The Opening Days of TCA: PBS is Hot Again, "Downton Abbey" Kicks Off Summer Press Tour - Ed Martin

Beverly Hills CA PBS hasn39t been this hot since the Seventies That was the takeaway from the opening weekend of the 2012 Summer Television Critics Association TourEvery broadcast network and most pay and basic cable networks will present their new summer and fall programming here during the next two weeks But after a starstudded and stimulating twoday opener by PBS amp8211 the highlight of which was dinner with several of the Emmy nominated cast members from the quotMasterpiecequot phenomenon quotDownton Abbeyquot amp8211 it39s hard to imagine that any of the networks set to appear here throughout the tour are going to offer as rich and rewarding a series of panels and events Today39s presentations by Fox may prove me wrong largely because of the current host crisis at quotAmerican IdolquotMultiple Emmy nominations for the series39 second season 16 in all were a given but when PBS set its TCA schedule several weeks ago it couldn39t have known that four of the quotAbbeyquot cast members set to attend its dinner event would be among the six who were nominated in various categories last Thursday Season 3 newcomer Shirley MacLaine was also in attendance along with series creator writer and executive producer Julian FellowesThe highlight of the quotAbbeyquot event was the presentation of an extended trailer that revealed major plot turns in the season to come most tellingly a shocking financial loss suffered by the Earl of Grantham that threatens to plunge the family into economic despair As the trailer played half the TCA members in the audience breathlessly took to Twitter and Facebook to share the details of what they were watching The other half questioned why PBS would choose to reveal so titanic a spoiler more than six months before the season premiereMake no mistake Despite an anemic attempted backlash by certain bloggers and online journalists Season 2 of quotDownton Abbeyquot is unarguably the programming event of 2012 and there is no reason to believe Season 3 won39t enjoy similar success That brings me back to my comment above about PBS suddenly being as hot today as it was 40plus years ago Granted in the Seventies there were far fewer television options but young people including teenagers were during that decade hooked on a great number of PBS programs including quotAn American Familyquot quotUpstairs Downstairsquot quotI Claudiusquot and quotMonty Python39s Flying Circusquot to name but a few Also quotSesame Streetquot debuted at the start of the Seventies specifically in November 1969 forever changing the viewing behavior of childrenBut now with quotDownton Abbeyquot and of equal importance the sizzling quotSherlockquot franchise which received a whopping 13 Emmy nominations last week PBS is enjoying a significant infusion of new viewers many of them teens and youngadults The robust expansion of PBS Kids across all media has also contributed to this current surge of acclaim and audience growthTroublingly this groundswell of fresh PBS success comes at a time when it is dealing with increasing financial pressures quotWe are as an industry looking at multiple ways that we can connect with viewers and so we are producing more and trying to do more with what are in fact limited resourcesquot PBS President and Chief Executive Officer Paula Kerger told TCA members on Saturday quotOur stations across the country have had challenging times the last couple years for sure Philanthropy is now actually going up a little bit but during the toughest moments for the economy that was a challenge for our stations as it has been for every nonprofit organization in this countryquotquotCorporate underwriting has been more or less flat and so when you layer all that together it has not been the easiest of timesquot she continued quotThat said we have had some good indications of support for our local stations This last year has been better than the year before and we are looking very carefully at the year ahead and particularly as it might impact our federal funding That is obviously of great concernquotPBS39 financial issues certainly weren39t in evidence during its TCA days which featured the usual dazzling array of presentations They included a panel with the cast of quotCall the Midwifequot a British series that will run on PBS as an hour drama outside of the usual quotMasterpiecequot umbrella performances by young contenders in the documentary miniseries quotBroadway or Bustquot best described as a reallife version of the Oxygen series quotThe Glee Projectquot in which all of the young competitors are winners of regional awards a cooking demonstration by Martha Stewart on hand to promote her new weekly PBS series quotMartha Stewart39s Cooking Schoolquot the introduction of an animated PBS Kids series titled quotDaniel Tiger39s Neighborhoodquot a followup to the classic quotMister Rogers39 Neighborhoodquot a session with entertainment entrepreneur David Geffen the subject of an upcoming quotAmerica Mastersquot profile a panel for an upcoming documentary based on the book quotHalf the Skyquot about women39s rights in oppressed and oppressive cultures featuring Meg Ryan America Ferrera and Diane Lane a session with television legends Richard Chamberlain Cloris Leachman Michele Lee and others who talked about the latest installments of PBS39 quotPioneers of Televisionquot franchise and a lunch and press conference with filmmaker Ken Burns as engaging as always in presenting his upcoming multipart documentary quotThe Dust Bowlquot which debuts in November Burns described the decadelong drought and resulting dust storms that ravaged much of the southern plains region in the Thirties as quotthe worst manmade ecological disaster in American historyquot and quota tenyear economic apocalypsequot As is typically the case with every new project from Burns quotThe Dust Bowlquot should be one of the most talked about programs of the fall season

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The Opening Days of TCA: PBS is Hot Again, "Downton Abbey" Kicks Off Summer Press Tour - Ed Martin

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