Newtown followups, unique documentary on Stephen Hawking coming from PBS

PBS unveiled upcoming feature programming today at the annual Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif. Highlights include a week of special programming examining the killings at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Ct. PBS NewsHour, Frontline, Nova, Need to Know and Washington Week with Gwen Ifill each will focus on different aspects of the tragedy; new offerings from P.O.V. and Independent Lens such as director Michael Apted’s 56 Up; the first autobiographical documentary on famed physicist Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Mine; a six-part series, Latino Americans, narrated by actor Benjamin Bratt; and, for fans of British dramas, The Bletchley Circle, a three-part murder mystery, and How Sherlock Changed the World, a two-hour examination of the popular detective character. PBS’s sessions at the TCA Press Tour conclude tomorrow.

2013 Golden Globes: Maggie Smith wins PBS’s only statuette

PBS was nominated in four categories at the 70th Golden Globe Awards Jan. 13, but only Dame Maggie Smith of Downton Abbey earned a win from the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Smith won for Best Supporting Actress in a TV Series for the show’s second season. The awards, which celebrate both film and television, had also nominated Downton Abbey for Best Drama, while star Michelle Dockery had been nominated for Best Actress in a Drama. The Showtime series Homeland won in both categories. Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch had been nominated for Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie, but lost to Kevin Costner for his work in History’s Hatfields & McCoys.

WGBY interviews real-life Downton Abbey Countess

Three nights after 7.9 million people tuned into the third-season premiere of PBS’s Downton Abbey, WGBY in Springfield, Mass., will broadcast an interview tonight with Lady Carnarvon of Highclere Castle, the filming location of the BBC-produced series. The interview is being shown as an episode of the program Connecting Point and is not available for national carriage, so only those New Englanders lucky enough to receive the WGBY signal will be able to watch this evening. “I got in touch with Lady Carnarvon’s personal assistant last fall for a different reason,” WGBY spokesperson Myrna Flynn told Current regarding how the station landed the exclusive. “Circumstances naturally led to this. The Countess was very gracious and accommodating.” In 2011, the Countess authored a book, Lady Almina and the Real Downton Abbey: The Lost Legacy of Highclere Castle.

PBS inks deals for on-demand access to local station content

PBS unveiled deals to distribute public TV programs on two additional on-demand video streaming platforms — Roku and Xbox Live. The contracts, unveiled last week by PBS Digital chief Jason Seiken, lay the groundwork for apps that will feature local station programming and a limited selection of national content. To gain access, Xbox and Roku users will provide email addresses and choose their local station. The graphic interface on both services will be cobranded with PBS and local station logos. “Xbox and Roku are leaders in the fast-growing ‘over-the-top’ television phenomenon, in which viewers access television programs on-demand on their TV sets using an Internet connection,” Seiken wrote in Jan.

Kickstarter users have given more than $42M to documentaries

Crowdfunding website Kickstarter announced Thursday that independent film projects on its site had passed the $100 million mark in pledges since its 2009 launch, with $42.6 million of that total pledged to documentaries — the largest share of any film genre. Many Kickstarter-funded documentaries find their way to larger success, whether through film festivals, theatrical distribution or airings on networks like PBS. This year, three Kickstarter-assisted documentary features shortlisted for a Best Documentary Oscar nomination will also air on PBS in 2013: The Waiting Room, Detropia and Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry.

Full speed ahead for Public Media Platform

After two-plus years of planning and prototyping a shared hub providing easy access to digital content from across public media, partners in the Public Media Platform will begin building the new technical system next month.

In reshuffle of PBS executive ranks, Hoppe ascends to chief programmer

PBS has restructured its senior management, effective immediately, elevating programmer/producer Beth Hoppe to chief programming executive and general manager, according to a memo circulated to PBS stations today. Chief programmer John Wilson, who has worn many hats since joining PBS in 1994, will focus on fundraising programs as senior v.p., pledge strategy and special projects. Wilson will “build on the experiments undertaken this year to reshape our pledge programming and will continue to work closely with PBS colleagues, producers and stations to develop these plans,” said PBS Chief Operating Officer Michael Jones, in his memo announcing the management changes. Hoppe signed on at PBS last year as one of Wilson’s deputies. She has specialized in nonfiction programming during a TV career that includes a run as one of PBS’s hottest producers and a stint producing and developing science programming for Discovery Studios.

Ken Burns, defending PBS in USA Today, pits Reagan’s words against Romney’s

PBS documentary filmmaker Ken Burns, whose extensive credits include The Civil War, Baseball and the upcoming The Dust Bowl, authored an editorial in Tuesday’s USA Today in which he said that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney “knows the price of things, but he clearly doesn’t know their value.” Romney has attracted the ire of the pubcasting community for frequently stating throughout his campaign that he would cut funding to CPB, and he reiterated his intent to do so during last week’s presidential debate. Burns recalled filming The Civil War in the late 1980s, during which time he visited then-President Ronald Reagan in the White House. At the time, according to Burns, Reagan expressed his support and admiration for both the National Endowment for the Humanities and CPB, two government-funded entities that backed the film. “Reagan put both hands on my shoulder and said, ‘That’s it!

POV captures five of PBS’s nine news and documentary Emmys

PBS topped all the other broadcast networks, as runners-up ABC and CBS each won seven. POV’s “Last Train Home,” a film about Chinese migrant workers who go home to celebrate New Year’s, won in two categories — best documentary and outstanding business and economic reporting (long form) — while “Armadillo,” which tracked Danish soldiers in Afghanistan, was cited for editing in the documentary and long form category. Also in the long-form category, “Enemies of the People,” which examined Cambodia’s killing fields, won for outstanding investigative journalism; and “Where Soldiers Come From,” about National Guard recruits from northern Michigan, was cited for its continuing coverage of a news story. All films aired during 2011, POV’s 25th season. “Many of the filmmakers honored tonight have taken tremendous risks to tell these stories of common people caught up in extraordinary circumstances,” said Cynthia López, co-executive producer of POV.

Great Expectations exceeds expectations by winning four of PBS’s 11 Creative Arts Primetime Emmys

As a Masterpiece production competing against other miniseries, movies and specials, Great Expectations received Emmys for outstanding achievement in costume design (Annie Symons, Yvonne Duckett), art direction (David Roger, Paul Ghirardani, Jo Kornstein), main title design (Nic Benns, Rodi Kaya, Tom Browich) and cinematography (Florian Hoffmeister). In addition, the Masterpiece production Page Eight won an Emmy for original main title theme music (Paul Englishby). Other PBS winners included the Independent Lens production Have You Heard From Johannesburg, a seven-part series about the global anti-apartheid movement that received a juried award for exceptional merit in documentary filmmaking. Cited were Connie Field, producer; Lois Vossen, series senior producer; and Sally Jo Fifer, executive producer. Geoffrey Ward received the Emmy for nonfiction writing for scripting Ken Burns’s Prohibition: A Nation of Hypocrites.

Pipeline 2013

This year’s Pipeline survey lists 120 television projects planned, underway, or completed for future seasons on public TV, beginning with Winter 2013.

PBS taps BBC’s Midwife to boost Sunday viewership

PBS’s yearlong effort to build more audience flow in its primetime schedule moves into new territory with the Sept. 30 U.S. broadcast premiere of Call the Midwife, a limited-run BBC drama that will attempt to draw in Masterpiece fans and keep them watching an hour longer on Sunday nights.

Vermont PTV control room before and after NGIS

At last, PBS’s new distribution system nears completion

In August 2005, PBS’s $120 million Next Generation Interconnection System was hailed as a major advance for the public broadcasting system. Its target completion date was late 2006. Seven years, several generations of technology and a change of management later, the main components of NGIS are finally moving toward full implementation.