Moss Bresnahan will become the public television system’s first dual president when he takes over in September at WTVP-TV in Peoria, Ill., and WILL-TV, 90 miles to the east in Urbana-Champaign. He succeeds interim dual General Manager Chet Tomczyk, who delayed his retirement from WTVP to temporarily lead the two stations. Tomczyk has been in charge of WTVP, a community licensee, and WILL, part of the College of Media at the University of Illinois, since September 2013. The unique agreement was designed to foster more collaboration on content between the stations and to save on salary costs. “We have two great stations here, and the staff at each is so dedicated and has such a great legacy,” Bresnahan said in an announcement Friday.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — You have to love the irony. The first scripted narrative series from PBS Digital Studios is a modern update of Frankenstein, the science-fiction classic about creating new life. Just as in Mary Shelley’s timeless Gothic tale, PBS Digital Studios is using the latest in science and technology in its experiments to breathe new life into PBS programming. PBS Digital Studios, launched in March 2012, will premiere Frankenstein M.D. Aug. 19, rolling out new episodes, each five to eight minutes long, on its YouTube channel every Tuesday and Friday. Fittingly enough, the 24-episode series will conclude Oct.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — They don’t make the front page, but the comments and observations of panelists during PBS’s portion of the Television Critics Association press tour are often surprising and revealing. PBS’s two-day segment, which concluded here Wednesday night, included a rare confession from Henry Louis Gates Jr. and a takedown of Jenny McCarthy, whose opposition to vaccines has made her the bane of public-health officials. Here are some highlights. “Kind of a fib” Gates, executive producer and host of Finding Your Roots 2, says celebrities rarely turn him down when he asks them to join him on a televised exploration of their ancestries.

Seven public media projects got a boost July 21 with the announcement of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, which included almost $2 million for pubcasters. The largest grants, each for $600,000, will support documentaries from WGBH in Boston and Firelight Media in New York. WGBH will use the grant for a two-hour American Experience episode, “Into the Amazon: The Roosevelt-Rondon Scientific Expedition.” The documentary, produced by American Experience Executive Producer Mark Samels, covers a 1913 expedition to an unmapped territory of the Amazon led by Theodore Roosevelt and Brazilian colonel Candido Rondon.

Amgott was one of the first female producers in TV news.

Plus: AIR releases a Kickstarter tutorial, and a small Washington state community approves public access TV.

Madison Hodges, a longtime manager of public radio stations and advocate for the system who worked to increase the community impact of pubcasters nationwide, died July 18 in Tallahassee, Fla., from cardiac arrest following treatment of a rare bone cancer. He was 66. Hodges ran several university-licensed public radio stations over the course of his career and served as executive director of the University Station Alliance. He also oversaw station services at NPR and spearheaded initiatives with the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program to increase community involvement, help licensees secure CPB funding, identify gaps in public radio’s coverage and quantify stations’ community impact for license-holders.

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. — The success of Downton Abbey, whose fifth season has been set for Jan. 4, has created a novel problem for PBS: too many programs to fit into the Sunday-night slot occupied by Masterpiece. It’s possible that PBS might schedule some of the excess series at another hour or on another day. But there are no plans to do so for now, according to Masterpiece EP Rebecca Eaton. “We have been working with PBS to figure out what to do with all this programming because we are bursting the banks of Masterpiece Sunday nights at 9 o’clock,” she said.

Plus: A Mississippi reporter discusses his difficult past, and Carl Kasell assists with a marriage proposal.

The FCC recently released the entire text of its Report and Order detailing rules for the upcoming broadcast spectrum auctions, making it clear that it intends to make no effort to preserve public TV signal coverage. The 484-page report, “Expanding the Economic and Innovation Opportunities of Spectrum Through Incentive Auctions,” rejects the proposal supported by CPB and other leading broadcast organizations to preserve at least one station per geographic market. If you dive into this ponderous document, I recommend paragraph 367 and footnote 1090 (unfortunately, not a typo — there really are over 1,000 footnotes). In paragraph 367, the FCC states that it declines to “restrict acceptance of such bids based on the potential loss of television service or specific programming.”

PBS’s 43 nominations for News and Documentary Emmys topped all networks. Its programs will compete against each other in many categories. In some categories, including those for outstanding investigative journalism, best documentary and coverage of a current event, PBS earned more than half of the nominations. Frontline, the documentary series produced by WGBH in Boston, led with 11 nominations, including three of the six nominations for investigative reporting. Those went to “A Death in St. Augustine,” “League of Denial: The NFL’s Concussion Crisis” and “Rape in the Fields,” a co-production of Frontline and the Center for Investigative Reporting.

The stars of Downton Abbey aren’t the only luminaries whom journalists will chat with during PBS’s portion of the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour today and Wednesday. Other big names at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, Calif., include rapper and songwriter Nas, director Spike Lee, Oscar winner Geena Davis, actor Nathan Lane and television legend Dick Cavett. The twice-yearly tour is a chance for broadcasters to woo more than 200 reporters with news of their upcoming schedules, deploying sizzle reels, high-profile appearances, question-and-answer sessions and, of course, food and drinks. PBS President Paula Kerger will greet journalists during her executive session at 10 a.m.

Plus: Beat Making Lab returns to PBS Digital Studios, and John Oliver joins Muppet-like creatures to sing about prisons.