Current (https://current.org/tag/television-programs-content-news/page/8/)
Cable network ESPN on Aug. 22 withdrew from its reporting collaboration with Frontline on an investigative documentary project examining the NFL’s allegedly lax response to head injuries among football players.
Representatives of several liberal groups delivered signed petitions to New York City’s WNET Aug. 13, urging the station to ask PBS to air the documentary Citizen Koch, a critical look at the increasing political influence of the conservative billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch.
Commemorating the accidental abundance of zucchinis in 1993 that spawned the creation of WQED’s hit series QED Cooks with Chris Fennimore, the Pittsburgh pubcaster will honor the prolific late-summer veggie for the program’s 20th anniversary. Back then, Fennimore, WQED-TV p.d. and an enthusiastic cook, was helping tend a community garden plot that exploded with the green squash. “So I asked Nancy Polinsky, director of continuity at the time, if she’d make a promo asking people for zucchini recipes,” Fennimore said. He had no idea that first recipe for zucchini cheesecake would be the beginning of more than 50 live cooking marathons ranging from “A is for Appetizers” to “S is for Seafood,” a growing line of cookbooks that proved to be popular pledge premiums and a hit show that passed its 100th-episode milestone in March 2012. Polinsky also became his co-host.
Music City Roots: Live from The Loveless Cafe, a weekly radio show and HD webcast featuring roots, alt-country and Americana music from Nashville, is heading to public television as a 13-episode series showcasing performances from its 2012 season. The show will be released for pubTV broadcast Sept. 5, presented by Nashville Public Television and distributed by American Public Television. Carriage commitments from 75 stations so far includes major markets such as WNET in New York and WGBH in Boston. In each episode, emcee Keith Bilbrey — a former Grand Ole Opry announcer — welcomes musicians to a 600-seat barn at the Loveless Cafe, built in 1951 and locally famous for its homemade fried chicken and biscuits.
The United States’ first 24/7 television channel for indigenous people has begun airing on a handful of public television stations across the country. The channel’s launch was limited, as producing station KVCR in San Bernardino, Calif., seeks a national distribution deal and additional funding. In addition to KVCR, FNX: First Nations Experience is carried by KEET in Eureka, Calif., LPTV in Bemidji, Minn., and Navajo Nation TV-5, which covers parts of New Mexico and Arizona. Chicago’s WYCC and Oklahoma’s CATV-47 plan to begin airing the channel soon. Meanwhile, technical difficulties with FNX equipment have delayed its launch on Wyoming PBS.
Public TV stations are backing PBS’s first foray into weekend news by committing airtime to PBS NewsHour Weekend, which debuts next month, although several program directors question PBS’s decision to invest in the broadcast when its flagship weekday program is struggling financially.
KCPT in Kansas City, Mo., is examining gun violence as a health-care epidemic in a live hourlong call-in show this week. “It’s one of those nagging issues that simply won’t go away,” Nick Haines, executive producer, said in a press release. “Why do we accept such an unacceptably high death toll in our inner city? It would be easy for us to ignore the problem as unfixable. But we feel obligated as a public TV station to spotlight the problem and make a concerted effort to seek answers.”
Special Correspondent Sam Zeff will report on the city’s Aim4Peace program, which tracks violence, predicts where it may spread and then takes steps to prevent it.
PBS is commissioning a second scripted drama, Chief Programming Executive Beth Hoppe told Current at the Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour this week in Los Angeles. The latest script request is for a Civil War period piece, Hoppe said. “We’re really focusing on things that have historical accuracy and untold stories at their core, as we try to select what to bet on in the drama space,” she noted. “The Civil War is territory that PBS has a great track record for, so it’s a matter of finding that PBS twist.” She declined to discuss further details. In May, Variety reported that PBS had ordered a pilot script for Alta California, set in the 1800s and centering on an arranged marriage between two families, one Mexican-Californian and the other European American.
A new reality series tracing the ancestral roots of Americans is coming to PBS directly from Ireland. The format for Genealogy Roadshow was created by an Irish production company, Big Mountain Productions.
PBS is dropping its PBS Kids Go! graphics and interstitial materials, as part of a revamp of the on-air branding materials surrounding PBS’s children’s programs.
The PBS NewsHour is reassigning its senior journalists to new roles by tapping Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff as co-anchors and managing editors of the weeknightly broadcasts. The change, announced today during the Television Critics Association Press Tour in Los Angeles, drops the system of rotating anchor duties among six different NewsHour journalists. It takes effect next month. Jim Lehrer, longtime anchor and co-owner of the show through MacNeil/Lehrer Productions, retains the title of executive editor, but Ifill and Woodruff will lead editorial and strategic planning of PBS’s flagship news show. “Gwen and Judy have been the heart and soul of NewsHour for years,” said Linda Winslow, executive producer, “so it’s wonderful to formalize these new roles and give them an opportunity to provide even more input on the content and direction of the show.”
Frontline is spending $1.5 million to bolster its ability to manage its news collaborations, which are growing in number as well as importance. Raney Aronson, deputy executive producer, said the investigative showcase will establish a four-person collaboration desk through a three-year, $750,000 grant from the Philadelphia-based Wyncote Foundation. She tapped Frontline’s series budget for matching funds for the desk, which will also concentrate on transmedia efforts. “The way we do journalism has changed,” Aronson told Current. “Frontline is no longer simply a documentary series on a Tuesday night.” More than half of the films and online reports produced by Frontline are done in collaboration with kindred organizations such as the New York Times, NPR, the nonprofit newsroom ProPublica and, more recently, Spanish-language network Univision.
Northern California’s KQED-TV is revamping its Friday evening public affairs show by reviving a title from its distant past.
In a new three-part Foyle’s War series on Masterpiece Mystery!, Chief Detective Superintendent Christopher Foyle comes out of retirement to work in the intelligence community, not the police force.
In addition to launching a weekend edition of the PBS NewsHour, New York’s WNET has secured a contract to create an integrated website for the flagship series and its new sibling. The WNET Interactive Engagement Group (IEG), a subsidiary that specializes in developing customized WordPress platforms, will complete the web development project by December, but aims to make some enhancements before the Sept. 7 launch of PBS NewsHour Weekend. That new Saturday and Sunday evening news show will originate from the New York City pubcaster, while the weekday NewsHour maintains its longtime home at WETA in Arlington, Va. The redesign will be the first major back-end overhaul in 10 years for the NewsHour’s website, which is built on a homegrown content management system (CMS), according to Vanessa Dennis, online art director.
PBS is planning a weeklong commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the historic civil rights March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The special lineup of shows planned for broadcast in late August includes a new documentary, The March, co-executive produced by Robert Redford. It debuts Aug. 27, the eve of the anniversary. The next day, the PBS Black Culture Connection website will host an online screening of the documentary and interactive chats with participants of the historic event.
Aereo, the startup service that allows subscribers to view and record television broadcast programs via the Internet, won another legal victory on Tuesday from a federal appellate court. In a 10-2 decision, the U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals denied a request from a consortium of broadcasters to revisit its earlier decision not to impose an injunction on Aereo. In April the 2nd Circuit upheld a lower court’s decision to allow Aereo to continue operating despite the pending litigation. PBS and WNET are among the TV broadcasters that have filed lawsuits in New York federal courts attempting to block Aereo’s expansion, with little effect. Last July, Judge Alison J. Nathan of the federal court for New York’s Southern District refused to grant an injunction against Aereo, an action that likely would have shut down the service. The television networks appealed to the U.S. 2nd Circuit, but it upheld the lower court’s decision in April.
KPBS in San Diego is again inviting viewers to recommend ideas for its expanding lineup of local programs, after backing two shows from last year’s crop of suggestions. Through its Explore Local Content Initiative, KPBS supported development of two of the 52 shows that viewers suggested in 2012 for seed funding: Savor San Diego, a cooking show; and A Growing Passion, about eco-friendly local agriculture and horticulture. Both premiered last month as part of the station’s “Explore San Diego” block from 8 t0 10 p.m. Thursdays. “It’s our goal to increase the amount of local programming on KPBS-TV, and this seemed like a great way to discover new community producers,” said Nancy Worlie, station spokesperson. KPBS is looking for programs that are in or near production.
For 2014, History Detectives: Special Investigation will introduce a new host, a pared-down team of detectives and a streamlined format of gripping mysteries from the past.
Public TV was less visible at this year’s American Film Institute documentary festival. Yet several of the 10 films that had received financial support from public TV grant-makers or broadcast commitments from PBS stood out among the 53 documentaries in the lineup. One even took the top prize.