UNC-TV released this Q&A to explain its request for changes in the formulas for CPB grants and PBS dues that it took to the North Carolina congressional delegation in 2001. The strategy raised controversy in Congress and in the system [article] but brought quick resolutions by CPB and PBS. 1. Does UNC-TV believe that the CPB/CSG and PBS formulas should be linked? Not necessarily. The issue is not formula linkage but formula fairness. UNC-TV believes that the industry should recognize that it is necessary to mitigate the extreme disparities caused by the formulas for some state networks. Fortunately, the current CSG Review Panel recommendations begin to address the disparities for state networks.

... Now The Forsyte Saga is coming down the pike again, in a six-hour adaptation of the first two books in the Forsyte series. Produced for Granada Television and WGBH by Sita Williams, who was producer of the light-hearted and sexually charged PBS comedy Reckless, this Forsyte will feature a younger cast than the original’s, a snappier pace ...

Jon might say that his prime legacy is this television station. What Jim Day and Jon Rice created from nothing more than a dream is an enviable monument. He loved KQED without reservation. He loved it with a passion that didn't waver for 47 years.

When terrorists brought down the World Trade Center in an imploding, crumbling crash, they not only destroyed New York City’s highest buildings but silenced eight of its largest TV stations. WNET, the city’s flagship public TV station, was knocked off the air for five days and apparently lost Rod Coppola, a 47-year-old engineer who was working at its transmitter site atop Tower One. The tower also took with it $8 million in transmitter and antenna equipment. Every major station in the city — except for WCBS, which maintained a backup transmitter on the Empire State Building — went down in the crash of the WTC, extinguishing service to one in five households — 7.3 million — that receives TV over the air.

A diverse group of Americans placed in a remote and inhospitable locale must overcome physical challenges and psychological stress for a chance at winning a huge prize that will change their lives. Sound like an idea for a "reality TV" series? Actually, the description fits not only a forthcoming PBS series — The Frontier House, a sequel to 1900 House that's scheduled for next April and May —

1) We believe standards matter. We don’t compete with tabloid television, shock-jock radio, or the kind of newspapers found at supermarket check-out stands. We believe public radio must adhere to the highest journalistic principles, ethics and standards for accuracy, balance and fairness. 2) We believe journalists should make decisions about important news coverage. We don’t make news decisions based on the use of focus groups, seeking to find out what kind of lifestyle news people may say they want. Instead, we seek to provide the kind of news people need to be informed citizens in a democracy. 3) We believe in the independence of MPR News.

Jonathan C. Rice, the storied program director and co-founder of KQED-TV in San Francisco, died July 22 [2001] at the age of 85. He succumbed at his home in the city after a long illness.

From the opening moments of its 2001 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PBS drew on the city’s role in U.S. history and a series of in-person presentations to foster pride and other warm fuzzies among 1,300 conference attendees. In a spoof of Antiques Roadshow with actors as the founding fathers, APTS President John Lawson presented a letter by Alexander Hamilton to appraisers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. “We must secure our union on solid foundations — it is a job for Hercules,” Hamilton wrote. Lawson feigned amazement when the letter was deemed to be of “immense worth.” For plenary sessions in a convention center ballroom, PBS put on highly produced shows, with musical performances, staged interviews, scripts rolling on multiple teleprompters and program-related stunts replacing many of the clip screenings of past years.

The buzzword “social capital” has acquired lots of different meanings within public television as PBS and its member stations speculate whether and how they will be viable in the digital media environment. What will it really mean for public television to “build social capital,” as system leaders propose, by producing certain kinds of local programs and services? Before Robert Putnam’s 1995 article and subsequent book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, social capital was largely an academic term for the social connections between individuals that prompt activism and confer benefits on their communities. Putnam’s description of our country’s eroding civic life resonated so broadly that “social capital” has become something of a catch-all phrase for what we’re missing.

Facing the first major station struggle of her 16 months as PBS president — over the perennial public TV issue of common carriage — Pat Mitchell introduced a “Declaration of Interdependence” at the network’s annual meeting June 14, 2001. The document summarizes major public TV objectives, gives a deep bow to stations’ local role and refers to a recent refinement: the aim to build “social capital” in American communities. See also Current coverage of the 2001 meeting. There comes a time in the history of public television, when the people we serve demand of us something more; Because, they hold these truths to be self-evident: Americans are first and foremost citizens, not consumers.

An educational experience 4.6 billion years in the making,” says the clever tagline for WGBH’s big September series Evolution. The way the Boston producers have been preparing for the reaction from creationists, you’d think they expect the controversy surrounding it will last almost that long. “Evolution is two steps away from abortion,” said Anne Zeiser, director of national strategic marketing for WGBH, placing the flash point at which evolution ignites fundamentalist outrage. Recent polls show that 45 percent of Americans say they believe in creationism, and many Christians view Charles Darwin’s theory of natural selection as an assault on their faith.

On Jan. 22, 2000, NPR President Kevin Klose asked me to become NPR’s first ombudsman for the listeners. I remember the date because Kevin’s idea was — to me — shocking at first. I had been a news manager for 17 years and for the last three, v.p. of news at NPR. Give up the cut and thrust of management? Return to being essentially a reporter (and a solitary one at that), and to report on NPR? What an idea! But I had been urging NPR News staffers to try new roles and new ideas, so I had to start somewhere.

Can you remember when you first heard the word “paradigm”? All of sudden everything was “paradigms” — shifting, evolving or disappearing . . . paradigms. Well, “social capital” is in much the same state these days. Everybody is using the term, and its meaning seems to be intuitive. When Bob Putnam penned his now-famous “Bowling Alone” article (and later a book), it resonated with many different people — politicians, pundits and preachers — because it named something that many had felt and experienced, such as the decline in voting or the disappearance of neighborliness. As you would expect, with such a concept there are many different definitions, mostly depending upon who is doing the defining (sociologists, political scientists, educators or economists, to name but a few).

The 100 hours that made Glen Jones famous started and ended with a dream. To be precise, they started with “Impossible Dream” from Man of La Mancha and ended with a wistful ballad, Tom Waits’ “Innocent When You Dream.” In between, Jones, who hosts a weekly show on WFMU in Jersey City, N.J., weathered extreme fatigue and, if his feat is verified, broke the Guinness world’s record for most continuous hours of deejaying. Actually, “broke” is not strong enough — he spun records and interviewed guests for a whole extra day longer than the former record of 73 hours and 33 minutes, set last September by a British deejay.