Have you heard about that crazy new reality TV show, Knitting Wars? WNET in New York City is using that fake title and others to make a point, and, it hopes, score a lot of donations. The New York Times reports that the station is running an ad campaign touting titles including, Bad Bad Bagboys, Bayou Eskimos, The Dillionaire and Married to a Mime. Next to an ad for the fake program is a real pitch: “The fact you thought this was a real show says a lot about the state of TV. Support quality programming. Join us at thirteen.org.”

The contract paves the way for public TV station KCSM to go dark if a wireless company buys its broadcast spectrum.

Sesame Workshop and Ape Entertainment released the first comic book featuring the cast of Sesame Street May 4, to coincide with national Free Comic Book Day.

PBS Digital Studios is expanding its web video output with three new YouTube series: Deep Prep, UnderH2O and Short of the Week.

New Jersey Television and the New Jersey Performing Arts Center (NJPAC) of Newark are partnering on a new six-part cabaret music television series, American Songbook at NJPAC, to debut on NJTV and WNET this fall. The series will be produced from two live performance sessions at the center to be taped in June. Performers include Tom Wopat, Valerie Simpson, Rebecca Luker and Maude Maggart, and the duos Sandy Stewart and Bill Charlap and Marin Mazzie and Jason Danieley. Each will perform 40-minute sets and sit for a Q&A session. NJPAC will donate proceeds of ticket sales to the Actors Fund, which assists professionals in performing arts and entertainment.

Using a $60,000 grant from the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, the Futuro Media Group has added a segment to its NPR-distributed program Latino USA encouraging critical thinking about news coverage.

Julian Dawkins, the shuttle driver for PBS NewsHour's Arlington, Va. employees, was fatally shot the night of May 21 in Alexandria, Va., by an off-duty deputy sheriff. He was 22.

Two events at Arizona PBS’s Eight on May 23 will launch promotions tied to the three-part, six-hour documentary series Latino Americans, coming to PBS this fall.

Public radio reporters took all nine awards for radio reporting in this year’s Sigma Delta Chi Awards, which recognize outstanding reporting on radio, TV and the Web by national and local news organizations. NPR’s Ina Jaffe, Quinn O’Toole and Steven Drummond won for breaking news reporting (network syndication) for “Los Angeles VA Has Made Millions on Rental Deals.” For investigative reporting, John Ryan and Jim Gates of KUOW in Seattle were cited among stations in markets 1–100 for “Shell’s Arctic Oil-Spill Gear ‘Crushed Like a Beer Can,’” while Sandy Hausman of WVTF and Radio IQ in Roanoke, Va., won in the 101+ market category for “Naming the Fralin,” about naming the University of Virginia Art Museum.

YPPubmedia, a nonprofit group affiliated with DEI dedicated to “connecting young professionals in pubmedia to supportive national networks,” today announced members of its first advisory board. Serving are Chris Bay, interactive web producer, KDHX, St. Louis; Vanessa Harris, marketing director, Chicago Public Media; Chelan Lippincott, membership director, KBCS, Bellevue, Wash.; Andi McDaniel, interactive producer, Twin Cities Public Television, St. Paul, Minn.; Liz Mozzocco, music director, WAPS-FM, Akron, Ohio; Wynde Priddy, membership systems administrator, Colorado Public Radio; and Claire Radomski, membership manager, WFYI, Indianapolis, Ind. The organization currently has some 275 members in 149 public media stations and organizations nationwide. Membership is open to public media staffers ages 35 and under.

Matt Miller, host of KCRW's weekly news-analysis show Left, Right & Center in Santa Monica, now also hosts the biweekly This . . . Is Interesting, 15 to 20 minutes of conversations with thinkers and public figures about ideas in politics, economics and culture.

Proclaiming that “it’s time for the positive impact of Sesame’s educational content to be felt in schools as well,” Sesame Workshop on Tuesday announced a multi-year partnership between Sesame Street and Teaching Strategies, a Bethesda, Md.-based educational publishing company. Teaching Strategies focuses on early childhood education with curriculum, assessment, professional development and family resources. Its Creative Curriculum used in more than 100,000 classrooms nationwide, and nearly 1.1 million children are assessed annually with its Teaching Strategies GOLD. Sesame Workshop and Teaching Strategies will be “working closely together on the development of new resources for the early childhood classroom and for involving families in children’s early learning experiences,” they said in a joint announcement.

The FCC announced on Tuesday procedures for noncommercial television and radio stations to raise money on the air to assist victims coping with tornado damage in Oklahoma. The commission has already received and granted one waiver request related to relief efforts, it said in the announcement. Third-party on-air fundraising on noncoms is generally prohibited. But the FCC grants waivers in cases of disaster relief. Last year the FCC proposed allowing pubTV and radio stations to spend up to 88 hours annually raising funds for third parties on the air without a waiver. That recommendation is still pending.