The Knight Foundation and PBS said today that Knight will give the network a $2.5 million challenge grant to launch a multicast Citizen's Channel next fall and $500,000 for the pilot of a nightly show for the channel, Global Watch. The show, produced by KCET of Los Angeles and KQED of San Francisco, will cull stories from around the world. It will be followed nightly by ITVS Presents, a showcase for indie docs. The channel will also feature video blogs and vox pop segments, live coverage of major press conferences and congressional hearings and repeats of PBS nonfiction shows. PBS developed its Public Square plans with a Knight grant awarded two years ago.

PBS's blue-ribbon Digital Future Initiative panel will release its report tomorrow at an invitation-only "summit" in D.C.

New York magazine culture critic John Leonard named David Grubin's Destination America as the best nonfiction TV program of 2005. The four-part doc debuted Oct. 19 on PBS. "This is the sort of television that puts faces on stats, but it’s also almost elegiac: These are the doors we are bolting behind us," Leonard wrote.

Five rules from the NPR drinking game. There's also the PBS pledge drive drinking game.

Sesame Workshop and New York-based cable provider Cablevision on Monday launched Sesame Street Games, an interactive video game service available to customers in the New York metropolitan area. The educational games, available on Cablevision's interactive digital cable tier, feature Muppets and are designed for children ages 2-5, who will use the cable remote control to make choices on their TV screens. The service costs $4.95 per month.

Radio consultant John Sutton had a staticky introduction to owning a digital radio: "I tried everything I could to get a better signal. It all seemed so old-fashioned, so 'analog.'"