquarters and at member stations May 14.

The Miami Herald has agreed to produce news segments for the city’s WLRN-FM, reports the Herald.

“What he reminds me of is that quirky, kind of odd friend you had in high school but never wanted to admit you knew,” says a This American Life fan of host Ira Glass, in a St. Paul Pioneer Press article. “But now you think, ‘Gee, I wish I had gotten to know him better.’ “

Police arrested Minnesota Public Radio talk show host Katherine Lanpher April 12 on suspicion of drunken driving and leaving the scene of an accident, report local media.

The FCC has given public TV stations an extra six months to simulcast half of their analog programming on their digital channels. The original deadline for the 50 percent simulcast requirement was May 1.

Tom Shales blasts commercial coverage of the Iraqi war while praising PBS’s Bill Moyers and NPR’s Bob Edwards in his TelevisionWeek column.

Studio 360 host Kurt Andersen talks with The Rake. “[W]hen I hear Ira Glass at public radio conventions sort of light into the audience saying, ‘You’ve become conservative, you accept mediocrity,’ I say hear, hear,” he says.

NPR’s Carl Kasell will marry psychotherapist Mary Ann Foster May 24, reports the Washington Post. Wait, Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! host Peter Sagal will officiate. (Last item.)

NPR’s Anne Garrels tells colleague Susan Stamberg that, after Iraq, she might not cover another war. “I can’t do it to my husband again,” she says. (Via Romenesko.)