Programs/Content

OPB, Center for Investigative Reporting launch public TV version of Reveal

By |

A new series from the nonprofit Center for Investigative Reporting brings extensive investigative journalism to public television in four hourlong episodes. In its short run, Reveal aims to find new and engaging ways to tell investigative stories. Available to stations starting today, the show is presented by Oregon Public Broadcasting and distributed by the National Educational Telecommunications Association.  

An episode of Reveal is composed as a visual counterpart to a newspaper — starting with a topical, longer report, moving on to shorter reports and ending with an informative animation component. In one episode, a story early in the show focuses on a woman from Afghanistan who ran away from an arranged marriage to be with the man she loved, only to be found and sent to prison by her father.

Journalism

Tiny news team at Lakeland Public Television fills gap left by commercial TV

By |

Station managers who worry they can’t afford to do news and public affairs have only to look at Lakeland Public Television in Bemidji, Minn., for inspiration. Since 1998, the station has produced a full half-hour weeknight news program. It currently operates on a yearly budget of just $375,000 to $400,000. Lakeland News is “structured like a commercial newscast, without commercials,” said Bill Sanford, the station’s chief executive and director of engineering. It was conceived after the station secured funding to evaluate how to reinvent itself.

Journalism

Kansas City’s KCPT picks up gauntlet to expand local news coverage

By |

Three years ago, a delegation from Kansas City Public Television, including the board chair, trekked out to San Diego’s KPBS to evaluate how that station’s extensive radio, television and online news operation might be adapted in Kansas City. A few months later, an influential visitor to Kansas City, PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer, urged KCPT leaders to act on their nascent ambitions to develop a locally focused news service for the community. Over dinner at the restaurant Lidia’s, Lehrer “kind of threw the gauntlet down,” recalled Kliff Kuehl, KCPT president, challenging executives to step up the station’s commitment to news coverage. But the proposal to transform KCPT into a true local news hub remained mostly an aspiration until a surprise major grant from the Hale Family Foundation arrived in July 2013. Only then was the station able to turn its ambitions into something substantive and seemingly sustainable.

Programs/Content

Two public TV networks decline to air POV documentary After Tiller

By |

At least two public television networks opted not to air this week the POV documentary After Tiller, which profiles four late-term abortion providers and prompted a campaign among anti-abortion organizations. POV’s plans to air the film’s national broadcast premiere at 10 p.m. Sept. 1 spurred an Aug. 27 online statement from Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, who called the documentary “nothing short of pure propaganda intended to demonize the entire pro-life movement and drum up support for late-term abortion.” Several other anti-abortion websites urged visitors to contact PBS headquarters or PBS Ombudsman Michael Getler to protest stations airing the film. South Carolina ETV in Columbia and Mississippi Public Broadcasting in Jackson declined to air After Tiller.

People

Sherlock adds three Emmys in primetime ceremony

By |

Sherlock: His Last Vow, a BBC production that aired as part of WGBH’s Masterpiece, won three Primetime Emmys at the televised awards ceremony Monday. That brought the detective drama’s total Emmys to seven, the most of any program. Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays Sherlock Holmes in the series, won the Emmy for outstanding lead actor in a miniseries or movie, while Martin Freeman won for outstanding supporting actor in a miniseries or movie for his portrayal of Sherlock’s sidekick, John Watson. Writer Steven Moffat took home the Emmy for outstanding writing for a miniseries, movie or dramatic special. The drama also won four awards at the Creative Arts Emmys announced Aug.

Programs/Content

Aereo takes another lump in search for legal legitimacy

By |

Internet TV service Aereo’s bid to find a workable business model suffered another legal setback Thursday, with the U.S. Court of Appeals in New York ruling that a federal district court judge will determine whether the company qualifies as a cable operator. After losing a U.S. Supreme Court copyright fight in June to a group of commercial and noncommercial broadcasters, Aereo has tried to recast itself as a cable operator. Doing so would allow it to carry content if it pays networks for programming. Aereo initially launched as a subscription service, using banks of dime-sized antennas to capture broadcast signals and convert them into streaming video distributed over the Internet. Subscribers rented the antennas and could watch TV programs live or on demand via a device similar to a digital video recorder.

Programs/Content

Chicago/Midwest Emmys find broadcast home on WYCC

By |

This year’s Chicago/Midwest Emmy awards will be televised for the first time in 25 years by WYCC PBS Chicago. WYCC plans to cover the November 1 award ceremony with a two-hour live special and additional content streaming online. “We’re looking for this to actually be a very large, beautiful production, rivaling that of a national production,” said Paul Buckner, general manager at WYCC. According to Buckner, the station is working with the Chicago/Midwest chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, the group that presents the annual regional Emmys, to find a host, presenters and live performers. The station plans to announce the host and performers Sept.

Programs/Content

Stations’ joint effort brings streaming BBC shows to websites

By |

A joint effort among PBS and five member stations has created a more efficient way for stations to offer online streams of British imports such as Doctor Who and Death in Paradise while honoring BBC restrictions that limit web streaming. The BBC’s agreement for streaming programs besides Masterpiece limits access to viewers within a station’s market. But COVE, PBS’s online video platform, does not allow for filtering by location, which hampered stations’ ability to offer BBC content. Those restrictions made for an “unmanageable” situation, said John Decker, director of programming at KPBS in San Diego. But stations are now using a new web page created by PBS that allows for location-based filtering, and five stations have agreed to handle uploading of BBC content to ensure quality and prevent duplicative uploading.

Programs/Content

KCSM-TV discontinues MHz programming, citing FCC regulations

By |

KCSM-TV in San Mateo, Calif., has dropped international programming from MHz Networks after determining that the programs did not meet legal requirements for noncommercial stations. MHz and KCSM negotiated for several months before the station discontinued the content July 15, said Jan Roecks, v.p. of administrative services for licensee San Mateo Community College District, which operates KCSM. KCSM’s website notes, “We complained to MHz repeatedly regarding underwriting and political call-to-action messages that did not comply with FCC regulations. MHZ has been either unable or unwilling to bring its broadcasts into compliance with the applicable requirements.”

KCSM Technology Director Michele Muller declined to provide examples. The station’s attorney, Larry Miller of the Washington, D.C. firm Schwartz, Woods & Miller, characterized the situation as a “private contractual dispute.” Miller hasn’t heard of other MHz client stations raising similar issues.

Programs/Content

Fibs, Yiddish and Crosbys: tidbits from PBS’s press tour

By |

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.

Programs/Content

NEH awards $2 million to pubmedia projects

By |

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. Firelight Media, whose documentaries frequently air on PBS, will use the grant to fund Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Firelight founder and filmmaker Stanley Nelson is leading the project to produce the two-hour documentary.

Programs/Content

Popularity of Downton creates embarrassment of riches in Masterpiece slot

By |

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 Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton.