John Dauphinee MacKnight of St. Stephen, NB., passed away at the Charlotte County Hospital, St. Stephen, NB, on February 22, 2012…

For those who wish, remembrances to Charlotte County Cancer or a charity of one’s choice would be appreciated by the family.

Condolences may be sent to the family online at:
www.mehanfuneralhome.ca.

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From CapeCodOnline.com

Vernon E. “Vern” Coleman passed away peacefully at home on March 18, 2012, after a long period with leukemia.

Coleman, a radio and television engineer, was a lifelong resident of Cape Cod. Born in Hyannis, he was the son of noted Cape artist and educator Vernon H. Coleman and Ruby E. Coleman.

A 1944 graduate of Barnstable High School, Mr. Coleman began a career in broadcasting in 1943 while still in high school at Cape Cod’s only radio station at the time, WOCB in West Yarmouth.

During the early 1960s he was employed as a member of the Department of Geophysics at WHOI (Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution) as a research assistant in electronics experimenting in underwater sound.

Mr. Coleman subsequently became involved in television broadcasting in the Boston area with WGBH-TV, Channel 2, where he worked fourteen years on the production of PBS programs such as The Boston Pops, Evening at Symphony, The French Chef with Julia Child, and numerous remote and studio presentations as audio producer and recordist.

In 1976, he was nominated for an Emmy Award for PBS production New Years’s Eve at Pops for the best live sound. He attended these ceremonies in Hollywood.

Television work also included eight years as staff engineer at WCVB-TV, Channel 5. During this time in Boston, Mr. Coleman was also in charge of engineering at Northeast Broadcasting School. Upon retirement from Channel 5, he continued working locally as a contract engineer for several Cape radio stations including WQRC, WOCN-FM, WFCC, WKPE, WXTK, and Boston University’s WBUR-AM. As a ten year volunteer he provided audio services for the Cape Cod March of Dimes Teleramas. He was a graduate of the Barnstable Police Academy and until recently he was a civilian volunteer for the Barnstable Police Department.

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By Nat Johnson – 3/5/2011

This story originally appeared in WGBH & Friends

Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.

It’s sunset on a Sunday afternoon. I’m eight years old and alone in our darkening living room, listening to a block of creepy radio mysteries crawling out of the Magnavox – Inner Sanctum, The Green Hornet, Lights Out, and the scariest of all, Orson Welles as “The Shadow.”

(Years later, I’d have strange, personal encounters with Welles himself, but that’s another story…)

As a boy, I’d spend hours seated at the console of our Magnavox – a magical machine with a 78 turntable and combo AM/shortwave radio – transfixed by its glowing green dial that drew me into its exotic world: Hong Kong, Paris, London, Tokyo. Strange music and foreign voices, rolling and fading like ocean surf, blending fragments of Morse code or teletype and eerie squeals and squalls, calling to me from somewhere … far out in the ether. This before FM and TV, and the LP, only just beginning to come into our homes.

1964. Fresh out of the army and back home from two years in Japan. I enrolled at the Longy School of Music and Emerson College, and began a part-time job at WBCN, starting on the graveyard shift –Saturdays from 4:00 PM until midnight.

Majoring in organ performance at Longy, I produced my own organ music series at WBCN, “The King of Instruments,” which I later shared with two college stations in Boston – WERS and WBUR. Years later, “The King” also ran briefly on WCRB before ending up at WGBH in 1967. When WGBH abruptly cancelled the show in the 1980’s, it went up on the bird to NPR stations in the Public Radio Cooperative. Long Live the King!

Me at the WBCN console (c. 1965)

Staffed by true music lovers, a few cranky Bostonians, and super-bright students from Harvard and MIT, there was no better place to work than WBCN, and no finer opportunity to learn the art of music broadcasting. WBCN had an unusually high-quality stereo signal and despite the makeshift apparatus that served as our broadcast console (see photo below), we were blessed with a magnificent Neumann condenser microphone (see photo) that made every announcer sound like a pro!

WBCN was the originator in a string of classical music FM stations on the east coast (the Concert Network) – and we were the Boston Station of the Concert Network. Others stations included WRFK in Virginia, WNCN in New York City, WDAS in Philadelphia, WMTW Mount Washington, New Hampshire, and WHCN in Hartford, Connecticut.

Broadcasts recorded in Boston were “tape-bicycled” to other member stations which worked pretty well, except when the automated Hartford station started playing our Christmas-week programs in July. For economic considerations, WHCN had no “live” announcers. Money was constantly a worry for everyone.

By 1967, WBCN was nearly broke and our blissful existence as devil-may-care broadcast mavericks was coming to an end. WBCN underwent a format switch from classical music to “middle-of-the-road,” so time to move on – to WGBH. Volunteering in the summer of ‘67, I teamed up with Fred Barzyk and Olivia Tappan on their experimental TV series, “What’s Happening, Mr. Silver?”

One night, David Silver, Fred and Olivia visited me at WGBH. They had brought along a brand-new, just-released album by the Beatles: Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. That night, I decided to break with WBCN’s traditionally classical format to air for the first in America, a stereo broadcast of the album. Listeners were astounded – and generally seemed quite captivated.

I aired, for the first time in America, a stereo broadcast of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Listeners were astounded – and generally seemed quite captivated.

In December of 1967, with just one-hundred people on staff, I was officially hired at WGBH. My new boss, Bill Busiek, informed me WGBH wanted to continue my organ program and that I could fill in as a part-time announcer, but that I would be paid as an audio engineer – the position for which I was actually hired. Until my move to TV five years later, WGBH Radio seemed the ideal job, although a few quietly questioned whether newcomer Nat Johnson really ought to be wearing so many hats!

Soon after I was hired, ‘GBH-FM built its first “combo” studio whereby on-air-talent could “spin” their own records. I became the first “combo” operator, but that too raised some eyebrows and garnered more grumbles.

The compact-disc era had just begun, so WGBH bought a player. One morning, I aired the first compact-disc ever broadcast on WGBH, but only a few minutes in, it stuck – repeating a passage over and over and over. Fortunately, a listener called in to suggest the problem was probably only dust, or a fingerprint! I took the disc out of the player, apologized to the audience, explained what I was about to do and after cleaning the disc, it played successfully.

For two years, I hosted the weekend edition of Morning Pro Musica, beginning at 7:00 AM, until the indefatigable Robert J. Lurtsema arrived and took over the program in a seven day-a-week marathon. By then, I was happy to rescue my social life on weekends, and be allowed the luxury of sleeping-in on Sunday mornings.

Radio Drama

In 1968, a year after I joined, WGBH-FM received grant money from the NEH, the NEA and the Old Dominion Foundation to produce, record, and distribute 13 radios dramas on LP to educational stations around the country. Joan Sullivan and Lyon Todd produced and directed, Bob Carey and Bill Busiek were the principal audio engineers, and I assisted. With my ongoing interest in radio drama, this was the ideal situation to learn, experiment and apprentice. There was nothing like it then, and probably never will be again.

So, in the winter of 1967, I landed at WGBH – and just in the nick of time. WGBH had just been awarded funding for its proposed series of 13 radio dramas, to be distributed in a 13-LP boxed-set to “educational” stations around the country. The radio drama production teams worked in Studio 1 and out of the adjoining FM Sub-Master Control. The rest of us lived in what was called FM Master Control.

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In addition, WGBH produced a heavy schedule of live and taped concerts and lectures from around Boston and Cambridge (including the BSO and Boston Pops), the Gardner Museum and New England Conservatory of Music, Sanders Theater at Harvard, Kresge Auditorium at MIT. We broadcast Ford Hall Forum live from Jordan Hall, plus news, poetry, studio recitals, guest lecturers and recorded programs from the BBC and CBC. WGBH Radio was a wealth of significant cultural activity and a very busy, very happy place to be.

Then, in 1970, shortly after WGBH issued its boxed LP set of radio dramas, another bit of luck: I was chosen to represent WGBH at series of radio drama workshops at the National Center for Audio Experimentation at WHA in Madison, Wisconsin.

These amazing workshops, conducted by Desmond Briscoe of the BBC, were attended by public radio representatives from around the country.

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Besides me, there was representation from WILL Radio, University of Illinois; WYSO, Yellow Springs, Ohio; KBYU, Brigham Young University, Utah; KEBS-FM, San Diego State College; KOAC Radio, Oregon; WFCR, Amherst, Mass; KPFA Berkeley, WRVR New York City and WUHY, Philadelphia. WHA Madison and Radio Hall at the University was the host station and provided faculties for our study and actual production.

Much of our day was spent in the studio, reading and recording the assigned radio play, creating sound-effects on a table-top Putney Synthesizer, and then the final mix and editing. Oh yes, in those days editing was still on ¼” tape, cut by a razor blade on a splicing block and then glued together with splicing tape. The afternoons were dedicated listening times, during which Desmond Briscoe played us classic BBC radio dramas.

The play for our group was by Tom Stoppard: “The Dissolution of Dominic Boot.”

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These were heady days and over our horizons, the future looked brilliant indeed.

Epilogue

It was at WGBH I first met Fred Friendly, Edward R. Murrow’s producer at CBS, who spoke to us one memorable afternoon in TV Studio A about the dream about to be birthed for the future of radio and TV. In his talk to us, he called it “the Public Broadcasting Laboratory.”

The last time I saw Fred, many years later, we were both in Grand Central Station and in a hurry to catch trains. I stopped, said hello and reminded him of his visit to WGBH (arranged by GM Hartford Gunn, since departed) and of the dream they had shared with us.

Fred was so pleased, and thanked me for remembering. Yet, I could not help but detect a slight wistfulness to his tone, for I think we both knew that times were changing and that perhaps not every part of the dream was to be realized. I don’t remember exactly what we discussed but at the time, I thought I noted a brief flicker of sadness behind that wide and Friendly smile.

At this post, we are aware that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of ignorant, misguided, misinformed individuals and legislators throughout America who want to defund NPR and PBS, sink them forever, and destroy the legacy of quality broadcasting so many worked so hard for so many years to create.

If nothing else, I hope this little blog [WGBH & Friends] will be useful, and perhaps inspirational, to those read it and might choose to participate in the fray.

From Dan Beach

Here is Jean Shepherd on the dock behind the Museum of Science for his first TV show with Fred Barzyk. With him is a ‘GBH Staffer Margy Pacsu. It was taken in 1961, probably in October.

• Read the whole story from Fred Barzyk

From Mark Steele – 2/5/2012

I started working at WGBH in 1986 in the online editing room where we finished most of the shows that aired on PBS: This Old House, The Victory Garden, Masterpiece Theatre, FRONTLINE, Mystery, NOVA, Evening at Pops, Championship Ballroom Dancing, and An Evening of Championship Skating to name a few.

I saw the beginning of New Yankee Workshop, The American Experience, The Aids Quarterly, Antiques Roadshow, Long Ago and Far Away, Adventure, Nova Science Now. We used the room do the first live transmission for The Bridge between the Soviet Union and the United States.

• Read Mark’s profile and comments

From AnnArbor.com

Stewart Leanny White, age 76, died at his Ann Arbor home on January 25, 2012.

Stewart was born on April 14, 1935 and raised outside of Philadelphia in Media, Pennsylvania. He graduated from Media High School in 1953, from Penn State University in 1957 and from Boston University in 1959. He served in the US Army at Walter Reed Hospital.

At Boston University, Stewart made lifelong friends working at WGBH, where he did a news, sports and weather show. He liked to boast that he had the second highest rated news show in Boston public radio at the time (there were two).

Stewart worked for Smith, Klein and French in video/communications in the 1960s, and was recruited to do similar work at the University of Michigan Dental School in 1969. In 1977 he transitioned to the UM Medical School as director of Biomedical Communications. He retired in 1995…

There will be a celebration of his life, as per his wishes, in mid-March 2012. Those wishing to make a tangible gift in Stewart’s memory can do so by donating to the Penn State Alumni Association/Michigan chapter scholarship fund, or the annual Ann Arbor winter coat drive.

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From Current.org

"Rights for Downton Abbey were believed to be caught in a heated budget dispute. But the series aired to great effect."

PBS’s ongoing negotiations to curb per-hour costs of producing programs and to assert more control over content are increasing friction with its largest producer, Boston’s powerhouse WGBH, according to sources at other stations with knowledge of the situation.

For a period until just four days before the second-season premiere of the gem of this season’s PBS schedule, Downton Abbey from Masterpiece Classic, the approval of PBS broadcast rights for the series hung in the balance as WGBH protested the network’s contract demands.

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From the Boston Globe — 1/27/2012

Alex Beam. Image from IdentityTheory.com

By any metric, “Downton’’ has hit a home run. Nationally, it has more than doubled PBS’s prime-time audience. Locally, “Downton’’ is enjoying a 5.8 rating, twice as high as “Masterpiece Classic’’ ratings last year. It is too early to know if that translates into increased memberships or pledge commitments for WGBH…

I loved the first season of “Downton,’’ with its obsessive attention to the “law of the entail,’’ which forbad the earl’s daughters from inheriting their father’s magnificent property…

Season two has a phoned-in quality; miracles occur where skillful writing might have intervened, subplots wax and wane randomly. But I am an originalist snob. I’m one of those people who can’t understand why anyone would watch NBC’s “The Office,’’ a show stolen character for character for character and situation for situation from Ricky Gervais’s much funnier British show. But what the heck, it’s television.

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• Image from IdentityTheory.com profile

From Fred Barzyk

Paul Benedict, David Wheeler (right) with Al Pacino (front).

David Wheeler and his company performed many of their stage plays in WGBH studios under the direction of Greg Harney. It was a real collaboration between a theater director and TV director. It was great for both our audience and helped to bring theater goers to Wheeler’s stage plays.

From the Boston Globe — 1/4/2012

David Wheeler, a towering figure in the history of Boston theater, died yesterday at the age of 86….

As a founder and artistic director of the Theatre Company of Boston from 1963 to 1975, Wheeler brought a spirit of adventure to a then-staid local theater scene. He worked with such young actors as Al Pacino, Dustin Hoffman, Robert De Niro, Stockard Channing, Blythe Danner, Jon Voight, and Robert Duvall early in their careers, before they went on to stardom. “I had five Academy Award winners almost right in a row,’’ he recalled in an interview with the Globe last April.

At Harvard University, Wheeler’s students included Matt Damon, who took his Introduction to Theater Arts class, as well as a directing class.

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From the Boston Globe — 1/6/2012

Al Pacino, one of countless actors whose careers were nurtured by the pioneering Boston theater director David Wheeler, once described him this way to the Globe: “He’s with you like no one I ever worked with – he’s with you in the play; he’s with you in the part. He’s in the struggle with you. He’s always there, through everything….”

“David Wheeler has been one of the lights of my life. He has been there for me throughout and seen me go from a penniless actor who he supported with real generosity, heart and love under his tutelage, inspiration, and guidance. His gift was his ability to move with the actor, to allow the freedom necessary for the actor to express wherever his or her gifts led them. At the same time, he was an advocate for the play and the production. Anyone would tell you his approach was different. He was so individual. His eccentricities, knowledge and intellect are something I will prize forever because they were ego-less. I don’t think I’ve ever met a man or woman more unique. He was who he was and as you go on in life you find people like him are rarities.

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From the New York Times — 1/02/2012

In an effort to freshen its image and lift revenue, the Public Broadcasting Service is trying to be more like HBO — without the monthly cable bill….

Emboldened by the success of the British period drama “Downton Abbey,” one of the most critically acclaimed shows on television, PBS now faces the challenge of translating the buzz and enthusiasm for the show into donations to local stations and public financing. A stodgy pledge drive or traditional pleas for contributions would probably fall flat with viewers. So, PBS decided to fit “Downton Abbey,” which begins its second season on Sunday, into a broader effort to spruce up its prime-time lineup.

“As you know, HBO has tremendous marketing and advertising muscle behind it,” said executive producer Rebecca Eaton. “When a program like ‘Downton Abbey’ wins, its because it stands on its merits.”

The goal is to attract new viewers to PBS and make audiences think of public television more like the top-tier programming of HBO, Showtime, and other channels they are willing to pay for. “Think of PBS and the local stations as premium television on the honors system,” said John Wilson, senior vice president and chief television programming executive at PBS….

“Downton Abbey,” which follows an aristocratic English family and its nosy staff at a sprawling estate on the cusp of World War I, was first shown on ITV in Britain. It slowly built an audience in the United States after critics called it a “delightful romp.” Viewers who didn’t typically watch PBS tuned in.

The first season, consisting of four 90-minute episodes, had a nightly average of 4.9 million viewers, in contrast to 1.9 million viewers on an average night on PBS stations, according to Nielsen. The number of women ages 25 to 54 who watch “Masterpiece,” which typically has an average age of 64, was up 56 percent during “Downton Abbey.” More than one million viewers, mostly from the ages of 18 to 49, streamed “Downton Abbey” on PBS.org or via Netflix.

“It was the closest thing to water-cooler television as public television gets,” said Rebecca Eaton, executive producer of Masterpiece, produced by WGBH Boston….

Originally envisioned as a mini-series, “Downton Abbey” had such success that the writer, Julian Fellowes, agreed to do additional seasons. The second season begins in 1916 and will run for seven episodes. Its September premiere in Britain averaged more than nine million viewers or roughly a 35 percent share….

PBS doesn’t expect “Downton” to immediately lead to an influx of cash, and still plans to push shows like “Nova” and “Antiques Roadshow” in prime time.

• Excerpts from the New York Times
• Image from the LA Times