By Lisa de Moraes
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Arlington-based PBS shook up its programming operations yesterday, naming a public broadcasting veteran to a new job -- chief content officer -- while cashiering a veteran programming executive and closing its Los Angeles office.
The new guy, John Boland, comes to PBS from KQED, the public TV station in San Francisco, where he was executive vice president and chief content officer. Shown the door is Jacoba "Coby" Atlas, the much-liked co-chief of programming who ran PBS's West Coast programming operation for the past six years.
Boland will oversee TV programming, online operations, education and promotion -- pretty much everything the public sees from the Public Broadcasting Service. He is the first major hire of PBS's new president and chief executive, Paula Kerger, who signed on in March.
PBS will close its two-person L.A. office, which Atlas headed, and move all its functions to Arlington, a PBS spokeswoman told The Post's Paul Farhi.
Atlas joined PBS in 2000 under Kerger's predecessor, Pat Mitchell. A TV industry veteran, Atlas was previously a supervising producer at CNN, with Emmy- and Peabody-winning documentaries to her credit. She also spent a decade at NBC, serving as West Coast producer, supervising producer and senior producer of the "Today" show.
But Atlas, who couldn't be reached yesterday, clearly didn't fit in Kerger's administration. One sign: PBS's other chief of programming, John Wilson, is staying in his current position, reporting to Boland. Wilson joined PBS in 1994 as director of program scheduling. (Yes, he's the guy who moved "Masterpiece Theatre" from Sunday.)
Boland helped usher KQED into the digital era, initiating the station's Internet video operations, podcasts, blogs, original Internet content and content partnerships with other public broadcasters. He also helped launch seven local and regional TV series for the station, as well as such fare as "Jean-Michel Cousteau: Ocean Adventures" and "China From the Inside" for PBS and the BBC, and several programs for "Great Performances."
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Bob Woodruff, who briefly co-anchored the ABC evening news, yesterday made his first visit to the New York newsroom since suffering serious head injuries and broken bones in a roadside bomb explosion in Iraq in late January.
"World News Tonight" Executive Producer Jon Banner said in a blog on ABC's Web site that the visit was a surprise, much like President Bush's trip to Baghdad yesterday.
And, as on that trip, cameras were there to record Woodruff's surprise visit to the office; the footage aired at the end of "World News Tonight."
Charlie Gibson, who now anchors the show solo, called the segment "hugs and handshakes and a little bit of humor."
"Many of you who watch this broadcast, and even many who don't, have been kind enough in recent weeks to inquire about the welfare of Bob Woodruff," Gibson told viewers.
"For the first time since his injuries, he came back to the newsroom today," Gibson said while viewers saw Woodruff in the office, surrounded by a mob of staffers:
On the tape, ABC News President David Westin hugged Woodruff: " So, the plan was not to mob you, right? This was beautifully executed."
Woodruff said he was unconscious for 36 days, Gibson explained to viewers:
Woodruff to staffers: "I woke up in this hospital and I looked up and I just thought about you guys and I thought about everything that I wanted badly to come back to."
Wearing a blue shirt and jeans, he looked thin, his dark hair cut extremely short, with a jagged scar running along his scalp and what appeared to be scarring on the left side of his face. He was accompanied by his wife, Lee.
Lee Woodruff to staffers: " Bob is the luckiest guy in the world, as his surgeons have said, but I also think a large part of healing is being surrounded by people who care about you and love you and he has had that from everyone here."
" He has had it for the past five months . . . And he's got it for the future," Gibson said, as viewers saw a shot of Woodruff walking down a hall, with Gibson right behind him.
Woodruff: "Ma n, it's good to be here."
Last week, Charlie Gibson's second as anchor of "World News Tonight," marked that show's lowest delivery of viewers -- 7.05 million -- since at least the start of People Meters in 1987. Gibson anchored Monday through Thursday; Terry Moran anchored on Friday.
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The NBA and the NHL couldn't hold a candle to Howie Mandel and his briefcase-bearing babes last week.
Here's a look at the week's power plays and penalties:
WINNERS
"The Closer." More than 8 million viewers caught this Monday's second-season debut of TNT's crime drama -- the biggest audience ever for an ad-supported, scripted-series cablecast. The Kyra Sedgwick starrer pounded every broadcast program in its hour, except CBS's "Two and a Half Men."
"Windfall." The debut of NBC's winning-the-lottery-is-hell drama series snagged the largest audience for a summer drama in nearly six years, with just over 9 million tuning in. Now how many of the summer drama launches that "Windfall" beat do you even remember: "The Inside," "Empire," "The Days," "North Shore," "The Jury," "The OC," "Keen Eddie" (sob), "Widows," "She Spies" and "The Beast."
"Deal or No Deal." NBC's network-saving babes-with-briefcases reality series bid adieu to its first season with a record 18.2 million viewers. It was the week's most-watched program.
NBA Finals . Last week's Games 1 and 2, in which the Dallas Mavericks pulled ahead of the Miami Heat, averaged 12 million viewers -- 13 percent better than last year's Spurs-Pistons skirmish.
Tony Awards . Sure, 7.7 million viewers doesn't sound like a lot, but it's the Broadway trophy show's biggest haul since 2003.
"Entourage ." Sunday's season-opener averaged 2.7 million viewers -- up nearly 70 percent over last year's series premiere. But its lead-in, "Deadwood," averaged 2.4 million viewers -- down about 14 percent from its previous season debut in March. Later that night, the unveiling of HBO's first old-fashioned-only-raunchier sitcom, "Lucky Louie," logged 1.5 million viewers, fumbling more than 40 percent of its "Entourage" lead-in. And after that, "Dane Cook's Tourgasm" fell even further, to 1 million viewers.
Alma Awards . With an average of 4.2 million viewers, ABC's broadcast of this show honoring Latino artistic achievement scored twice as many viewers as the last time it aired, in 2002, also on ABC, on a Saturday night.
"Meerkat Manor." The debut of Animal Planet's 13-part series, in which cameras record a meerkat family as it struggles to survive in Africa's Kalahari Desert (" 'Hamlet' only hairier," according to network promos), averaged more than 1 million viewers from 8 to 9 p.m. Friday -- the network's biggest series debut in three years.
LOSERS
"Lovespring International." Lifetime's new improv comedy show averaged 996,000 viewers Monday at 11 p.m. The previous four-week average in the time slot with "Will & Grace" reruns: 1.2 million.
MTV Movie Awards. Yawn! -- collective opinion of more than 30 percent of last year's audience for the trying-way-too-hard trophy show, who gave it a pass this year. Among younger viewers it copped its smallest audience since 1997. Overall its haul was 3.2 million; as recently as 2002 the show was must-see TV, with an average of more than 7 million.
The week's 10 most-watched programs, in order, were: NBC's "Deal or No Deal"; CBS's "CSI"; ABC's NBA Finals Game 2; CBS's "CSI: Miami"; ABC's NBA Finals Game 1; CBS's "Without a Trace"; NBC's "Apprentice" Season 5 finale; Fox's Wednesday and Thursday "So You Think You Can Dance"; and CBS's "60 Minutes."
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