The Summer Television Critics Association press tour is underway in Beverly Hills. PBS continued its presentation today with several announcements:
* The new PBS World network will launch Aug. 15, with documentary, public affairs and news programming available 24/7. Series such as Nova, Frontline, Nature and more will be regularly featured on the channel, which will initially be offered in 20 major and mid-sized markets around the country.
* WordGirl — Premieres Sept. 7. Weekly animated series airing as part of PBS Kids. It follows the adventuresof fifth-grader Becky Botsford, who can transform into a superheroine and use vocabulary to defeat outlaws bent on “word” domination.
* The War — Premieres Sept. 23. The latest Ken Burns epic, about World War II told from an American perspective (read more about it in the September issue of Channel Guide magazine).
* Wired Science — Premieres Oct. 3. A one-hour series from Wired magazine about recent discoveries and latest innovations.
* Masterpiece Theater: The Complete Jane Austen — Premieres January 2008. A broadcast event featuring new presentations of Northanger Abbey, Persuasion, Mansfield Park and Sense and Sensibility, as well as the acclaimed versions of Emma, starring Kate Beckinsale, and Pride and Prejudice, starring Colin Firth.
* The Jewish Americans — Premieres January 2008. A chronicle about the struggle of a tiny minority to rise and achieve some of the greatest accomplishments in American history, the arts, commerce, science and academia.
* Pioneers of Television — Premieres January 2008. Nearly 100 stars from television’s formative years bring their stories to this four-part series, divided into categories such as “Sitcoms,” “Late-Night” and “Game Shows.”
* African American Lives 2 — Premieres February 2008. Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. will once again guide a group of celebrities — Maya Angelou, Dave Chappelle, Morgan Freeman, theologian Peter Gomes, publisher Linda Johnson Rice, Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Tom Joyner and Tina Turner — on a journey to discover their ancestries. Joining this distinguished group on a search for his or her roots is an “ordinary” person selected from over 2,000 applicants.
Presenting tomorrow at TCA: Lifetime, FX, National Geographic Channel, Hallmark Channel, HBO
