Ratings for the Season 2 finale of Downton Abbey on Masterpiece Classic are in, and the Feb. 19 episode scored the highest numbers for a PBS program since the premiere of Ken Burns’s National Parks in September 2009. An average audience of 5.4 million viewers (a 3.5 Nielsen household rating) watched, not including those viewing through station replays, DVRs or online streaming. On the web, full episodes of Season 2 received 4.8 million views on the PBS Video Portal, an increase of more than 400 percent over Season 1. Downton content accounted for more than 9 million streams from 1.5 million unique visitors across all platforms since the Season 2 premiere on Jan.

Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor has never tried to hide his liberal political leanings, but his decision to host a private fundraiser this week for President Obama’s reelection campaign has worked the conservative blogosphere into a lather about NPR’s political bias. The trouble is, NPR has no control over Keillor or his nationally syndicated weekly program. Neither does Minnesota-based American Public Media Group, which distributes Prairie Home Companion to public radio stations. Prairie Home Companion is not a news program — it’s an entertainment show — and Keillor’s own production company is responsible for its content. “Mr. Keillor’s political opinions and activities are his own, and do not reflect the views of APMG or its affiliated companies,” said Bill Gray, spokesman.

The National Educational Telecommunications Association today (Feb. 23) announced that it is offering group health insurance coverage plans to pubcasters, a project it has been working on for several years. So far, 70 licensees, both television and radio, representing nearly 2,900 individuals, are participating in the new initiative. NETA is partnering with the Coca-Cola Bottlers Association to provide the coverage, through that company’s Alliance of Professional Service Organizations (APSO) subsidiary. The partnership marks “the beginning of significant savings and improved insurance coverage opportunities for those who participate,” NETA President Skip Hinton said in the announcement. APSO currently serves nearly 300 employers, including the majority of the soft-drink bottlers and more than 200 others, representing nearly 25,000 individuals.

Official selections have been finalized for the United States public broadcasting content to be screened at INPUT, the annual weeklong international public media showcase, coming in May in Australia. Screening in Sydney May 7-12 will be “Flawed,” the story of a woman’s long-distance relationship with a plastic surgeon, from POV; “More Than a Month,” about the history of Black History Month, from Independent Lens; “Southern Belle,” which went inside a Civil War historical-reenactment summer camp for girls, from Nashville Public Television and MakeWright Films; “Wham! Bam! Islam!,” on the man behind a comic book of Muslim superheroes, from Independent Lens, and “Worker Drone,” part of the online Futurestates project from ITVS.

PBS kicks off its first-ever Online Film Festival on Feb. 27, showcasing 20 short pubmedia films from PBS.org and YouTube over five weeks. Partnering in the project are organizations that make up the pubmedia minority consortia — the Center for Asian American Media, Latino Public Broadcasting, Native American Public Telecommunications, the National Black Programming Consortium and Pacific Islanders Consortium — as well as the Independent Television Service and P.O.V. The festival will be available on PBS.org, and also marks the debut of the redesigned PBS YouTube channel. Viewers may vote for favorites online for a People’s Choice festival award. PBS will Tweet from #PBSolff during the five-week run.

Jim Asendio’s sudden departure as news director of WAMU in Washington, D.C., was triggered by an internal dispute over his reporters’ participation in private meetings with major donors. Asendio objected when he and two journalists from his newsroom were required to participate in a “Meet the Producers” breakfast and panel discussion, which the station hosted this morning (Feb. 22). Involving WAMU reporters in the meeting was an unethical breech of the station’s editorial firewall, Asendio said in an interview with Current, and the sort of interaction that he forbid during his six-year tenure as news chief. “I maintain a strict firewall between the working journalists in the newsroom and the funders who fund the station,” Asendio said.

WFYI in Indianapolis is warning local organizations that it has no ties to Vision Media Television, a Boca Raton, Fla.-based company that says it can produce informational segments about the groups to appear on public television, reports the Indianapolis Business Journal. On its website, Vision Media Television references its relationship with Joan Lunden, but Lunden has posted a warning distancing herself from similar firms on her own website. PBS also includes a warning on its website, and cites Vision Media Television among various entities claiming to produce content for broadcast on  national public television for a fee. In Indianapolis, several nonprofits have been contacted by the company, which asks for up to $26,000 to cover production costs, and claims the content will run on public television.

The massive popularity of Downton Abbey on Masterpiece Classic “couldn’t have come at a better time” for KOCE, the new PBS primary station in the Los Angeles market now known as PBS SoCal, writes TV Guide’s Michael Schneider at his blog, Franklin Avenue. “Downton Abbey enabled us to reach audiences that are not just the typical PBS audience, including younger people, and gave us a chance to establish ourselves as the area’s PBS station,” Mel Rogers, station president, told Schneider. Downton’s season finale on Sunday (Feb. 19) scored a 2.3 rating and 4 share in the Los Angeles market.

The recent announcement that South Carolina ETV was closing WJWJ in Beaufort County due to budget woes prompted this rich reminiscence in the Beaufort Gazette by the paper’s former longtime editor, Pete Pillow, who also spent five years as a producer and anchor on WJWJ’s weeknight newscast, from 1978 to 1983. “There was no high-def television or satellite reception back then,” he recalls. “A special antenna was needed to even get WJWJ’s signal. One of our initial tasks was teaching viewers how to avoid a snowy picture by manually fine-tuning their sets for Channel 16. A safecracker’s dexterity would have helped.”

WAMU News Director Jim Asendio has left the station, according to an internal station memo posted by the Washington Post. Mark McDonald, program director at the American University licensee in Washington, D.C., told staffers: “Jim has left WAMU. We wish him well in his future endeavors. Meymo Lyons is Acting News Director with immediate effect, and she and I will be working with the newsroom staff to find a replacement for Jim in the coming days and weeks.” UPDATE: Journalist Dave Hughes, who runs DCRTV, an independent website about radio and television in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore area, reports that Asendio told him: “I resigned as news director at WAMU because I did not agree with an upper management decision to have reporters meet with donors at a donor-only station-sponsored event.

While the Alliance for Community Media fights to keep PEG (public, educational and government) channels on the air, there are local bright spots emerging, such as in Exeter, N.H., which is starting a new public-access channel, according to the Exeter News-Letter in Portsmouth. “I think of it as an opportunity for people to be more of a part of their community and to know what is going on,” Doug York, the Exeter Public Television coordinator, told the paper. “It can also be a way for people to express themselves artistically.” Supporters of the public-access channel have spent the past few years working on the project.

The inaugural Prize for Civility in Public Life, presented by Allegheny College, a small liberal arts school in Meadville, Pa., goes to PBS NewsHour political commentators David Brooks and Mark Shields. In a column in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, college President James H. Mullen Jr. said the school is “launching a quest” to reverse the “rise of incivility in our democracy” with the award, presented today (Feb. 21) at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Jim Lehrer, PBS NewsHour executive editor, said in a statement, “Mark Shields and David Brooks deserve this and all other awards there are or ever will be for civility.

The Editorial Integrity for Public Media Project has released its Code of Editorial Integrity for Local Public Media Organizations, a set of guidelines intended to serve as an ethical compass for TV and radio stations throughout the system. The Code stems from a joint effort of public TV’s Affinity Group Coalition, which began work on the guidelines two years ago, and public radio’s Station Resource Group, and it draws on guidance from a wide range of stakeholders in public media. “We think public media organizations will find much in the Code that affirms current work and makes us proud of the principles for which we stand,” wrote SRG’s Tom Thomas and Byron Knight, emeritus director of Wisconsin Public Broadcasting, in an email accompanying the release of the Code.

Frontline swept the documentary and news categories of the Writers Guild Awards Sunday (Feb. 19) in Los Angeles, winning all four honors. “Top Secret America,” written by Michael Kirk and Mike Wiser, claimed the documentary — current events award; “Wiki Secrets,” by Marcela Gaviria and Martin Smith, documentary — other than current events; “Educating Sergeant Pantzke,” by John Maggio and Martin Smith, news — regularly scheduled, bulletin or breaking report; and “Doctor Hotspot,” by Thomas Jennings, news — analysis, feature or commentary. The WGAs were presented in Los Angeles by the Writers Guild of America, West. Here’s a complete list of winners.

Now that the second season of Downton Abbey on Masterpiece Classic has wrapped up, creator Julian Fellowes took time for a question-and-answer session with the New York Times in which he reveals a few of his fave American TV shows (Mad Man, Sex and the City, Glee) and addresses what all Downton fans are wondering: Just how long will the hit Edwardian costume drama keep going? “Sufficient unto the day,” Fellowes said, laughing. “I feel that one can’t really think much beyond that. Although I agree, I do not think it should just go on and on forever.”