Chief Operating Officer Bob Ottenhoff is leaving the No. 2 position at PBS after eight years working for Ervin Duggan and the previous president, Bruce Christensen. News of the change, already circulating in heavy rotation at the PBS Annual Meeting … Continue reading
On a warm summer day in 1946 I find myself, somewhat improbably, at the helm of a U.S. Navy ocean tug, threading through a crowded, palm-fringed Pacific atoll called Bikini. We stay only long enough to anchor the derelict ship … Continue reading
One evening in London, in 1966, Anne Darlington, a Johns Hopkins graduate on a Fulbright Fellowship, was surprised to see Louis Rukeyser, then chief of ABC’s London bureau, on a BBC interview program. She remembered him as a writer for … Continue reading
In the first of May in 1971, Michael Ambrosino sat at his desk at 25 Wetherby Gardens in London writing a six-page, single-spaced letter to Michael Rice, vice president for programs at WGBH, Boston. “This project in science,” he wrote, … Continue reading
Austin, Tex. — The Convention of Stations on Nov. 5 [1997] created a Forum for public TV’s national decision-making, opening the way for new cooperation in the fragmented field as well as new varieties of bickering. The new Forum may … Continue reading
Twenty-five years ago this week, public TV first aired Great Performances, its major performing arts showcase. And just in time for the anniversary, CPB in October 1997 gave its top public TV award, the Ralph Lowell medal, to Jac Venza, … Continue reading
James Fellows, long active in public TV’s national leadership and founder of Current, analyzed the PTV Weekend proposal, when it was published in June 1997, on behalf of the Hartford Gunn Institute, a fledgling organization he was trying to launch … Continue reading
After a year of combing through PBS’s archives, Ron Hull has uncovered a treasure-trove of programs worth reviving one way or another. Though he still spends part of each week in Nebraska, where he teaches a university class in international … Continue reading
Current: There was a long period when TV critics regularly wrung their hands over the death of the long-form documentary. Now PBS has several strong documentary series, and documentaries are the basic material of several cable networks. Some documentaries like … Continue reading