The Jim Henson Company is working on a 3D sequel to Jim Henson’s “Dark Crystal” film, CEO Lisa Henson tells Reuters. She said several of her father’s primary interests before he died in 1990 were 3D films, computer animation and digital imagery. “He was pretty far ahead of his time, and I like to think that we have taken the company in the direction he would have chosen,” she said. “I really believe that 3D will only get better.” The movie, “The Power of the Dark Crystal” will be made in Australia with using techniques including 3D and CGI to propel puppets into the 21st century and beyond.

A four-year Campaign for Love and Forgiveness program draws to an end Tuesday (June 15) at six pubcasting stations nationwide participating in the Fetzer Institute program. It’s an outreach that encourages participants to come together to forgive on both personal and community levels. At KEET in Eureka, Calif., there was a theater production and art exhibits. KPBS in San Diego sponsored conversations among youth and survivors of torture. Maryland Public Television dedicated a forgiveness garden. At WGVU in Grand Rapids, Mich., “A Season of Forgiveness” project that began with the outreach is now a privately held organization. Part of WTVI’s campaign, a “Red Bench of Love” in Charlotte, N.C.,

Financial journalist Stacey Tisdale tis joining Need to Know as a contributing reporter on June 25. “It’s an honor to be part of something that PBS entrusts with the responsibility of succeeding Bill Moyers,” she told The Women on the Web site. “I look forward to the longer ‘docustory’ format that will allow us to go in depth and meet the journalistic standards and expectations of the PBS audience.” Tisdale’s career includes reporting for CNN, NBC’s Today, CBS MarketWatch, The Early Show and CBS Evening News. CLARIFICATION: Tisdale is joining the show as a contributing correspondent, not as a staffer as previously reported.

KWMU is picking up live performance broadcasts of the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra in September. The partnership, announced yesterday, provides a new outlet for the symphony after KFUO, the city’s all-classical outlet, switches to the “Joy FM” format under new owner Gateway Creative Broadcasting, a religious broadcaster. KWMU, which recently rebranded itself St. Louis Public Media, will air all Saturday concerts in the symphony’s Wells Fargo Advisors Orchestral Series, beginning with the 2010-11 season-opening performance featuring violinist Joshua Bell. The news isn’t so good for opera lovers, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, which reports that KWMU doesn’t plan to change its Saturday afternoon line-up to carry live broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera.

NPR Music is about to begin webcasting live from the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival in Manchester, Tenn., a first for the online music service recently touted by the Washington Post as “a kind of passport to coolness for NPR’s core radio audience of aging baby boomers.” Neon Indian, a synth-pop band that riffs off Wizard/True Star-era Todd Rundgren in a track on NPR Music’s Bonnaroo Preview playlist, kicks off three days of live performances at 1 pm ET. Three public radio stations–KUT, WFUV and The Current–have joined NPR in producing coverage of more than 40 full sets from the festival.

PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler continues to hear from viewers about two controversial subjects: Tavis Smiley’s comments on terrorism, and treatment of the Vietnam War in the recent Memorial Day special. Read his Mailbag here.

Sylvia Strobel, president of the Pennsylvania Public Television Network until it was dismembered in state budget cuts recently, has been named executive director of the Alliance for Community Media, the national association of cable access centers, starting Aug. 1. Strobel is chair of the American Women in Radio and Television and recently served as its acting president. She held executive roles with Twin Cities Public Television and CPB and has been a senior partner in the entertainment law firm Lehmann Strobel PLC, now based in Lancaster, Pa.

The Pittsburgh foundations that bought a 60-day option on the sale of WDUQ last month have withdrawn their nascent bid for the public radio station. The group sought to recast the NPR News and jazz station as a public media news service for the Pittsburgh region, but recently decided that there wasn’t enough time to complete its analysis and solicit community feedback before the July 2 deadline. The Heinz Endowments, one of four community foundations involved in the planning, announced the decision yesterday. Duquesne University wants at least $10 million for WDUQ, the city’s most-listened-to public radio outlet. It’s unclear whether any bidders are willing to pay that amount.

R.L. Stine, author of the hit children’s book series Goosebumps, is among the judges for the PBS Kids Go! Writers Contest — which has already generated 25,000 entries from 87 stations nationwide, according to PBS. The contest, co-sponsored by WNED-TV Buffalo/Toronto, encourages children from kindergarten through third grade to create illustrated stories. Also on the 14-judge panel is six-time Emmy winner Marc Brown, creator of the character Arthur of book and PBS program fame; Ann M. Martin, author of the mega-hit series The Baby-sitters Club; and Jorge Cauz, president of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Winners will be announced in July.

Longtime ABC News Political Director David Chalian joins the PBS NewsHour on July 6, the show announced today. As its political editor, Chalian will direct the NewsHour’s political coverage across all platforms and manage the editorial content from the NewsHour’s congressional, White House, and Supreme Court beats. He will also serve as an on-camera political analyst and will appear in regular political webcasts on the Online NewsHour, as well as develop original digital political content.

An audit of the Educational Broadcasting Authority in West Virginia (PDF) released to state legislators Wednesday (June 9) concludes that by operating two supporting nonprofits with separate bank accounts it may not be following state requirements, reports the Charleston Gazette. Among the findings: That EBA employees do not have the authority to fundraise and provide administrative support for Friends of West Virginia Public Broadcasting and the West Virginia Public Broadcasting Foundation (both those groups have no employees). And while the EBA may receive donations, its employees cannot solicit donations on state time. Auditors put forth a series of recommendations, including that the two nonprofits “operate as complete and separate entities” with different missions and finances “to protect the financial rights of the state and persons affected by the agency’s activities.”

Thirteen staffers “will be leaving PBS,” network President Paula Kerger said in a memo to the system today (June 9). “The entire PBS senior management team actively participated” in the decisions, she added. Departments affected include marketing and communications, interactive and general counsel.

In a hearing today (June 9) on Capitol Hill, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Julius Genachowski asked Congress for its assistance in reclaiming spectrum for mobile broadband, reports Broadcasting & Cable. The request came during the House Appropriations Committee Financial Services Subcommittee testimony on the FCC’s 2011 budget. Genachowski said the spectrum giveback (background, Current, Feb. 8, 2010) was good for all parties involved — broadcasters, viewers and the government — but the feds need to move quickly to head off a looming spectrum shortage. Congress needs to okay use of some proceeds from the spectrum auction to compensate broadcasters.

On community station KFAI-FM in Minneapolis, The Takeaway, the live drivetime news show from Public Radio International that launched in April 2008, will go head-to-head with the powerhouse Morning Edition from 5 to 8 a.m. starting June 30, writes David Brauer, MinnPost’s media reporter. He says The Takeaway “is like Morning Edition in a hoodie: more casual, younger-skewing, and international, but hardly the rush to the barricades” that Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! provides. (Democracy Now! will follow The Takeaway at 8.) KFAI, feeling pressure to draw a larger audience and maintain its CPB grant, is moving music to make room for news.

Published online only. Next print edition includes many of these items. Kutzner chairs team to look beyond today’s DTV standard Jim Kutzner, PBS chief engineer, is chairing a team of the Advanced Television Systems Committee that will think ahead about the country’s next-generation broadcast TV system — “probably five years out” from today, he says. Ideally, the next system would be compatible with broadcasters’ and viewers’ present hardware, Kutzner told Current, but advances in modulation and compression technology are coming so fast that much improved technology will be within sight within a few years. The Next-Generation Broadcast Television Team, nicknamed PT-2, “will explore potential technologies to be used to define a future terrestrial broadcast digital television standard,” ATSC said in a release May 21 after its annual meeting in Arlington, Va.