Advertisement

Mar 31, 2011

"Need to Know" drops anchor Meacham

Jon Meacham is leaving the co-anchor's chair at Need to Know, and Alison Stewart will be the solo host, according to MediaBistro's TV Newser blog. Meacham is staying on with producing station WNET to lead a new series, Perspectives, to air on TV and online. “I love Alison and the Need to Know team, but I don’t think the broadcast needs me as a co-anchor,” Meacham said.

Moyers may return to PBS in "Something Different"

Newsman Bill Moyers could be be returning to PBS, the New York Times is reporting. The Carnegie Corporation of New York's board apparently approved a grant to Moyers' production company of $2 million for a show titled Something Different With Bill Moyers — but then Moyers' name was removed from the announcement on the Carnegie website. Moyers confirmed to the Times that his production company is in talks on a series. “But,” he said, the announcement “is premature because we are in conversations with other funders which take time to conclude. We have discussed various possibilities with PBS as one potential source of distribution, but have no idea about a possible airdate, if in fact we proceed.”

PubTV, radio rake in Peabody Awards

Pubcasters won 18 of the 39 George Foster Peabody Awards announced this morning by the University of Georgia. PBS led the field of 2010 Peabody winners with ten awards — two of which were presented to American Masters, the documentary series produced by New York's WNET.

Four Peabodys awarded to NPR honor international and investigative reporting, including a collaboration with Youth Radio and the Huffington Post. Three additional winners for pubradio were RadioLab, The Promised Land, and The Moth Radio Hour.

Two docs produced by or in collaboration with local stations — "Lucia's Letter" from WGCU-FM in Fort Myers, Fla., and "The Lord is Not on Trial Here Today," by Jay Rosenstein Productions and WILL-TV in Urbana, Ill. — also earned Peabody distinction.

The University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication presents the annual Peabody Awards, one of the oldest and most prestigious prizes in electronic media.

Layoffs, program cutbacks loom at South Dakota Public Broadcasting

South Dakota Public Broadcasting will reduce local programming and educational services and lay off seven of 57 employees as a result of budget cuts exceeding $750,000, according to Bloomberg BusinessWeek. Decisions are still being made, and details cannot be released until staff members are told about layoffs, SDPB Executive Director Julie Andersen said Wednesday (March 30). In the fiscal year beginning July 1, SDPB faces losses of more than $537,000 in state funds and $220,000 in other support, mostly money it has received from the Education Department to run overnight educational programs.