Citing public broadcasting’s “mixed history” in providing local news and information, a blue-ribbon panel has called on the field to “move quickly toward a broader vision of public service media.”

Gov. Ed Rendell’s signature Friday on the Pennsylvania state budget eliminated the state’s pubcasting subsidy of $11.3 million. Ramifications at the eight stations have begun: Due to the cut, PBS-39, which covers Lehigh Valley, is canceling production of its 10-year-old local issues mag, Tempo!, according to The Morning Call in Allentown. The station had previously laid off about half its staff. WQED had cut 11 staff positions in July, citing the state budget. Meanwhile, reps of the Commonwealth Foundation, a policy research group in Harrisburg, Pa., backed the governor’s decision, saying government-supported pubTV is no longer necessary due to all the choices on cable.

The Beeb is remaking the wildly popular show on PBS in the 1970s, Upstairs, Downstairs. Stars Jean Marsh and Dame Eileen Atkins return in this version, which will be set in 1936. The original program followed the lives of both an upper-crust British family as well as their servants. The new series will air in Britain first then on PBS in 2011.

The new series Gourmet’s Adventures with Ruth from WGBH will premiere this month despite the demise of its namesake publication, Gourmet magazine, where host Ruth Reichl was editor-in-chief.

In honor of its 40th anniversary on public TV, the famous Mister Rogers Neighborhood of Make-Believe set, including King Friday XIII’s castle, will be assembled for public viewing one last time, Nov. 6–8 [2009] at Pittsburgh’s WQED. Much of the large set has been warehoused ...

Long Island University last week agreed to sell WLIU-FM to a nonprofit set up to maintain the main public radio station on the eastern end of the island.

These projects were the spawn of Makers Quest 2.0, a CPB-funded, $500,000 initiative, organized by the Association of Independents in Radio (AIR), to support multimedia works with radio components.

Long Island University has agreed to sell the license for NPR affiliate WLIU to local Peconic Public Broadcasting. A statement on the grassroots organization’s website reports that the university today accepted Peconic’s bid, a total value of $2.43 million, and that LIU has agreed to keep the station at full strength during the closing period in mid-December. “The station is projected to be self-sustaining by mid-2011 and does not anticipate the need for subsidies or additional capital raises beyond our current capital raise,” added the statement, signed by Peconic President Wally Smith. In August, the university gave WLIU until October to raise $2 million for the license (Current, Aug.

The Senate yesterday defeated an amendment by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to eliminate $20 million for PTFP from the Commerce-Justice-Science Appropriations bill, reports the Government Executive publication’s website. The Public Telecommunications Facilities Program is the only ongoing source of infrastructure assistance to the pubcasting system, according to the Association of Public Television Stations. It was allotted $20 million for fiscal 2009; McCain argued that the funds are not necessary because work is been completed. The Senate Appropriations Committee said in its report accompanying the bill: “Over the years, this funding has been critical to helping stations maintain services by providing funds to stations in need of equipment replacements and upgrades.”

National Geographic Television is filming the daily life of President Barack Obama over the next four months for an exclusive documentary, and a PBS rep confirms the pubcaster is “in discussions” to air the film. The C21 Media website, which covers international entertainment, reports from MIPCOM in Cannes, France, that the hourlong doc, The White House: Through the Lens, is “being made for public service network PBS,” to air in November 2010. PBS Spokeswoman Stephanie Aaronson told Current the doc is one of many projects the network is considering, although specifics such as title and airdates have yet to be decided.

After almost a year of recession, the public TV and radio system lost $167.7 million in its “all other” revenue category, CPB says in its recently released annual system revenue report for fiscal year 2008. The category includes gains and losses on stations’ investments and assets, including endowments, as well as results from capital campaigns and subsidiaries. The country’s official arbiter of recessions, the National Bureau of Economic Research, says the present recession began in December 2007. This revenue report reflects numbers from 70 percent of stations with fiscal years ending June 30, the remaining 30 percent ending Dec. 31. The losses in that revenue category overwhelmed TV and radio’s relatively healthy gains from members, underwriters and colleges, leaving the whole field down $73.4 million or 2.5 percent, to $2.85 billion.

Harvard scholar and PBS documentarian Henry Louis Gates Jr. is assisting radio host Tom Joyner in his efforts to have South Carolina pardon two of his great-uncles, The Associated Press reports. Joyner discovered through Gates’ African American Lives 2 that his ancestors were executed in 1915 after their convictions for murdering a Confederate Army veteran. The show traced the lineage of 12 persons, including Joyner. “The records will show they did not do what they were executed for, and maybe now they can rest in peace,” Joyner said. Gates, Joyner and legal historian Paul Finkelman wrote Gov. Mark Sanford asking for the pardons.

WNET is looking to leave its home of 10 years at 450 W. 33rd Street in Manhattan, according to a real estate report in the New York Observer. The station has hired Studley, a tenant advisory service, to scout out a 100,000-square-foot spot. It now leases about 200,000 square feet on one and half vast floors in the building near Penn Station. “Updating the existing framework would be very expensive,” WNET spokesperson Kellie Specter told Current. Specter said the station is exploring the option of moving, “as a lot of companies are doing right now,” for cost savings.

Michael Getler’s latest column offers viewer insights into the National Parks series. The PBS ombudsman reports that most letters he received were positive, but a “fair number” of writers protested what they saw as an “excessive element of religion that co-mingled with the narrative of natural beauty and the struggle to preserve it within a national system.”

At a Senate Communications Subcommittee meeting today, reps of DISH network and the Association of Public Television Stations said they expect a deal soon on carriage of noncom HD signals, reports Broadcasting & Cable. The FCC set a timetable for phasing in HD carriage over the next four years. APTS has worked out pubcasting carriage deals with cable, Verizon and DirecTV and has been negotiating with DISH.