The ratings for Sunday night’s (Jan. 8) Season 2 premiere of “Downton Abbey” on Masterpiece Classic are in, with PBS doubling its average primetime rating as well as topping last season’s numbers for the popular Edwardian costume drama by 18 percent, PBS announced. According to Nielsen, the premiere averaged 4.2 million viewers, or a 2.7 household rating, excluding station replays, DVRs or online streaming. Fans were provided with a sneak preview on PBS’s Facebook page for two weeks leading up to the first episode; that received 100,000 views. In a press release, Rebecca Eaton, series e.p., said “Downton Abbey” “officially takes its place among the best of Masterpiece titles since the series began in 1971.”

Rocky Mountain PBS suffered a server failure at 10:15 p.m. Sunday night — right in the middle of the “most anticipated show on the schedule in years,” the Denver Post notes, Masterpiece’s “Downton Abbey.” “We deeply regret this happened and for the rest of ‘Downton Abbey’ will go back to a prior tape based technology as backup,” Doug Price, head of RMPBS, told the paper in an email. Price added that the station “can’t express our frustration enough with losing 45 minutes of our franchise program for the year. We had a problem about three weeks ago that our technical vendor assured us they had never seen but had none the less resolved.”

Ratings at KPLU, a jazz and news station based in Tacoma, Wash., are “up sharply” since the Labor Day weekend, according to Seattlepi.com, when the station brought aboard University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor Cliff Mass, who had been fired from rival KUOW (Current, Aug. 29, 2011) for speaking out on topics other than weather. “I would have to say that has had an influence,” said KPLU’s Joey Cohn. KPLU and KUOW are now tied for fourth place in the Seattle market, which represents a “significant gain for KPLU,” the news site notes.

Alabama Public Television is reviving its Capitol Journal program, which had ended last summer as part of a network-wide downsizing of 19 layoffs in response to state funding losses. The political roundtable resumes Jan. 27 with a smaller staff, reports the Birmingham News. “We always intended to bring it back,” said station public information director Mike McKenzie, “we just had to find a different way to put the program on the air given the resources that were available to us, sharing the news of the state and what’s happening at the Legislature.” An Alabama Public Television reporter based in Birmingham will report on education issues at the statehouse, and two reporters from pubradio WVAS-FM in Montgomery will cover the Legislature for Capitol Journal as well as WVAS.

Drivers of some 2012 model Fords will be able to listen to on-demand and streaming public radio programs by voice activation, using a new “NPR News” app debuting at this week’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Spoken commands such as “Hourly News,” “Stations” and “Topics” trigger playback of segments and programs via the automaker’s SYNC AppLink system, which was developed to allow drivers to control smartphones by voice. NPR is the first news organization to develop a dedicated app for its programming. Users of the app can also create playlists and listen to stations across the country, not just within range of their FM receivers.

Immense Possibilities, Southern Oregon Public Television’s weekly hybrid local-national community affairs show in Medford, Ore., has invited two right-wing Tea Party activists and two members of the left-wing Occupy movement for an on-air, online “groundbreaking dialogue” at 7:30 Pacific on Tuesday (Jan. 10). “To explore the path to a healthier political community,” said the Occupy Ashland website, “we decided to take up a question that has been brewing for months across the country: When the bumper-sticker slogans are brushed away, how much do these very different-looking movements have in common? Is the time ripe for an alliance that would shake politics and economics at their roots?”

Tony Blankley, who spoke as a conservative voice on KCRW’s weekly Left Right and Center roundtable, died Jan. 7 after fighting stomach cancer. He was 63. “Tony was a gentleman, a thinker, and a fiercely intelligent voice for KCRW,” said Jennifer Ferro, g.m. “Tony believed in the concept of the show and proved that dialogue between differing views is not only possible but can be productive. We will miss his insight, his wit, his intelligence and his willingness to listen as well as talk.” Blankley was also a regular on The McLaughlin Group, and provided political analysis on NPR.

James A. Fellows, 77, an advocate of high ideals and strategic planning for public television, died in his sleep Friday, Jan. 6, at a nursing home in Millville, N.J. Fellows represented stations on the national scene for 40 years, serving as the last president of the National Association of Educational Broadcasters, founding Current as a service of NAEB, remaining its publisher for more than 20 years, and working to establish a strategic planning unit for the famously fractured and decentralized public TV field. In 1979, CPB honored him with its highest award for achievement in public television, the Ralph Lowell Medal.

Since Bill Moyers’ new Moyers & Company isn’t going to be distributed by PBS, he’ll have his own independent website and “we don’t have to worry about somebody at PBS losing sleep over the fact that David Stockman says the Republicans have lost their minds on taxes,” the veteran newsman tells the New York Times. His latest program premieres Jan. 13, as public-affairs shows on public TV are waning, the paper notes. However, Moyers pointed out, PBS recently announced a companion to Antiques Roadshow just after the Census Bureau revealed the number of people living in poverty had risen to more than 46 million.

  PBS wrapped up its two-day Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif., on a high note — a performance by legendary vocalist Tony Bennett. Great Performances will premiere his “Tony Bennett: Duets II” on Jan. 27. More press tour coverage in the Jan. 17 issue of Current. (Image: PBS/Rahoul Ghose)

PASADENA, Calif. — PBS President Paula Kerger is not fazed by Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s recent comment favoring an end to federal aid to public broadcasting. Nor is she worried by Romney’s call for advertising on Sesame Street. “I’m glad that he said that he liked public broadcasting,” Kerger said during a Jan. 4 press conference at the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour. “You know, we have always had bipartisan support.” The country must make tough decisions about government spending, Kerger said, but federal money costs only $1.35 a year per American. Broad support for public broadcasting, as shown by research, “should translate into political leverage,” Kerger said.

Sam Adams, mayor of Portland, Ore., went public Wednesday (Jan. 4) with his concerns about security costs for an upcoming GOP presidential debate at Oregon Public Broadcasting. He wants OPB and the Oregon Republican Party, co-sponsors, to move the event to a location closer to the airport to reduce the number of police necessary. “The costs are real,” Adams told the Oregonian — and already $1.5 million over budget. “I don’t know what else to say. We just don’t have the budget for this.” OPB President Steve Bass said it would be cost-prohibitive for the station to move the event from the OPB studios.

SoCal Connected on KCET in Los Angeles will air an interview with Bill Moyers on Friday (Jan. 6), a week before the veteran newsman returns to pubTV with the weekly Moyers and Company. In the sit-down with host Val Zavala, Moyers provides his current assessment of America, saying that “the growth of inequality in this country is the biggest story of our time. The have-nots now have less than they ever did. The have-it-alls now have more than they ever did.” His show takes on the issue in the first three episodes. Moyers also says of President Barack Obama: “You gotta fight for the people.

Steve Chiotakis, host of Marketplace Morning Report, is moving to the local All Things Considered anchor spot on KCRW, the Santa Monica, Calif., station announced Wednesday (Jan. 4). Chiotakis has hosted the American Public Media show since 2008. In a statement, he said that KCRW “is a natural fit for me. It’s home to terrific and talented people. It’s an L.A. institution with a world-class sensibility. I’m excited about what’s possible and can’t wait to get to work telling the stories of this great city.” He’ll start in late January.

A spectrum auction to free up bandwidth space for mobile devices will probably fail if Congress adopts a Republican House plan, said Blair Levin, former executive director of the Federal Communications Commission’s Omnibus Broadband Initiative that proposed the auction, reports the TVNewsCheck website. The proposed legislation would give the FCC authority to conduct incentive auctions and share proceeds with the Treasury and broadcasters who voluntarily give up spectrum, but it also contains provisions designed to protect broadcasters who keep spectrum. “The legislation ties the FCC’s hands in a variety of ways,” said Levin, who is now with the Aspen Institute.