In a bid to expand its children’s franchise into an increasingly competitive daypart, PBS on Sept. 30 will launch Bookworm Bunch, a block of six new animated series slated for Saturday mornings. Produced by Toronto-based Nelvana Communications, Bookworm Bunch is PBS’s first offering of original children’s fare for weekends — when stations traditionally program their own selection of how-to programs and other fare. PBS created the block as a distinctive alternative to the rock ’em-sock ’em, boy-oriented fare aired by other broadcast networks on Saturdays. Maurice Sendak’s Seven Little Monsters will make their TV debut with Marvin the Tap-Dancing Horse (and boy pal Eddy), Elliot Moose, Timothy, Corduroy and tiny George Shrinks.

A visually impaired person watching CBS’s Survivor cannot see the ousted member’s torch extinguished, doesn’t know what Bart writes on the blackboard in The Simpsons‘ opening sequence, and can’t laugh at the antics of Eddie the terrier on Frasier. But thanks to Descriptive Video Service, he or she can understand that the silence on an episode of ExxonMobil Masterpiece Theatre’s “Our Mutual Friend” means that Bella is gazing at the fire with tear-filled eyes after scorning a suitor, that the splashing on Nature signifies grizzly cubs out for a swim, or that Arthur doesn’t look much like a real aardvark.

The Internet will revolutionize how radio reading services deliver — and their visually impaired clients receive — information, but providers are just beginning to explore the possibilities. Of the 100 or so radio reading services that belong to the International Association of Audio Information Services, only a handful now have web sites that provide audio streaming. Theoretically at least, “every radio reading program can be put onto an audio server and listened to by any blind person anywhere, anytime,” as long as he or she has Internet access, Bob Brummond, g.m. of the RAISE Reading Service in Asheville, N.C., told attendees at the IAAIS annual conference last month in Washington, D.C.

Public broadcasters are ramping up efforts to secure support of their position in the Senate after the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation that could force the FCC to permit religious broadcasters to use reserved noncommercial educational channels without determining whether they carry educational programs or not. The Noncommercial Broadcasting Freedom of Expression Act, H.R. 4201, passed the House 264-159 on June 20, with six Republicans and 153 Democrats opposed. The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Charles W. “Chip” Pickering (R-Miss.) but largely rewritten by House telecom subcommittee Chair Billy Tauzin (R-La.), gives nonprofit organizations the right to hold noncommercial educational (NCE) radio or television licenses if the station broadcasts material the organization itself deems to serve an “educational, instructional, cultural or religious purpose.”

Ira Glass has another vision. The first one launched his hugely successful show, This American Life, which developed a fresh narrative style for public radio. Now Glass has a plan for an entirely new generation of storytellers who can bring public radio into the new millennium. But that takes talent, something that many say has been in short supply for public radio the past few years. At the Public Radio Conference last month in Orlando, the buzz about the talent crunch dominated discussions among managers, producers, editors and engineers alike. The pool of journalists and technicians interested in pursuing public radio is shrinking as the economy grows, while opportunities abound in dot-com start-ups, drawing away everyone from writers to fundraisers, experts say.

In settling its lawsuit over the ownership of Marketplace, Public Radio International secured its grip on its most popular programs. The agreement will let Minnesota Public Radio proceed with its acquisition of the business show and will extend PRI’s distribution for it and other MPR programs. “Everybody’s happy that this went away quickly,” said Jim Russell, g.m. of Marketplace Productions and, now, MPR’s v.p. for national programming. “The public broadcasting industry doesn’t want this kind of dirty linen washed in public, and it’s not good for the industry. It’s not good for funders to see this.” The suit’s resolution clears the way for the program’s transfer, to the relief of the University of Southern California, which sold Marketplace and The Savvy Traveler, and MPR, which bought them.

Since she was hired as PBS president early in February [2000], Pat Mitchell has met with 60 or 70 of public TV’s managers, and station board leaders as well, in trips to stations and at the APTS Annual Meeting. To oversee station relations, she hired the network’s former board vice chairman, Wayne Godwin, away from Cincinnati’s WCET (he starts work this week at PBS). And she’s expected to announce further initiatives starting next weekend at the PBS Annual Meeting in Nashville. Mitchell, a longtime producer in commercial TV, was previously head of Time Warner’s CNN Productions, based in Atlanta. She still has yet to pack her household and move to the D.C.

Though the FCC backed off quickly, conservative members of Congress are pushing bills to make sure the commission doesn’t try again to restrict religious broadcasters’ use of noncommercial educational radio or TV channels. The problem for pubcasters is that the legislation could make it hard for the FCC to protect education in the reserved channels, opponents say. The House telecom subcommittee expects to mark up legislation in mid-May [2000], says Ken Johnson, spokesman for subcommittee Chairman Billy Tauzin (R-La.). The subcommittee gave a friendly hearing to religious broadcasters’ testimony April 13 [2000]. The latest House bill, the Noncommercial Broadcasting Freedom of Expression Act, would forbid the FCC to require the users of educational channels to air certain amounts of programming with “educational, instructional or cultural purposes,” or to determine that religious programming does not meet those purposes.

Until recently, it seemed that Simon Frech’s squabble with two religious broadcasters over an FM frequency would never end. In 1995, the FCC stopped considering competing applications from noncommercial broadcasters for radio and television frequencies, leaving Frech and many others in bureaucratic limbo. Adding it up The FCC’s new point system for choosing among noncommercial broadcasters vying for the same frequency will reward several characteristics: 3 points if the applicant is locally based, which the FCC defines as being physically headquartered, having a campus, or having three-fourths of its board members within 25 miles of the community; 2 points if the applicant owns no other local broadcast stations.

WNET, dastardly villain in a two-decade scheme to deprive science-fiction buffs of the coolest public TV program of all time, this summer will redeem its reputation among fans. “The Lathe of Heaven,” digitally remastered and repackaged with additional material, will be distributed to public TV stations for broadcast in June [2000]. A home video and DVD will be released in the fall. Originally broadcast on PBS in 1980, the drama inspired a cult following that never forgot the show, and never let WNET forget it, either. Fans of the program came together in an “extensive Internet community” to rage against the producing station’s “ruthless warehousing” of their favorite public TV show, and one site accused WNET of “corporate amnesia,” recalls Joseph Basile, director of program rights and clearances.

WGBH acknowledged that one of the most compelling segments on Antiques Roadshow — the so-called "watermelon sword" appraisal — was faked without its knowledge. The station severed ties late last month with Russ Pritchard III and George Juno, former partners in an antique weaponry dealership who frequently appeared on the series.

In 2000, members of Congress introduced four bills to head off FCC restrictions on religious broadcasters using reserved TV channels. The issue arose when a religious broadcaster had agreed to a channel swap with Pittsburgh pubTV channel WQEX and the commission considered requiring it to air some nonsecular “educational” content. See Current stories about the proposed Pittsburgh channel swap and the furor over restrictions on religious broadcasters. House bill H.R. 4201 (below) | Earlier House bill H.R. 3525 | Senate bill S. 2010 | Senate bill S. 2215 Noncommercial Broadcasting Freedom of Expression Act of 2000, H.R. 4201 Introduced April 6, 2000, by Rep.

Idaho’s state legislature has imposed extraordinary restrictions on the state public TV network, in delayed reaction to its broadcast last September of the gay-friendly documentary “It’s Elementary: Talking About Gay Issues in School.” The state House of Representatives passed the restrictions March 27 [2000] by a vote of 50-16, as part of an appropriations bill that gives $2 million for DTV instead of the $3.9 million requested by the network. And the same legislation passed the state Senate April 4. It will order the State Board of Education, licensee of the network, to monitor “programs expected to be of a controversial nature,” and to reject any program that “promotes, supports or encourages the violation of Idaho criminal statutes.”

NPR took a different tack March 16 in the ongoing assault on the FCC’s controversial plan to license low-power FM (LPFM) stations. Lawmakers and the National Association of Broadcasters have opposed the measure outright, but in a petition for reconsideration and a motion for stay, NPR asked the agency to take another look at some aspects of LPFM and delay implementing the proposal until July 15. Specifically, NPR requested greater protections for translators, radio reading services, full-power stations on third adjacent channels from LPFM stations, and potential digital radio technology. The network says the motion for stay would allow more time for NPR and FCC lab and field tests of interference expected to be caused by LPFM stations.

Twenty years is an anniversary round enough to permit us at Current to indulge in some hoorah, and to recognize the people who have made the paper possible for two decades. Marking the occasion, we published an updated edition of the paperback A History of Public Broadcasting last month, and inaugurated a companion website of the field’s historical documents, Public Broadcasting PolicyBase (PBPB). Since its first issue, March 17, 1980, Current has grown in many respects — in professionalism, in average page count (threefold), in circulation (fivefold), in advertising support (vastly), and in sustainability. (The growth allows and requires us to expand our staff this year, adding a fourth editor.)