Mister Rogers back in PBS ’hood
Lynn Elber and Beth Harris share the latest TV and streaming news out of the Television Critics Association summer meeting, which continues in Beverly Hills.
MISTER ROGERS IN THE PBS ’HOOD
With Fred Rogers’ legacy back in the spotlight, PBS wants viewers to remember that public television was the longtime home of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
PBS stations will air the acclaimed documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? as part of the Independent Lens showcase. The film has earned more than US$20 million in its eight weeks in theatres, a blockbuster by documentary standards. Rogers’ “powerful” approach to children’s programming is an ongoing influence at PBS, said Paula Kerger, president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service. One direct link: The animated series Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, from creator Angela Santomero and the Fred Rogers Co. This year is the 50th anniversary of Mister Rogers debuting on TV. PBS did not set an airdate for Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
REP. PAUL RYAN’S ROOTS SURPRISE
U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan was surprised and proud to find out he has Jewish roots. The Wisconsin Republican discovered his family history while filming a segment for the upcoming season of the PBS series Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Gates says he traced Ryan’s heritage back to his 10th greatgrandfather born in 1531 in Germany. The research showed Ryan is three per cent Ashkenazi Jewish, and Gates says the news “about knocked his head off.” Also featured on the show’s fifth season debuting in January is Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D - Hawaii.
Gates says he chose Ryan because he was fascinated by him and not his politics. He picked Rubio because he wanted to include a Cuban, and Gabbard because of her Pacific ancestry.
A LOOK BACK AT WOODSTOCK
A 50th-anniversary look at Woodstock and a Ken Burns series on the human genome will be among PBS’s upcoming documentaries.
The two-hour Woodstock doc will air in 2019 and will examine the events that led up to the three-day festival that would become one of the defining moments of the tumultuous 1960s. It will be part of PBS’s American Experience series and is being directed by Barak Goodman, who is teaming up with Burns on the genome series.
The Gene: An Intimate History will be a three-hour documentary series based on a book of the same name by Siddhartha Mukherjee.
Burns previously produced a documentary on Mukherjee’s book Cancer: The Emperor of All Maladies.
PBS execs say the series will weave science, social history and “personal stories” to explain what we know about human genetics, including disease and the ethical debates over gene editing. It is scheduled to air in 2020.
COMMERCIAL BROADCASTING VET TO LEAD PBS
Perry Simon, PBS’s newly announced programming chief, is a veteran of commercial broadcasting, cable and digital media who said Monday it’s a “privilege” to join public television.
PBS president and CEO Kerger said Simon will start in September as chief programming executive and general manager, with responsibility for all fare except that for children.
Kerger, speaking to a TV critics’ meeting Monday, lauded the scope of Simon’s career experience and his work in the nonprofit arts sector.
The search to replace Beth Hoppe, who left as programming chief in February to join ABC News, focused on someone who understood the changing media landscape and how PBS reaches viewers on different platforms, including digital ones, Kerger said.
An executive committed to the “values and mission of PBS” and who believes in its value was critical in making the selection, she said.
Simon, who held executive positions at Viacom Productions and NBC Entertainment, most recently served as managing director at Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen’s Vulcan Productions, which makes documentaries, TV series and digital content and has teamed with PBS on projects including the recent documentary Going to War.
From 2010 to 2015, Simon was BBC America’s general manager and oversaw production of its first original programs including the Emmy-winning series Orphan Black, starring Canadian Tatiana Maslany.