Anthropological programs — Kalahari Family: A family saga you haven't seen on Masterpiece Theatre was in production for public TV: a series documenting the 46-year sweep of history for a family in the Namibian bush.

Antiques Roadshow: After a long struggle to get the show on the air, Antiques Roadshow is now having to deal with unwieldy success. One problem has been greedy appraisers, who were charged with fraud and kicked off the show in 2000.

Archives — revivals from PBS's vaults: PBS assigned prominent station programmer Ron Hull to sort through its archives for jewels to bring back to the air. In most cases, PBS would have to buy rights from the producers for further broadcasts. Fans succeeded in prompting the revival of the classic 1980 sci-fi drama Lathe of Heaven 20 years later. And a new venture, Broadway Theatre Archive, is bringing many early PBS dramas to videocassette.

Arts programming — Egg and City Arts: PBS is backing an arts show that's "brainy without being pretentious." That's what Los Angeles Times critic Howard Rosenbaum called Egg, a new style of arts mini-doc program that PBS scheduled to begin a national run in April 2001. Egg was incubated by a team of WNET producers who won multiple Emmys with their local series City Arts and City Life. Locally, the New York station began packaging a block of largely local arts programming for cable TV in 1998.

Arts programming — Great Performances: Current Q&A with Jac Venza, public TV's leading talent scout and impresario in the performing arts, executive producer of Great Performances for 25 years at WNET.

British comedies (Britcoms): As Time Goes By, a romantic comedy starring Judi Dench has risen to the top of the Britcoms airing on American public TV. The import has such devoted fans that dozens flew to London as Dench was making the last new episodes two years ago. To feed the growing taste for Dench, public TV stations are bringing back the earlier comedy A Fine Romance.

Children's programming: Public TV is working to keep a clear distinction between its children's programs and the Mighty Morphin/Ninja Turtles variety served up by commercial TV. A Current Briefing reviews recent developments. With expanded hours of programming and community workers in the field, the PBS Ready to Learn Service is promoting TV programs for little kids that help interest them in learning and reading. Public TV's different approach to kidvid goes back decades. Media scholar George Gerbner focused on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood as a long-lived phenomenon that continues to violate the imperatives of ordinary kidvid.

Children's programs by age group: Television fills different needs for children as they grow up. PBS is well established with the littlest viewers, and even with some young unmarrieds, who are hooked by the humor that producers use to draw in parents. But public TV has a harder job winning older kids away from commercial TV.

Children's programming — Barney & His Friends:
His producers said they wanted to spare kids the sight of Barney being beaten during halftime at football games, but a federal court in 1998 rejected their suit against the San Diego Chicken, who pummeled a Barney lookalike in his stadium act.

Children's programming -- Between the Lions: A group of Children's Television Workshop veterans have allied with WGBH to do for words and sentences what Sesame Street does for letters. Between the Lions, the ambitious new daily show for children ages 4-7, started in April 2000 on PBS.

Children's programming — Magic School Bus: Murdoch's Fox Kids Network, encouraged by the FCC's rule mandating educational kidvid on commercial TV, acquired Magic School Bus, which got its start on PBS.

Children's programming — Puzzle Place: Puzzle Place, whose curriculum is human relationships, got its start with major grants from CPB and other funders in 1991. Investors hoped to build a chain of local supercenters to capitalize on the series. The program's high prospects helped two veteran public TV producers put their company, Lancit Media Productions, on the stock market, and got themselves a new set of bosses.

Children's programming — Teletubbies: Critics say the British-made series, which premiered on PBS in April 1998, or any TV, is not a good thing for kids under the age of one. But PBS say it's better to expose kids to the gentle, purpose-built whimsy of Teletubbies than to the other programs that they commonly see. Critics are focusing on worries that PBS chose the show because the show may have strong income from a big Hasbro toy deal.

Children's programming — Zoom: Producers are bringing back Zoom for a new generation of kids. In the 1970s, their parents thought Zoom was groovy. Will they find it awesome? WGBH is showing off a pilot to raise funds for the comeback of the series that features viewer contributions and an all-kids cast.

Documentaries — long-form observational: PBS is giving high priority to what it calls "observational documentaries" that cover months or years of the lives of their subjects. The network carried two new "reality" series on high school life in 2001, along with Frederick Wiseman's famous film. In 1999, PBS distributed An American Love Story, Jennifer Fox's 10-hour portrait of a Queens, N.Y., family that she and co-producer Jennifer Fleming shot over the course of five years, sometimes sleeping on the floor of the family's apartment. The series has been compared with the pioneering series An American Family, which premiered in 1973 and last aired on public TV in 1990. (The filmmakers may produce a final film on the Loud family that will deal with the death of their eldest son, Lance.) Comparisons also may be made with the story of a financially distressed Nebraska farm family, the Buschkoetters, who opened their lives in PBS's most recent long-term verite chronicle, David Sutherland's The Farmer's Wife, which aired in October 1998. Months later, Juanita Buschkoetter said the broadcasts had served as a "strong form of family therapy" for her family. See also: Video diaries.

Documentaries — varied treatment of same subject area: Working with the rich tale of Florida's election screwups of 2000, two independent producers came up with similar conclusions—and radically different styles. One of the producers, Danny Schechter, whose "Counting on Democracy" suffered from the lack of a PBS logo and was carried by many fewer stations, says the network's rejection of the politically challenging entry was the latest of many—much to the loss of viewers and public TV.

Drama — American drama on public TV: PBS put a new set of drama series on the air in 2000, entrusting the genre to multiple production and acquisition units in Boston, New York, Los Angeles and Kentucky. In 1998, the network announced a small dose of American drama would return to public TV as part of Masterpiece Theatre. The project is based in part on CPB's earlier initiative for dramatic adaptations of American novels, The American Literary Tradition. The objective: fill the American drama gap on public TV that opened up when PBS let go of American Playhouse. PBS also pushed to add American drama to Mystery!

Drama — funding for public TV: In 2003 PBS was considering renewal of several ongoing drama vehicles but needed underwriting money to keep them going. Included is the famed series Masterpiece Theatre, which will lose its oil money in 2004. Contributing Editor David Stewart tells how the needs of PBS, British producers and Mobil Corp. came together to create MT three decades ago.

Drama — American Playhouse: Though a few Playhouse dramas are still playing on PBS, the longrunning series was killed off by the failure of its privatization partner in 1995 and by PBS's withdrawal of funding in 1994. Public TV has lost the premiere of the hit Mexican-American movie "My Family" as American Playhouse went out of business.

Drama — Anne of Green Gables: A second sequel to the popular Canadian children's classic came back on PBS in 2000, and the network plans to air an animated series starring the red-headed heroine.

Drama — The Buccaneers: Can this be right? An Edith Wharton story with a (relatively) happy ending?.

Drama — Lathe of Heaven: It was easy to pick the most-requested PBS drama from the past — the science-fiction film "Lathe of Heaven." But it was anything but easy to renew the rights for more broadcasts.

Drama — Mystery!: After working with producers to introduce American drama to Masterpiece Theatre, PBS urged sister series Mystery! to do the same in 2001. The packager of the series, WGBH, says the money isn't available to cover the extra cost.

Duplication of topics: With its heritage and structure of local initiative, public TV has no real "program czar" who dictates what programs will be made. Latest evidence: public TV stations in adjoining states have come up with two separate biographical projects on the African-American actor and activist Paul Robeson. Further proof: the Burns brothers provided two separate multi-part histories of the West to PBS. Ric Burns made The Way West for PBS broadcast mere months before the Ken Burns/Steven Ives series The West in 1996. Worth mentioning: the two western histories took different approaches; each had its fans.

Election coverage: See News & public affairs programming—PBS Democracy Project

Ethical issues: Current's Gray Page cites a range of ethical issues that have arisen in public broadcasting, including conflicts of interest and management misbehavior.

Evolution: Seeking to "balance" the message of the PBS series in September 2001, stations scheduled varying amounts of programming from creationist producers. The amount ranges from none to nearly a full day. The eight-hour Evolution from WGBH doesn't hide its conclusion that it took billions of years — not thousands of years or just seven days — to create the planet and all its life forms.

Frontier House: Five thousand Americans competed for the opportunity to bear the hard life of settlers in a remote Montana valley, circa 1893, and three families (pictured in wagon train) were chosen. They'll appear in the PBS series Frontier House in spring 2002. The historical "reality" series is one of several planned sequels to 1900 House, last year's Anglo-American hit that send a London family back to the none-too-cushy lifestyle of the beginning of the last century.

Frontline — The Farmer's Wife: See Documentaries — long-form observational, above.

Frontline — nuclear power: For Earth Day, 1997, producer Jon Palfreman took a contrarian look at the role of fear in America's rejection of nuclear power, drawing flak from anti-nuke activists. Meanwhile, PBS planned a series of traditional pro-enviromental documentaries and a national outreach effort, "Earth&Us."

Frontline — the Little Rascals daycare case: Days before Frontline aired Ofra Bikel's third documentary on the questionable case of an alleged child-abuse ring, a North Carolina prosecutor dropped all remaining charges in the action. David Fanning's Frontline remains the only longform documentary series in the country and one of the few places for serious investigatory journalism on the tube.

Frugal Gourmet: Jeff Smith, host of the popular PBS cooking series, paid plaintiffs undisclosed amounts in July 1998 to end a civil suit alleging that he sexually harassed or assaulted seven teenage boys in Tacoma, Wash. He did not acknowledge any wrongdoing. There was no word whether he would seek to return to TV.

Gay/lesbian programming: In the Life, a bimonthly video magazine on about a third of public TV stations, specializes in the still-controversial message: "we are everywhere." Its positive treatment of homosexuality looks too much like unacceptable "advocacy" for some program decision-makers, though the low-key program is a far cry from angrier productions like Tongues Untied and sexier ones like Tales of the City that have delighted fans and horrified opponents in the past. The issue arose again in 1999 when dozens of public TV stations aired "It's Elementary," a documentary on what some schools teach young children about homosexuality. After Idaho's state public TV network aired the program, the state legislature ordered closer monitoring of the network.

Going Places: Successor to the handsome Travels series that left PBS years ago was Going Places, a completely different approach to travel programming shaped by audience research, economic necessity and new video technology.

Great Performances: See Arts programming

Historical documentaries: Current Briefing: Public TV takes on the role as "America's storyteller," as PBS brags, but the stories are this country's history instead of Hollywood fiction.

Historical documentaries — Africans in America: Orlando Bagwell's sweeping series that aired in October 1998 on PBS was 10 years in the making. (Current profiled Bagwell in 1994.) The same month, many public radio stations carried Smithsonian Productions' Remembering Slavery, a two-part special featuring the voices and words of the last surviving slaves.

Historical documentaries — The American Experience: In a Current Interview with Judy Crichton, former executive producer of the series, she talks about the craft of documenting history on TV. Her successor, Margaret Drain, looks ahead to future seasons.

Historical documentaries — The West: "politically correct" was not the point. PBS's first historical epic of the fall 1996 season, The West, takes a comprehensive look at the many peoples of the region, not to be politically correct but to be historically correct, according to the head writer.

Historical documentaries — pre-photographic period: Producers have worked to find ways to tell historical stories from periods before the invention of photography or motion pictures. Laurie Kahn-Leavitt based The Midwife's Tale on the dramatic life of 1700s midwife Martha Ballard, using limited and authentic dramatization, while the producers of Liberty!, about the American Revolution, limited their reenactments to monologues based on actual writings.

Historical documentaries — "Darkness at High Noon": PBS commissioned a followup show to "Darkness at High Noon," a doc by conservative filmmaker Lionel Chetwynd that gave one side of a blacklist-era dispute between late Hollywood producers Carl Foreman and Stanley Kramer. The documentary, an account of Foreman's blacklist ordeal, is Chetwynd's first production for PBS since he agreed to end the conservative public affairs series National Desk. A lawsuit in Los Angeles gives a behind-the-scenes view of how Chetwynd collaborated with David Horowitz to launch National Desk when pubcasting was under attack by Republicans in Congress.

Hoop Dreams: The other Hoop Dreams saga was the producers' long haul to the screen.

Indecency in programs: PBS tried to keep out of trouble, but human error at the network let the f-word slip onto the air during a historical documentary broadcast in April 2004, sending PBS into emergency alert. Since an FCC ruling in March 2004, public broadcasters, like their commercial peers, had censored themselves, not knowing what the FCC would find offensive. Stations were already edgy about edginess — pubradio station KCRW fired commentator Sandra Tsing Loh for a four-letter slipup.

Independent productions: The congressionally mandated Independent Television Service (ITVS) appointed a new president in 2001, Sally Jo Fifer of Bay Area Video Coalition. See also Indies.

Local programming. See Current Briefing.

Loss of PBS programs to competing channels: One of public TV's oldest alliances in the nonprofit world loosened in 1998 with the announcement that Children's Television Workshop, the producer of Sesame Street, will partner with Viacom's Nickelodeon to start a new cable network for kids called Noggin. CTW will continue to make new Sesame Street episodes for PBS, but is looking for a way to deliver old Sesame Street episodes, among other programs, and earn more support for them. In 1997, Scholastic Productions took its Magic School Bus to the Fox network. Other lost series: Shining Time Station, The New Explorers, Siskel & Ebert. Shared series: Bill Nye the Science Guy, This Old House.

"Man with a Plan": Fred Tuttle, the retired farmer and star of "Man With a Plan," a political spoof aired on many PBS stations, lost his low-effort bid to unseat Vermont Sen. Patrick Leahy. Tuttle ran as a publicity stunt, but voters gave him the Republican nomination.

Mental Engineering: PBS gave a slot on Super Bowl Sunday 2002 to a special from the cheeky series about advertising and media manipulation of the public. John Forde launched Mental Engineering four years earlier as a cable-access program in Twin Cities.

Millenium 2000 broadcast: Dozens of TV networks around the world, including PBS, BBC and ABC, cooperated on the eve of 2000 in a 25-hour millenial celebration with segments originating all over the globe.

Minority programming — CPB consortia: To diversity programs on public TV, CPB works with five "minority consortia" that make grants to producers. They are (with links to their web sites, if any): National Latino Communications Center, National Black Programming Consortium, National Asian-American Telecommunications Association, Native American Public Telecommunications and Pacific Islanders in Communications.

Minority programming—Latino: In 1998, CPB turned to an actor with long public-TV experience, Edward James Olmos, to help distribute production aid to programs by and for Latino audiences. Olmos temporarily stepped in to create a replacement for the National Latino Communications Center (NLCC), which lost its CPB backing earlier in 1998 after CPB's inspector general questioned business practices of the Los Angeles group. In the meantime, public TV has a big gap in programming for Latinos, writes producer Maria Agui Carter in a Current commentary.

Music history: The Blues (2003) didn't have the familiar documentary styles of WGBH and BBC, as Rock & Roll did, or of Ken Burns, as Jazz did, but a variety of approaches that come with feature-film directors including Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders.

National Desk: A new PBS series from independent producer Lionel Chetwynd in October 1997 featured conservative journalists' takes on touchy issues like: black racism and the failure of the black leadership; divorce as a legacy of the '60s; and the government's unfair response to fatal diseases—other than AIDS. Two years later, a three-parter criticizing "unintended consequences" of feminist legislation drew fire from women's groups and the left. As of mid-2000, PBS was talking with Chetwynd and colleagues about ways to do higher-profile programs instead of continuing the series as-is (a key congressman warned that PBS should not drop the series for political reasons).

News and public affairs programs — new attention at PBS: PBS leaders talked for years about news and public affairs as one of public TV's highest-priority genres, but in 2000, under new President Pat Mitchell, they began doing something about it. They hired NPR to produce primetime newsbreaks, starting in September 2003. Earlier, they gave Bill Moyers a new show on Friday nights (see below). Less successfully, they created the short-lived series Life 360 and assigned a prominent producer to develop Public Square, a new weekly series that would originate from several cities. Also a non-starter was National Report, a nightly, late-night proposed co-production between MacNeil/Lehrer Productions and the New York Times. Mitchell's team had already pulled together producers to partner on ambitious joint productions, notably Time to Choose, a three-hour voter's guide that aired six days before the election on both public TV and public radio. (In a critique for Current, veteran producer Jerry Landay said the "virtual news department" created by NewsHour, Frontline and NPR made Time to Choose the most impressive piece of political journalism on TV in decades.)

News and public affairs programs — new attention at PBS: In 2004, the Knight Foundation backed a PBS feasibility study for a multicast channel that public TV stations could air on their DTV channels along with several other general-audience and specialized channels. A number of PBS-member stations are already operating or planning local or statewide public affairs channels on DTV.

News and public affairs programs — Now with Bill Moyers: It may not be hip, but it's got spirit and heart. PBS's new Friday-night public affairs program, isn't the programmers' dream of a hip magnet for younger viewers, but it demonstrates that Moyers is still the best at what he does, wrote journalist Christopher Lydon in a Current critique in 2002. PBS rushed the new series onto the air in January 2002 in response to growing viewer interest in public affairs since Sept. 11. (Many viewers rushed to news channels last fall.) PBS and several of its major producers failed to create a joint production for the Friday night spot. Earlier talks sought to involve journalistic assets of WGBH, WNET, WETA, NPR and the New York Times. Only NPR joined the mix with Moyers. Late in 2002, Republicans assailed Moyers for blasting their party. Within months, PBS was giving special attention to political balance in soliciting proposals for a new Friday-night public affairs series to follow Now.

News and public affairs programs — Forum Network: With the Freedom Forum foundation picking up most of the costs, Washington's WETA in January 1999 announced the Forum Network, a public affairs channel for cable TV that could also become one of the first channels available to public TV stations for multicasting on their DTV channels.

News and public affairs programs — lack of "engagingness": In a candid evaluation in 1997, station programmers said they want the NewsHour and other staple programs to shake up their formulas and appeal to more potential viewers. Producers of the programs, who regard their no-showbiz approach as a virtue of public TV, declined to debate in public with the station execs. See also Series overhauls, below.

News and public affairs progrms — nightly local news programs: Though it's the norm in commercial TV, where news is a big moneymaker, only about 20 public TV stations have a nightly presence of local news or public affairs programs. But the number of nightly local shows is growing, with a new one underway in Maryland. An informal survey by Current profiles the nightly local programs. Among them are John Callaway's nightly single-topic interview show at WTTW in Chicago, and Minnesota NewsNight at KTCA in Twin Cities.

News and public affairs programs — Washington Week in Review: The overseers of public TV's longest-running series, WWR, resumed planning to revise the series in March 1999 after an awkward blow-up that resulted in the premature departure of host Ken Bode and the program's producer. But WETA has a mandate to upgrade the 32-year-old press roundtable—admirably congenial in the view of fans, stodgy and Beltway-bound in the eyes of detractors. In a 1997 evaluation, station program directors urged WWR, NewsHour and Wall Street Week producers to make their programs more "engaging" to viewers.

News and public affairs programs — unfavorable scheduling: Critics repeatedly complained about the unfavorable hours given to Surviving the Bottom Line, a January 1998 series by Pulitzer-winning journalist Hedrick Smith. One critic said it's evidence that public TV is suffering "mission decay."

News and public affairs programming — PBS Democracy Project: Producers and correspondents from NPR, Frontline and PBS's NewsHour pitched in segments for a three-hour Voter's Guide to be aired six days before the November 2000 election on both public TV and public radio. [Critic Jerry Landay, writing in Current, gave it a rave.] In the 1998 election season, dozens of public TV stations aired special programming to help voters know the candidates. At least 40 aired debates; many added campaign data to their web sites; some aired skeptical analyses of campaign ads, and a few gave free airtime to candidates. Stations got some inspiration and a little financial help from the PBS Democracy Project, initially headed by journalist Ellen Hume. Recognizing the topic as crucial in the electoral process, the project in 1997 began a six-month experiment with the weekly program Follow the Money.  [Current Briefing on civic journalism and other efforts to aid the election process.]

Nova: PBS's science program took viewers to the edge of human endurance and the top of the world in February 1998. The harrowing expedition tested the human brain—and nearly lost a climber to death.

NPR programming for PBS:The TV network hired the radio news unit to produce primetime newsbreaks, one of the most concrete collaborations between the two networks. The TV execs who covet NPR's style and reputation in news, leaders of the radio network are talking with PBS about collaborating on a newsmagazine and with Hollywood producers about a TV spinoff of a forthcoming NPR news-quiz show.

Omnibus: It wasn't on public TV, but it could have been. Robert Saudek's 1950s series Omnibus had culture, Alistair Cooke and Ford Foundation money, but it was on the commercial networks. But when the Ford money went away, it did not stay for long.

Opera — Emmeline: Public TV aired a new American opera for broadcast—Emmeline, based on a real-life tragedy that the composer encountered seven years ago in an American Experience documentary. PBS distributed the opera as part of Great Performances in April 1997.

Opera — the Three Sopranos: The impresario behind the Three Tenors brought his follow-up act to December 1996 pledge drives: three experienced but little-known opera singers, the Three Sopranos.

People Like Us: "No one has ever made a show about this," says a co-producer of People Like Us, "and after working on it for a while, we knew why." The September 2001 PBS documentary takes a semi-humorous tour of America's social class boundaries.

Pipeline — future seasons on PBS: What are producers and fundraisers preparing for coming seasons? Current provides the most extensive available preview in its Pipeline '99 survey, last updated in fall 1998.

Pledge specials — personal growth programs: Another PBS president is in trouble with station fundraisers after criticizing pledge specials that feature secular gurus. In 2002 it was Pat Mitchell, who spoke with a San Diego columnist who disdains the "schlock," as the columnist called it, of self-help authors like Wayne Dyer. Three years earlier it was her predecessor, Ervin Duggan, whose private complaints about "quacks and charlatans" were leaked to the press. Soap-box spellbinders like Deepak Chopra, with their great emotional pull, have become regular attraction for public TV pledge drives. Some promise financial power, like Suze Orman, who honed her technique on a home shopping network and impressed pubcasters with her pledge skills. Others like Caroline Myss espouse beliefs about health and spirituality beyond the mainstream, raising the question, Do broadcasters have the duty of verifying what they say?

Pledge specials — a host's experience: Massachusetts psychiatrist Edward Hallowell recounts the ups and downs of a fortnight tour of public TV pledge drives in 1999. The topic of his recent book and the public TV special: "Worry: Controlling It and Using It Wisely."

Pledge specials — the search for blockbusters: What makes a hit for pledge drives? Riverdance did it. So did Les Miserables. What other pledge specials could capture the interest (and stimulate donations) among public TV viewers? Though they don't claim to have a pledge hit, the producers of "Blue Suede Shoes," a ballet accompanied by Elvis Presley songs, may find public TV betting on their program.

Popular music: In 1995, WGBH and BBC put together PBS's comprehensive history of rock, Rock 'n Roll.. In 1997, public TV took on Saturday Night Live, though not with comedy: with an eclectic mix of pop, blues and world music called Sessions at West 54th, late Saturday nights on many stations. Though TV critics mistakenly say the program is "on PBS," it's a product of American Program Service, the little-known No. 2 network in public TV, which is revving up to play a more active role, starting with a new weekend schedule.

Public affairs. See News and public affairs.

Reader's Digest alliance: After two years working with PBS, and a change of management at Reader's Digest Association, the publishing company appeared to be backing out of an alliance that promised to be PBS's largest pot of new money for public TV productions. The Digest was to make its money back by receiving "back-end" rights for videocassette sales and foreign broadcasting. The alliance yielded its first on-air results in February 1997 — a new nature series called Living Edens while the Digest research consumer interest in further projects. The RDA-PBS deal was announced in late 1995.

The Reading Club: A variety of public TV stations have begun carrying a new book roundtable program recreating the book-club experience enjoyed by many African-American women. The Reading Club is co-produced by Howard University's WHUT and a company owned by CBS newsman Bryant Gumbel.

Religion & Ethics Newsweekly: On the rebound from a tour of duty in Moscow, former NBC newsman Robert Abernethy changed his beat and now heads up public TV's Newsweekly, produced by WNET. His key guideline in dealing with the variety of faiths: "respect the religious impulse."

Right Here, Right Now: see Video diaries

Rock music: see Popular music

Science programming—Nova: One of Nova's biggest topics for 2003 was the nature of everything, from subatomic to a whole lot bigger, as explained by physicists' unproven but appealing superstring theory. When Nova came on the PBS scene 30 years ago, founding producer Michael Ambrosino explained the need for skillful storytelling to engage viewers: "Folks hate to be taught, but they love to learn." The series' present executive producer, Paula Apsell, adopted years later the series' strategy for attracting viewer, combining learning with the kinds of topics and dramatic action they want.

Series overhauls: PBS President Pat Mitchell, the first producer to hold the job in the network's three-decade history, set in motion the overhaul of major primetime series, while some were already being redone.
Wall Street Week, which lost host Louis Rukeyser in an ugly dustup in April 2002 (see Wall Street Week below),
Mystery!, which began to develop American stories, starting with an adaptation of a Tony Hillerman novel about Navajo detectives,
Washington Week, which WETA overhauled in 1997.

Social capital: Public TV leaders in 2001 adopted a new phrase to describe a major objective for the field. They want stations to help build "social capital" in their communities — creating forums, providing information and nurturing the connections that support civic betterment and public-interest activism. PBS chose this as its top priority and invited political scientist Robert Putnam to speak a second time at a national PBS meeting. Audience researchers David and Judith LeRoy, advocates for the objective, describe the theory in a commentary. But Putnam, popularizer of the idea, said himself that the concept will be fruitless for public TV if it becomes nothing more than a slogan.

This Old House: The home renovation program continues on public TV, but in 2001 WGBH sold it to Time Inc., which already had been publishing a spinoff magazine for six years. Russ Morash, who developed the classic WGBH how-to programs, will continue as producer.

Video diaries: A woman named Jeanne is the first of four people whose video diaries made up the pilot run of Right Here, Right Now, a proposed series that tried out on PBS in April 2000. As they start their diaries, they're approaching dramatic changes in life. Ellen Schneider, creator of the series, began work on the idea more than five years ago to foster a creative use of the proliferating small-format home video cameras.

Violence: In June 1999, public TV stations pitched in to help throw anti-violence Safe Night parties for teenagers in many communities.

Wall $treet Week: In a Current Critique in 2003, journalist Mike Pesca said the PBS show, with its new hosts, has greater ambition and more upside potential than Louis Rukeyser's original, but needs polishing. Contributing Editor David Stewart profiles Rukeyser and his old PBS show. Producers and Rukeyser split acrimoniously in 2002 and he launched a competing program on CNBC.

Wishbone: The show's canine star appeals to just about everybody, and that's a problem for the lively little Jack Russell terriers like him, according to fanciers of the breed.

Civic journalism: Current Briefing: Can broadcasters help revive participation in our democracy? Producers in both public radio and public TV are trying new forms of "civic journalism." Before the 1996 presidential election season, for instance, public TV joined in staging the National Issues Convention, a large-scale experiment to amplify the citizens' voices in campaigns.

Local program production: Current Briefing: How much of pubcasting resources should be put into making local programs? Some producers and stations are defying the trend and the bottom-line rationale for less local production. A collection of articles describe the shows they're making, as well as the argument over local production.

Local programming — the Philadelphia Project: In an ambitious, foundation-backed project, WHYY is using its radio and TV stations to develop and air components of a full-length feature film about a day in the life of the city. The dramatic portrait of the city will air late in 1999. In the meantime, poets are scouting the territory.

Marsalis, Wynton: In 1995, the jazz trumpeter starred in two pubcasting series: he was a student on NPR, a teacher on PBS. Then in 2001, he starred again as Ken Burns' major talking head in Jazz.

Parenting programs: Where are all the how-to programs about parenting? For such an important topic, it doesn't get much serious treatment on radio or TV. Producers do keep trying — a couple of big projects are in the works — but some wonder whether broadcasting is the right medium for the subject.

Pop music and pubcasting: With starchy music appreciation in its genes, pubcasting has always had an awkward relationship with pop music. PBS has showcased boomer faves in the past—and is trying to revive Soundstage—but it generally stays clear of contemporary music except during pledge drives. Even in pledge, it often tries to marry pop with highbrow, siring a family of crossover tenor dreamboats among other phenomena. Only a few pubradio stations have gone with pop music, and then it's usually the nonglitzy "triple A" variety. Among producers trying to refine the right mix of pop styles for pubradio are four national shows. Several pubradio stations also extend their music off-air, holding regional festivals once a year.

Producers: Profiles of young producers Orlando Bagwell, Chris Douridas, Jennifer Fox, JoAnne Garrett, Felix Hernandez, Edward Lifson, Derek McGinty, Isaac Mizrahi, D. Roberts, and the Hoop Dreams team.

Travel programming: Public radio's Rudy Maxa (The Savvy Traveler) adds a public TV series in 2001 — probably the first ever produced in high-definition video — while public TV's Travels in Europe host Rick Steves switches to a new producer.

World Business Review: It sounds like checkbook journalism in reverse: interview subjects pay a fee to appear on business program. The independent producer of World Business Review, a new series hosted by Caspar Weinberger and offered to public TV and radio, helps support the show by charging a fee to his guests.