PBS Digital Studios is commissioning the digital media unit at New York’s WNET to produce 40 episodes for two new YouTube series, marking its first major content collaboration deal with a PBS member station. WNET’s Interactive Engagement Group will create short-form videos about gender identity. WLIW, the station’s Long Island affiliate, will produce a series on consumer technology. PBSDS will co-produce both. Representatives at PBS and WNET declined to discuss the value of the contract, which was announced Wednesday. In an interview, Ira Rubenstein, s.v.p. and g.m. of PBS Digital, characterized it as “substantial.” The project “is helping us to prove a new model — which honestly, is an old model” of presenting stations’ programs, he said.

Acorn TV, the upstart streaming service specializing in British television, is still a tiny operation, with about 115,000 paid subscribers. Nonetheless, its fast growth is causing outsized concern at PBS and Masterpiece, public television’s longstanding home for British drama. Brewing tensions came to a head over rights to the final three episodes in David Suchet’s marathon 70-program portrayal of Agatha Christie’s Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. As a result of the rift, Acorn TV premiered the episodes to its streaming subscribers in August and syndicated them directly to local public TV stations, with Masterpiece nowhere in the picture. The broadcast window for the finale’s broadcast opens Nov.

Hawaii Public Radio overcame a brief panic about whether it could reach the goal for its fall pledge drive and exceeded it by about $7,000, wrapping up the campaign Oct. 16. The station had set a goal of $1.03 million, to be reached after a 10-day drive ending Oct. 10. But when that date arrived, HPR was still about $200,000 short of the mark. It was the first time the station had failed to meet a fundraising goal in 15 years, according to HPR President Michael Titterton. Titterton attributed the shortfall to a variety of reasons, including natural disasters, delayed repairs, loss of power to a relay facility and what he perceived as malaise among listeners due to surmounting crises abroad and at home, including conflict in Syria and an increase in lava flow in Hawaii.

At least three filmmakers affiliated with public media will receive part of $2 million in grants for documentaries announced today by the MacArthur Foundation. The foundation received nearly 400 proposals and is awarding 15 projects with cash ranging from $50,000 to $300,000. Filmmaker Robert Kenner, who previously directed the Academy Award nominee Food Inc., is receiving $200,000 to direct Command and Control for WGBH in Boston. The film is based on Eric Schlosser’s critically acclaimed book that examines the safety of America’s nuclear weapons arsenal. Chicago-based filmmaker Ines Sommer is getting $150,000 for Count Me In, which follows several residents in a “participatory budgeting” experiment that gives them direct say over portions of taxpayer spending in the city’s budget.

Plus: An NPR and KQED founder dies, and a TV critic questions PBS's programming.

Jian Ghomeshi, host of CBC Radio’s Q, said Sunday that he was fired by the Canadian pubcaster over a threat about allegations regarding his sex life going public. In a lengthy Facebook post, the ousted host said that an ex-girlfriend had been collaborating with a freelance writer on a story that would claim that Ghomeshi had been abusive in their relationship. The former host said the allegations were without merit and that he had filed a $50 million (Canadian) lawsuit against the CBC over his firing. Ghomeshi acknowledged that the relationship had included “rough sex (forms of BDSM)” but that all activities had been consensual.

The FCC has postponed its auction of television broadcast spectrum to early 2016, according to a blog post on the commission website Friday. Gary Epstein, chair of the Incentive Auction Task Force, wrote that “court challenges to the auction rules by some broadcasters have introduced uncertainty” into the run-up to the auction, which is mandated by Congress to clear broadcast bandwidth for the growing number of mobile devices. Under the FCC’s earlier timetable, the auctions had been slated for mid-2015. Though Epstein didn’t identify the court cases, two organizations’ complaints have been consolidated and are pending before the before the D.C.

A new marketing campaign mounted by Philadelphia’s WXPN-FM takes aim not at other local radio stations but targets the threat of online music services such as Pandora and Spotify. The Triple A station launched a six-week campaign last week to bolster recognition of the station in its market, attract new members and try to lure people away from online competitors. The “Vinyl at Heart” campaign features bus wraps and billboards as well as refresher campaigns and live events. Research commissioned by the station four years ago sowed the seeds for the new campaign by revealing untapped potential for new listeners in the Philadelphia market.

• Public TV stations in four states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands will receive a total of $2.5 million in federal grants for upgrading transmitters, translators and production equipment. The grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, announced Wednesday, are part of the 2014 Farm Bill reauthorized by Congress. We’ll have to expense a trip to the islands to report back on their new equipment. • PBS has hired Don Wilcox, a former executive with Fox Broadcasting Corp., as v.p. of digital marketing and services. At Fox, Wilcox was v.p. and g.m. of branded entertainment, overseeing websites including Fox.com, 

Susan Sollins, executive producer of the biennial public TV series Art in the Twenty-First Century, died Oct. 13. Her age and the cause of death were not disclosed. In 1997, Sollins founded ART21, a nonprofit organization devoted to chronicling contemporary art and artists. In 2001, it launched Art in the Twenty-First Century, a series of short films focusing on contemporary artists both established and lesser-known. The seventh season debuts Friday. Sollins also directed William Kentridge: Anything is Possible, a feature-length film that debuted on PBS in 2010. Both that film and the series won Peabody Awards. “Susan was a visionary creative force and tireless advocate for contemporary art and artists,” ART21 said in a statement on its website.

Plus: Clocks for a few NPR shows are delayed, and comedians honor Jay Leno for a PBS broadcast.

ADDISON, Texas — More than one-third of the roughly 300 attendees at the annual National Educational Telecommunications Association’s professional development conference this week are first-timers, making for one of the most crowded Newcomers Welcome sessions in years. And those newbies have plenty of sessions to choose from at the conference, which runs through Wednesday at the Hotel InterContinental in this Dallas suburb. Topics include development, collaborations, marketing, community engagement, FCC regulations, education, promotion — one session even analyzes the “complex, arcane” structure of the public broadcasting system. The conference opened Monday with keynote speaker Evan Smith, editor-in-chief of the Texas Tribune, addressing the power of public conversation.

Plus: WNET goes deep on poverty, and a jazz radio legend has died.