Obsessive Downton Abbey fans are turning into programming pirates, reports Salon, poking around in what it calls “some dark corner of the Internet” to find episodes that have already run on Britain’s ITV but not yet on Masterpiece. When the writer of the piece, John Sellers, confessed to Downton actor Hugh Bonneville (the Earl of Grantham) that he’d watched the Downton Christmas special online, Bonneville replied: “I wish you hadn’t told me you watched it illegally. That’s really pissing me off. Shame on you. Be ashamed.” PBS viewers are still awaiting that episode, which is set to air in February.

Dennis Adkins, West Virginia Public Broadcasting executive director, told state legislators that state funding reductions and loss of corporate underwriting have forced the station to make programming cuts, reports the Charleston Gazette. Speaking to lawmakers on Thursday (Jan. 26), Adkins said further program cutbacks may be necessary. “We’re seeing erosion in our ability to provide a quality public broadcasting product to the citizens of West Virginia,” Adkins told members of the House Finance Committee. “To put it bluntly, our expenses are outpacing our revenues.” State appropriations to pubcasting in West Virginia have dropped 9 percent over the past two fiscal years, and corporate underwriting is off 17 percent in the last year.

Has KPCC “punked” fellow pubradio station KPFK with a “billboard prank”? So says an item on OC Weekly’s Navelgazing blog written by Gustavo Arellano, a reporter for the paper who has also appeared on both stations in southern California. KPCC, an NPR member station, has erected a bold orange billboard on the the roof of building right next door to KPFK, a Pacifica outlet, that reads: “Ideas, not ideology.” Perhaps a poke at left-leaning Pacifica? UPDATE: Craig Curtis, program director at KPCC radio, tells Current that the placement was a “complete coincidence — although I’m sure people may not believe that.”

The Public Broadcasting Management Association (PBMA) on Thursday (Jan. 26) announced a full rebranding of the organization, which serves financial, human resources, legal, information systems and administrative managers of public TV and radio stations. It’s slightly twisting the current PBMA acronym into PMBA: the Public Media Business Association, positioning itself as the “go-to” association “focused on delivering programs and services that enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and economics of public media,” the McLean, Va.-based group said in a press release. “The county’s need for public media is greater than ever, but public media stations face severe economic and funding challenges,” said PMBA Board Chair Tom Livingston.

Oregon Public Broadcasting received an unexpected $50,000 gift on Wednesday (Jan. 25), from a longtime donor who has “given consistently but nothing on that level,” OPB President Steve Bass told Current. And here’s a twist: The contributor told an OPB staffer that he’s a registered Republican, and that one of the programs he especially enjoys is Moyers and Company, the latest show from veteran newsman Bill Moyers, widely considered a progressive voice. Several pubTV execs recently told the New York Times that PBS declined to carry Moyers’s latest program, which is distributed by American Public Television, because PBS “did not want to realign itself with Mr.

Is this a great photo or what? That’s Terry Gross, host of WHYY’s Fresh Air, alongside larger-than-life political satirist Stephen Colbert. In case you missed her appearance on The Colbert Report, here’s the link on Fresh Air’s Tumblr.

Nine months after PBS member station WMFE-TV in Orlando announced its sale, the Federal Communications Commission has yet to approve its transfer to Community Educators of Orlando, the local entity representing religious broadcaster Daystar. Orlando Weekly reports that in a Dec. 7, 2011, letter, Michael Perko, spokesperson for the FCC Media Bureau, told U.S. Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-Texas), whose includes Daystar headquarters, that the FCC had “recently completed a preliminary evaluation of the WMFE-TV assignment application . . . as well as the related informal objections,” and “it was necessary to obtain additional information” before making a final decision. Daystar told Orlando Weekly in a statement, “We don’t comment on station acquisitions, but we are excited about all the growth Daystar is experiencing and thankful for the opportunities God has given us to spread the good news of Jesus Christ around the world.”

In reaction to the Penn State University athletic department’s ongoing sex abuse scandal, WPSU General Manager Ted Krichels is organizing an Editorial Integrity Advisory Committee for the station, which is licensed to the college, reports CPB Ombudsman Joel Kaplan. “WPSU, like many public broadcasting outlets, is inextricably tied to the university where it is located, and which also holds its license,” Kaplan writes; WPSU is also a news operation. “There is no indication that any pressure was brought to bear” on the newsroom over the scandal coverage, Kaplan notes, “but there is a fear inside WPSU that there is a public perception that WPSU is an auxiliary arm of Penn State.”

The Public Insight Network from American Public Media is starting up its own news unit to generate original reporting, according to Nieman Journalism Lab, drawing on its massive database of some 130,000 self-identified news sources. “One of the things we learned early on,” Linda Fantin, director of the PIN initiative, told Nieman, “is the amount of intelligence and amazing insights and stories that people have shared with us quickly overwhelm a journalist’s ability to get that information out there.” The first project will be monthlong “virtual road trip” to survey Americans on whether presidential candidates reflect their values.

The PBS NewsHour’s election-year translation project kicked off with President Obama’s State of the Union address on Tuesday (Jan. 24). Online transcriptions of his speech are now available in its entirety in Arabic, French, Italian, Japanese, Polish and Portuguese; portions of the address are there in traditional Chinese, Danish, Dutch, Esperanto, German, Korean and Spanish.

Random House Children’s Books and Sesame Workshop are partnering on a new digital publishing initiative focusing on early learning and reading readiness. Titles from the Random House Children’s Books Sesame Street library will be available as ebooks for the first time beginning today (Jan. 25) with Elmo Says Achoo! and Elmo’s Breakfast Bingo. An additional 19 titles will be released this spring. Several titles will include audio narration by Sesame Street’s Bob McGrath, who has performed on the program since its premiere in 1969. A joint press release said the program expands the Random House-Sesame Workshop partnership that has been ongoing for more than 40 years.

Britain’s Daily Mail reports that producers of the ITV drama — and current Masterpiece smash hit — Downton Abbey “are less than happy after an American TV network launched a collection of somewhat tasteless themed jewelry.” PBS had featured several items similar to what Downton characters wear on its ShopPBS website. Supposedly, producers Carnival Films “were forced to call in lawyers” in an attempt to stop PBS “from naming jewelry after the show’s most famous character, Lady Mary Crawley.” Carnival, “which has approved an official range of Downton DVDs and books, was horrified to find that PBS, its broadcast partner, was cashing in on the show’s popularity,” the paper wrote.

Former Los Angeles Times Editor Russ Stanton has joined pubradio station KPCC as its new vice president of content, the station announced Tuesday (Jan. 24). Stanton’s arrival “is part of an aggressive effort by the nonprofit news organization to become the preeminent regional source for both broadcast and online news — with deeper, more enterprising and investigative coverage,” according to a story on the KPCC website. Stanton had left the newspaper last month in what was called a “mutual decision” with Times President Kathy Thomson. During his four years at the helm, the paper won three Pulitzer Prizes, including a prestigious Public Service award.

Three documentaries on PBS have received Academy Award nominations, announced today (Jan. 24). In the documentary feature category are “Hell and Back Again” from Independent Lens, which follows a U.S. soldier back from Afghanistan after a serious injury; and POV’s “If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front,” which explores both environmentalism and terrorism by examining a radical environmental group the FBI calls the country’s “number one domestic terrorism threat.” POV also received a nomination for documentary short subject for “The Barber Of Birmingham: Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement,” the story of James Armstrong, an African-American barber who experiences the fulfillment of an unimaginable dream, the election of the country’s first African-American president.

“Flight to Freedom,” the second in the Mission U.S. series of educational role-playing online games for middle-school students, was released today (Jan. 24) by WNET/Thirteen in New York City, timed in advance of Black History Month. The game immerses players in the experiences of a runaway slave in the years before the Civil War, the station said in a press release. Its development was funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The first game in the series, 2010’s “For Crown or Colony?” introduced players to Nat Wheeler, a 14-year-old printer’s apprentice in 1770 Boston who was forced to decide if he supported the Patriots or Loyalists.