Patrick Goldstein of the L.A. Times says Bill Moyers, who leaves his PBS show at the end of December, “has used Now as a razor-sharp scythe for laying bare issues rarely scrutinized by his media peers.” Moyers is quoted about the new PBS talk shows hosted by conservatives: “In my 33 years at public broadcasting, it’s the first time I’ve seen shows that were clearly created for ideological reasons.” (Open only to registered seven-day Times subscribers or Calendar Live subscribers.)

“Nearly as splashy, flashy and phantasmagorical as the American art form it celebrates, Broadway: The American Musical is the TV equivalent of a grandly panoramic coffee-table book.” Washington Post critic Tom Shales reviews the six-part mini-series debuting tonight on PBS.

Terry Gross tells the Boston Phoenix that interviewing guests by phone makes it less likely she’ll gush. “I’ve learned the hard way that that’s really not a very productive thing to do,” she says.

“It’s one thing to get knocked off the air by a show that’s better than yours, but it’s another to get knocked off by a show whose only reason to exist is a numbers argument,” says Ira Glass of Weekend America in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. (Reg. req.)

Mark Glaser sizes up podcasting, satellite radio and other technologies that could shape radio’s future, checking in with Public Radio Exchange to boot.

A WXXI exec tells the Rochester City News why his station won’t carry Pacifica’s Democracy Now: “On our air, it would be swaying our balance. Our integrity as an alternative, non-polarized station would be harmed.”

A Boston Globe update on WBUR notes that Jane Christo’s son is being moved out of the station and adds some details about the station’s new interim g.m.

Boston University named one of its assistant vice presidents, former TV exec Peter Fiedler, interim g.m. of WBUR.

WBUR-FM and its parent, Boston University, share tendencies to overspend and dream too big, says a Boston Globe columnist.

Former PBS star Louis Rukeyser, stricken with cancer and absent from his CNBC investment commentary program for nearly a year, says he asked the cable net to discontinue the show, according to a snarky Washington Post dispatch. The program goes out of production Dec. 31.

Frontline‘s “The Choice 2004” debuts on PBS stations Oct. 12. Reviewers for the New York Times and the Seattle Times write in today’s editions that, by contrasting the presidential candidates’ military service during the Vietnam War, the two-hour documentary casts Senator Kerry in a more favorable light.

More coverage of Jane Christo’s resignation in the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald and the Providence Journal, and on NPR.

The New York Times reviews Postcards from Buster, the new PBS show starring “the sort of character that children understand: perpetually hungry, a little nervous and fascinated by outer space.”

Here’s a take on the topic of a panel held Oct. 1, 2004, at the Public Radio Program Directors Conference in San Antonio: “Scanning the Horizon: New Audiences for Public Radio.” The author is public radio consultant John Sutton, described by PRPD as one of the “visionaries and agitators” interviewed by planners of the panel discussion. How will public radio get the new audiences it needs? You hear the question more and more when our colleagues get together. But we should answer other questions beforehand: Do we really need new audiences? And, if so, why are we assuming immediately that those new audiences should be different in age and ethnicity?

Jane Christo, g.m. of WBUR-FM in Boston, announced her resignation today. Coverage in the Providence Journal and the Boston Phoenix. The Journal also reports that Boston’s WGBH will not buy WBUR’s Rhode Island stations, but would consider partnering with another operator.