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.

There will be two events: Monday, March 12th and Saturday, May 12th; for family and friends to remember Jim: Monday, March 12, 2012Funeral Service and Burial11 AM: Promptly Blooming Grove Reformed Church (childhood church where Jim and Brenda went to Bible study)706 Blooming Grove DriveRensselaer (North Greenbush), NY  12144518.286.2910Burial will follow the church service at the nearby Blooming Grove Cemetery. Arrangements are by The Lyons Funeral Home in Rensselaer, NY, 518.283-2282 In lieu of flowers, the family suggests donations in Jim’s memory to the American Center for Children and Media, 5400 N. St. Louis Ave.,

An annual event that began as an outreach for the 1999 PBS mini-series I’ll Make Me a World is still going strong in Iowa, and organizers expect it to draw some 20,000 participants Friday and Saturday, reports the Des Moines Register.  The celebration of African-American heritage, I’ll Make Me a World in Iowa, kicks off Black History Month in the state. At the original gathering in 1999, “the prediction was for 300 people to attend, but 1,000 showed up — and now we’ve grown to 15,000 to 20,000 and become a premier arts and cultural organization offering a world-class event,” said Betty Andrews, the festival’s executive director.

The Kentucky Press Association’s News Content Service, which shares stories across dozens of newspapers, is starting a pilot program to supply the state’s public radio stations. WEKU at Eastern Kentucky University and WNKU at Northern Kentucky University have signed on. “It’s a way for us to extend the really great work that journalists are already doing around the state,” Roger Duvall, g.m. at WEKU, told the Herald-Leader in Lexington. Greer added that “we know there’s interest” in the project among the other five public radio stations in Kentucky. So far, 23 of the 62 newspapers contributing their reporting to the News Content Service have agreed to allow pubradio stations to use their work, Greer said.

Marfa Public Radio General Manager Tom Michael told the Odessa (Texas) American that he hopes to re-launch public radio in Midland and Odessa by spring. In December 2011, Marfa finalized its purchase of KOCV-FM radio from Odessa College for $150,000 and another $150,000 in sponsorships over 10 years (background, Current, Aug. 8, 2011). Michael said the tower will be moved from the college campus to Gardendale, to bring back listeners who have seen the signal fade since the 1980s. “We’ve begun the construction phase of the project,” he said. “It took us a lot to get to this stage and I’m looking forward to get this up and running.”

Milwaukee Public Television and MPTV Friends, which had previously operated as two independent organizations, have merged, the groups announced Monday (Jan. 23) in a press release. Under the agreement, Friends will phase out operations in 2012, and many of its employees will join the MPTV staff  to continue coordinating fundraising events including the popular Great TV Auction. “We’ve always shared the goal of bringing the community the best in public television programming,” said station G.M. Ellis Bromberg in the statement. “This agreement strengthens our relationship and makes our stations even better by allowing us to devote more resources to present new and exciting entertainment and educational offerings.”

Three shows on PBS scored awards from the Producers Guild of America in ceremonies Saturday (Jan. 21) in Los Angeles. Masterpiece Classic’s hit Downton Abbey continues its string of honors with the David L. Wolper Award for Outstanding Producer of Long-Form Television, beating out Cinema Verite, Mildred Pierce and Too Big to Fail on HBO and The Kennedys on Reelz Channel. The outstanding producer of non-fiction television award went to Susan Lacy and Julie Sacks for American Masters. Also, Sesame Street won for children’s television, a new category in the 23-year-old awards.

Jan. 20 was Gary Eichten Day in Minnesota, proclaimed by Gov. Mark Dayton to honor the retiring Minnesota Public Radio host and producer after a 45-year career. The proclamation noted that Eichten began his career at MPR as a student announcer at KSJR, Minnesota’s first public radio station, in 1967. Over the years he has served as news director, special events producer, and station manager; for the past 20 years he’s been host of Midday. A “Heckuva Farewell” for Eichten took place Jan. 19 at the Fitzgerald Theater. For his last Midday show, Gary interviewed Vice President Walter Mondale.

Les Anderson, longtime metro news reporter for KSKA in Anchorage, Alaska, is retiring after a career in which he “once stood by a wet mule in a Wisconsin parking lot, wearing hillbilly clothes and promoting a new citrus pop for a commercial radio station,” reports the Anchorage Daily News. Anderson came to public radio in an interesting way, beginning as a college professor at University of Wisconsin. Decades ago, an English composition student asked him what can be done with an English degree; Anderson went to his office and pondered the question. “Then he decided to see if he, with a master’s degree in English, could make a career in radio,” the paper said.

A legal fight may be brewing between the BBC version of Sherlock Holmes, which airs on PBS as part of Masterpiece Mystery, and an upcoming CBS version of the detective stories. According to the UK newspaper The Independent, the Beeb producers feel that CBS’s Elementary, which also places the character in a modern setting using laptops and cellphones, may be too much like their version. Sue Vertue, Sherlock e.p., said that CBS “approached us a while back about remaking our show. At the time, they made great assurances about their integrity, so we have to assume that their modernised Sherlock Holmes doesn’t resemble ours in any way, as that would be extremely worrying.”

After receiving and investigating an 11-page complaint from a former Antiques Roadshow appraiser (Current, Dec. 12, 2011), producing station WGBH is revising how it handles contact information for experts on the Roadshow website, and making changes in its Appraisal Event Participation Agreement. In a letter to Gary Sohmers, who had raised concerns over what he saw as “illogically restrictive” clauses in the contract signed by all the experts — who are not compensated for their work — WGBH Corporate Counsel Eric Brass said the station, as part of an ongoing review process of production-related practices, would make contact information available online for past appraisers, and change the participation agreement “to focus more clearly any restrictions on an appraiser’s activities and statements regarding Antiques Roadshow to those that WGBH believes are important for protecting the series’ trademark and other legal rights, and its image.”