History of public media

CPB will seek operator to develop American Archive; director leaves project

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Having lost its digital projects fund last year, CPB lacks the money to develop the American Archive much further, according to Mark Erstling, senior v.p. The next step is to find an outside institution to adopt and support creation of the proposed archive of public stations’ historic audio, video and films.

That helps explain why professional archivist Matthew White left CPB Jan. 13 after two years as executive director. “It was very clear to him that things were going to change significantly,” Erstling says, and White accepted an offer to lead a “significant” archiving project abroad. White could not be reached for comment. CPB declined Current’s multiple requests for interviews with White over the previous two years.

Programs/Content
Photo illustration of the Abbey and its inhabitants illuminated by the fiery light of battle

Unusual rights delay: hint of budget strife?

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PBS’s ongoing negotiations to curb per-hour costs of producing programs and to assert more control over content are increasing friction with its largest producer, Boston’s powerhouse WGBH, according to sources at other stations with knowledge of the situation.

For a period until just four days before the second-season premiere of the gem of this season’s PBS schedule, Downton Abbey from Masterpiece Classic, the approval of PBS broadcast rights for the series hung in the balance as WGBH protested the network’s contract demands….

Programs/Content

Next, PBS Tuesday schedule goes for the flow

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If this is Tuesday, it must be history. At least, that’s what PBS hopes viewers think as the service moves forward with plans to identify specific program genres with days of the week. “People have had difficulty navigating through our schedule,” Kerger told TV critics gathered in Pasadena, Calif., for the Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour, where PBS previewed content Jan. 4 and 5. “Being able to build destination nights and really build programs that link well together on a single night seems to be working out quite well.”

PBS says its move of Nova from Tuesday to Wednesday, its new science destination, has encouraged it to create more theme nights.

Programs/Content

Oregonians introduce Occupy populists to the Tea Party kind

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A unique local-national hybrid talk show on Southern Oregon Public TV proves that a passion for bridging philosophical divides and a (sometimes shaky) Skype connection can lead to Immense Possibilities. The Jan. 10 [2012] episode of the half-hour weekly roundtable introduced four local activists, two from the Tea Party on the right and two from the Occupy movement on the left. They found common ground on the air and are now working together on the ground. Funders, too, have pitched in.

Programs/Content

As NBC partners, pubmedia may expand reporting, visibility

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NBC will share stories, resources and content distribution with two public broadcasters, ProPublica and two local nonprofit newsrooms under the FCC agreement clearing Comcast’s 2011 takeover of NBC Universal. If the preexisting, five-year collaboration between NBC-owned KNSD in San Diego and the nonprofit Voice of San Diego news site is anything to go by, news consumers may see real benefits. Boosting NBC Universal stations’ local content through partnerships with nonprofit news organizations was one of the conditions placed on the network to complete its deal with Comcast. ProPublica, the Pulitzer-winning investigative enterprise that frequently partners with other top news outlets, will work with WNBC-TV in New York, as well as with all 10 NBC-owned stations in the country. In other metro areas, WCAU in Philadelphia will work with pubcaster WHYY, and KNBC in Los Angeles with team up with public radio station KPCC, operated by a sister organization to American Public Media.

Programs/Content

Downton returns, doubling average PBS evening rating

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The return of Downton Abbey proved to be a ratings blockbuster for PBS, while critics  mostly heaped praise on the Emmy-winning drama’s second season. Downton’s season premiere Jan. 8 [2012] attracted an average 4.2 million viewers, not including viewing through station replays, DVRs or online streaming.  That figure was double the average primetime rating for PBS and exceeded the average rating of the first season of Downton Abbey by 18 percent, the network said. That night PBS’s audience was 64 percent larger than on previous Sundays this year, reaching an average Nielsen rating of 2.0, TRAC Media Services reported. In strong PBS cities Boston, Seattle, San Francisco and St.

Antiques Roadshow

Minutes on Roadshow are pay enough for some

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An 11-page diatribe from a former Antiques Roadshow appraiser to producing station WGBH provides a look deep inside public television’s most popular national show as Roadshow knockoffs proliferate on cable channels. The issues raised by Gary Sohmers, a Hawaiian shirt-clad, Converse sneaker-wearing pop-culture expert, reveal in particular how intensely the program works to protect its brand. In the case of another appraiser, the Boston station stood its ground with a $900,000 copyright-infringement lawsuit. In response to Sohmers, WGBH is conducting an internal review of his complaints about the Appraisal Event Participation Agreement that all experts sign, though they are not financially compensated for work and must pay their own travel and hotel expenses for multiday shoots nationwide. That contract, Sohmers told Current, “has evolved to be more illogically restrictive over the past several years.” It requires appraisers to inform series Executive Producer Marsha Bemko before they appear in other media, get her written permission to appraise on other shows, limit their public remarks to their areas of expertise, and never present themselves as Roadshow appraisers or let others present themselves as such.

Programs/Content

Sports: a real community that some stations join

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There’s a new game in town — relatively new to public television, anyway. Blessed with digital multicast channels and eager to attract new viewers, PBS stations are finding success with high-school football and other sports as varied as NASCAR and Special Olympics on their schedules. Station execs concede that airing more sports can mean preempting PBS program staples — maybe exchanging Frontline for field goals. They can also face questions about the propriety of carrying women’s basketball in place of Washington Week in Review. Still, they insist, gains in viewer interest, the opportunity to promote other shows during game broadcasts, and the positive vibes of bringing communities together more than justify any inconvenience or criticism.

Programs/Content

After a hard year, NBR investor brings in new management

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Rick Ray considered purchasing public TV’s Nightly Business Report earlier this year but last week ended up as its new c.e.o. instead. Atalaya Capital Management, the New York venture-capital firm that ended up owning the show, was shopping it around in March, said Ray, a veteran media executive who built cable syndicator Raycom Sports. He took a look, was intrigued and spoke with Atalaya. But the timing for a deal wasn’t right at that point, Ray said; he was too busy with several other projects. “But I liked what I saw” in NBR, Ray said.

Programs/Content

Finding bright spots: cloning what works in local pubTV programs

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For more than 25 years, we have been studying public television stations and programming, and for all those years we sat on one of the best-kept secrets in the system. We knew that some of the most-viewed programs on public television were locally produced shows, and the responsible stations certainly knew that piece of good news. But local shows don’t show up in the national ratings, and there are very few reliable ways for people outside of those stations to see the numbers. After years of schedule-watching, we began seeing related patterns in the stations’ performance: Many of the stations with very popular local programs were among the broadcasters with the greatest success in viewership, in community partnerships, and in public support. What was the connection, we wondered?

Programs/Content

Market Wars, companion for Roadshow, is coming to PBS

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PubTV programmers heard welcome details of a long-awaited spinoff of the hit Antiques Roadshow at the National Educational Telecommunications Association Conference in Kansas City, Oct. 18–20. [The reality-TV casting agent behind Jersey Shore is seeking antiques authorities for the roles. See below.]

John Wilson, PBS program chief, told attendees that the program, with the working title Market Wars, will debut in spring 2012 under the supervision of Roadshow e.p. Marsha Bemko. Wilson said PBS has ordered 20 episodes initially, “at a very effective production cost per hour.”

Programmers have been eager to find a companion show to extend the audience of the Roadshow, which is by far the most-watched PBS series.

Programs/Content

Back below the hills of Tennessee

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The television version of Bluegrass Underground, now distributed in high-def and Surround Sound by PBS Plus, permits the audience to appreciate more vividly the unique auditorium where it’s recorded: southeast of Nashville in Cumberland Caverns, 333 feet below ground near McMinnville, Tenn. Over the past 3.5 million years, water carved out what is now the acoustically pure Volcano Room with room for 500 seats. By 2008 the erosion was far enough along that concerts could be held there and Nashville’s famed country-music carrier, WSM-AM, could begin airing Bluegrass Underground’s original radio version. (It airs monthly on Saturdays, just before Grand Ole Opry.)

The video version is produced by a partnership of the production company Loblolly Ventures, PBS member station WCTE in Cookeville, Tenn., and Emmy-winning producer Todd Jarrell. So far, PBS stations have picked up the show in 60 markets, including Boston, Dallas, Chicago and Seattle.

Programs/Content

Opening doors to region’s inner policy circles

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The Great Lakes, formed by melting glaciers 10,000 years ago, were ready last week for their close-up. Detroit Public Television, seizing an opportunity that comes about as often as a planetary alignment, televised 25 hours of speeches, conferences, workshops and meetings about the future of the massive lakes that nearly surround Michigan. Great Lakes Now, a three-day event organized by a regional group and two government agencies, was documented by DPTV’s live streaming and on-demand video of speakers, nightly half-hour wrap-up broadcasts and satellite feeds that extended the speakers’ reach south to Houston, east to New York and west to Phoenix. DPTV clearly demonstrated how a midsized public television operation could give people unprecedented access to those who make policy on local and regional issues. “Look at the role we can play in our community and communities throughout the country,” said Rich Homberg, DPTV president.

People

For Erbe, accident was a tumble into the unknown

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Bonnie Erbe’s life took an ominous turn over Memorial Day weekend, but she doesn’t remember much of what happened. The longtime host of public TV’s To the Contrary was astride her Hanoverian horse, Stand Out, that Sunday, riding in a hunter/jumper show at the Prince George’s Equestrian Center in Upper Marlboro, Md. They approached a fence on the stadium course for a jump, but something went wrong. “The last thing I remember is hanging onto the horse’s neck and thinking, ‘Oh, no,’” Erbe said. Meanwhile in Baltimore, Cari Stein, former executive producer of the 20-year-old all-female news-analysis program, was entertaining a houseful of holiday guests, purposely ignoring her cellphone.

Programs/Content

New channel in Pittsburgh: All-pledge, all the time

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WQED has come up with an idea that initially might make some public broadcasters cringe: an entire multichannel fully devoted to fundraising. Yes, all pledge shows, running 24/7. That’s exactly what WQED Showcase will be. The Pittsburgh station will debut its fourth channel possibly as soon as November. Station President Deborah Acklin came up with the concept for the potential revenue stream, which appears to be a pubcasting first.

Programs/Content
Seun Kuti

Musicians’ stories join their music in Sound Tracks for PBS

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Steve Talbot worked in public TV for more than 20 years before trying his hand as chief fundraiser for one of his own projects. His timing was not the greatest. On the day in 2008 when Lehman Brothers imploded, PBS agreed to back the pilot for Talbot’s Sound Tracks, a newsmagazine-style show about contemporary music around the world. The hourlong debut, which aired in January 2010, got positive feedback from viewers, programmers and PBS, but the recession has hampered Talbot’s efforts to make more episodes of Sound Tracks ever since. He’s still raising money to produce additional episodes.

People

Moyers returns in January with weekly hour

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The latest incarnation of Bill Moyers’ distinctive brand of talk programming will be the hourlong, multiplatform Moyers & Company, distributed by American Public Television. The January debut for the program — provided fully funded to pubTV stations — will mark the first time PBS has not been the distributor of an ongoing Moyers program to public TV stations, dating to his first show in 1972. His most recent series, Bill Moyers Journal, left the air April 30, 2010, when he retired. “Collaborating with APT offers stations flexibility in deciding where a broadcast can best serve their communities and it offers producers greater flexibility regarding the Web,” Moyers told Current in an email. “And we intend a major use of Web and social media.”

Moyers described the new show to pubTV stations in a letter Aug.

Development

Pledge Pipeline, 2011-12

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Current’s first Pledge Pipeline previews 36 shows heading to public TV on-air membership drives in December 2011, March 2012 and beyond. Producers and distributors provided this information in response to Current’s questionnaire. December ’11
’60s Pop Rock: My Music
Producing organization: TJL Productions. Distributor: PBS. Length: 75 minutes in four acts (SD 4:3).

People

PBSd venture and MHz project aim to export public television

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Television viewers in Great Britain, the Middle East, Russia and India could soon be watching American public TV shows, if two initiatives get up and running in the coming months. The PBS UK channel is being bankrolled by W. David Lyons, an entrepreneurial oilman from Calgary, Alberta. The programming will be assembled by PBS Distribution (PBSd), a partnership of PBS and WGBH that holds international rights to a “significant number” of public television titles, said Jan McNamara, PBS spokesperson. In a separate venture, Virginia-based MHz Networks, which feeds international content to some 30 American public TV stations on its Worldview multicast channel, will reverse direction with its MHz America package, pushing local shows from at least five pubTV stations and independent producers to foreign markets. Each could be on the air abroad by year’s end or soon after.