Also launching today, the PBS Antiques Roadshow game app, available for the iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, lets players virtually collect, appraise and bid on real antiques with new collectibles from different cities added regularly.

“With a huge library from nearly 360 member stations and 1500 public media producers, PBS is delivering a rich on-demand experience and is now one of the first broadcasters to bring full-length video to the iPhone,” said Jason Seiken, SVP, PBS Interactive, Product Development and Innovation. “There has been increasing demand for our content on other platforms – the PBS video player averages 22 minutes viewing time per program among audiences 18+ and ranks 19th among video sites, with more than 104 million streams. In addition, PBSKIDS.org is the #1 children’s video site in streams and unique users, according to comScore.”

The PBS App for the iPhone and iPod touch features more than 300 hours of free video, including full-length programming from FRONTLINE, PBS Newshour, and others, as well as scheduling details, previews, and a new tune-in reminder calendar that can be synced with iCal. This app was developed by PBS and Bottle Rocket Apps and comes on the heels of the already successful PBS App for iPad.

Based on the popular television series, the Antiques Roadshow App brings out the expert collector and appraiser in every Roadshow fan. Dozens of unique game challenges let players collect and store hundreds of virtual antiques based on images of real objects and actual values. Players appraise and learn about each item’s history and value. Expert players can unlock a free play mode and scoop up extra rare items for their treasure chest.

“Antiques Roadshow remains a huge hit on-air, and local events draw large crowds. The series is part adventure, part history and part treasure hunt, and now the app takes it to another level, allowing players to become antiques dealers-in-training,” said Marsha Bemko, Executive Producer, Antiques Roadshow. “No more waiting in line to get in. We’ve granted VIP access passes to everyone to indulge their inner appraiser.”

The PBS App is available for free from the App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

The Antiques Roadshow App is available for $2.99 from the App Store on iPad, iPhone and iPod touch, or at www.itunes.com/appstore.

Dame Judi Dench, Sir Patrick Stewart, Michael Gambon and Jonathan Pryce all received nominations in the acting categories for their performances in PBS programs.

* MASTERPIECE received 12 nominations, including 7 for “Return to Cranford” and 4 for “Emma”;
* THE NATIONAL PARKS: AMERICA’S BEST IDEA received 5 nominations;
* AMERICAN EXPERIENCE received 3 nominations;
* GREAT PERFORMANCES received 2 nominations;
* IN PERFORMANCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE received 2 nominations; and
* POV received 2 nominations.

In addition, AMERICAN MASTERS, ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, THE BUDDHA, CELTIC WOMAN: SONGS FROM THE HEART, WHEN FAMILIES GRIEVE and INDEPENDENT LENS all received nominations.

PBS’ 32 nominations are more than A&E, Bravo, Discovery Channel and History combined. Last year, PBS received 26 nominations and won 9 Primetime Emmys.

Winners in the creative arts categories will be announced on Friday, August 27; this awards presentation will be televised on E!. The Primetime Emmys live telecast for the remainder of the categories will be Sunday, September 29 at 8 p.m. ET on NBC.

The story airs as the second of three magazine-length segments in this week’s episode of FRONTLINE/World. In advance of the broadcast, we are previewing the segment on the Web and inviting viewers to post questions and comments. Davidson will be responding to the postings the day of the broadcast: today, June 29,  from  11 a.m. to noon.

Preview the segment and post questions here

POV’s regular season of Tuesday broadcasts begins June 22, 2010 with Emily and Sarah Kunstler’s William Kunstler: Disturbing the Universe, which examines the life of this radical attorney from a surprising angle. Kunstler’s two daughters from his second marriage grew up lionizing a man already famous for his historic civil rights and anti-war cases. Then, in their teens, they began to be disillusioned by a stubborn man who continued representing some of the most reviled defendants in America — this time accused rapists and terrorists. In this intimate biography, the filmmakers seek to recover the real story of what made their late father one of the most beloved, and hated, lawyers in America.

This season POV will partner with StoryCorps to present a selection of animated documentary shorts based on StoryCorps’ groundbreaking oral-history project. StoryCorps was founded by MacArthur Fellow Dave Isay in 2003 and their broadcasts on National Public Radio have become the gold standard in public radio broadcasting. Six documentary animations will air this summer with selected feature-length POV films.

POV’s summer schedule includes The Beaches of Agnès, airing on June 29. In this delightful memoir, pioneering French filmmaker Agnès Varda (“Vagabond,” “Cléo From 5 to 7”) employs all the magic of cinema to juxtapose the real and the imagined, the past and the present, pain and joy. For the 81-year-old artist, memories live through her films. In The Beaches of Agnès, she uses film clips, old photos and gorgeous reenactments to revisit her Belgian youth, association with the French New Wave, marriage to director Jacques Demy (“The Umbrellas of Cherbourg”) and the making of her movies. You don’t need to know anything about Varda to enjoy this enchanting glimpse into the treasure chest of her memories.

POV presents two films looking at different aspects of life, politics and economics in Africa. Though apartheid ended in South Africa in 1994, economic injustices between blacks and whites remain unresolved. As revealed in Yoruba Richen’s incisive Promised Land, on July 6, the most potentially explosive issue is land. The film follows two black communities as they struggle to reclaim land from white owners, some of whom who have lived there for generations. Amid rising tensions and wavering government policies, the land issue remains South Africa’s “ticking time bomb,” with far-reaching consequences for all sides. Promised Land captures multiple perspectives of citizens struggling to create just solutions. A co-production of the National Black Programming Consortium, American Documentary/POV and the Diverse Voices Project, with funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Landon Van Soest’s Good Fortune in July is a provocative exploration of how massive international efforts to alleviate poverty may be undermining the very communities they aim to benefit. In Kenya’s rural countryside, Jackson’s farm is being flooded by an American investor who hopes to alleviate poverty by creating a multimillion-dollar rice farm. Across the country in Nairobi, Silva’s home and business in Africa’s largest shantytown are being demolished as part of a U.N. slum-upgrading project. The gripping stories of two Kenyans battling to save their homes from large-scale development present a unique opportunity see foreign aid through eyes of the people it is intended to help.

Also in July, POV turns to Latin America with El General. Past and present collide as award-winning filmmaker Natalia Almada (Al Otro Lado, POV 2006) brings to life audio recordings she inherited from her grandmother, daughter of Plutarco Elias Calles, a revolutionary general who became Mexico’s president in 1924. In his time, Calles was called El Jefe Maximo (Foremost Chief). Today he is remembered as El Quema-Curas (Priest Burner) and as a dictator who ruled through puppet presidents until his exile in 1936. Airing during the centennial of the Mexican Revolution, El General moves between a daughter’s memories as she grapples with history’s portrayal of her father and the weight of his legacy on Mexico today.
Presumed Guilty, a film by Roberto Hernández and Layda Negrete, tells a harrowing tale of a justice system turned on its head. Imagine being picked up off the street, told you have committed a murder you know nothing about and then finding yourself sentenced to 20 years in jail. In December 2005 this happened to Toño Zúñiga in Mexico City and, like thousands of other innocent people, he was wrongfully imprisoned. The award-winning Presumed Guilty is the story of two young lawyers and their struggle to free Zúñiga. With no background in film, Hernández and Negrete set about recording the injustices they were witnessing, enlisting acclaimed director Geoffrey Smith (The English Surgeon, POV 2009) to tell this dramatic story.

A cross-media initiative built around a wide community of journalists and producers, with input from a savvy engaged audience, Need To Know on PBS will cover five primary beats: the economy, the environment and energy, health, national security and culture. Stories, interviews, blogs, video and photo features will offer ongoing updates online, with the production teams inviting interaction and input from users who are on the lookout for the latest information on a given subject.

Each week’s online story development will culminate in the weekly one-hour broadcast, curated from the week’s reporting by the various beat teams and co-anchored by Stewart and Meacham. The broadcast will feature documentary-style field reports, from both domestic and international locales, short features and studio-based interviews and conversation to complement and advance the produced reports.

Alison Stewart
Most recently Alison Stewart was the founding host of NPR’s breakthrough multiplatform news program, “The Bryant Park Project,” the first public radio news program to seamlessly incorporate audio, video and social media.  She also guest hosted the network’s flagship programs “Weekend Edition” and “Talk of the Nation.
Stewart began her career as a political reporter and producer for MTV’s critically acclaimed and influential “Choose or Lose” coverage of the 1992 and 1996 Presidential elections, receiving a Peabody Award for her work.
Today, Stewart is an accomplished, award-winning broadcast journalist with credentials from CBS News, ABC News, and NBC News. While at MSNBC, she created and hosted the show “The Most,” a news program based on the most popular news on the web. During her six years at MSNBC, Alison anchored major news events including Hurricane Katrina, the Hezbollah/Israel conflict, and reported live from the 2006 Olympics in Torino, Italy. Stewart also contributed to “NBC Nightly News,” “The Today Show” and “Weekend Today,” where she was also a newsreader.

While at ABC, Stewart served as anchor for ABC News’ “World News Now.” She reported live from the World Trade Center and received an Emmy as part of ABC News’ coverage of September 11th terrorist attacks.  Prior to working for ABC News, Stewart was a correspondent for CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” and “48 Hours.”

In 2009, Stewart was named one of “The Root 100,” recognizing emerging and established African American leaders. Alison is working on a book about the first high school for African Americans in the United States.

Jon Meacham
Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and the editor of Newsweek. He arrived at the magazine as a writer in 1995, became national affairs editor that year, was named managing editor in 1998 and was appointed to his current position in 2006.

His book American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House was published by Random House in November 2008.  It debuted at #2 on The New York Times bestseller list and became a Times Notable Book. On April 20, 2009, American Lion was awarded the Pulitzer Prize.

Meacham is also the author of two other New York Times bestsellers—American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation and Franklin and Winston: An Intimate Portrait of an Epic Friendship, about the wartime relationship between Roosevelt and Churchill.  In 2009, Meacham was elected to the Society of American Historians and serves on its executive board.

He has written for The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, Slate, and The Los Angeles Times Book Review. In 2001, he edited Voices in Our Blood: America’s Best on the Civil Rights Movement (Random House), a collection of distinguished nonfiction about the mid-century struggle against Jim Crow.  He has served as a judge for the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award and was awarded the Hubert H. Humphrey First Amendment Freedoms Prize by the Anti-Defamation League.

A member of the Council on Foreign Relations,  he received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale University in 2005 and holds three other honorary doctorates.

With Moyer’s retirement comes a new public affairs program on Friday nights. Need to Know will cover five primary news beats: the economy; the environment and energy; health; national security; and culture.Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and Newsweek editor Jon Meacham will co-anchor Need to Know, which will debut nationally on May 7th. Meacham recently taped an episode of KLRU’s Texas Monthly Talks. To watch that complete episode or to learn more go to klru.org/texasmonthlytalks

Newsweek Editor Jon Meacham – Q&A Session from Texas Monthly Talks on Vimeo.

This 3-part series represents what television does best. It opens a window into real lives, exploring ways to improve our social relationships, cope with emotional issues, and become more positive, resilient individuals. Hosted by Daniel Gilbert, Harvard psychologist and best-selling author of Stumbling on Happiness.

Each episode weaves together the compelling personal stories of ordinary people and the latest scientific research along with revealing comments from celebrities like Chevy Chase, Larry David, Alanis Morissette, Robert Kennedy, Jr., and Richard Gere.

Episode 1: Monday, Jan. 4, at 8 p.m.
The first episode, Family, Friends & Lovers, looks at the importance of relationships and why they are central to our emotional well-being.

Episode 2: Tuesday, Jan. 5, at 8 p.m.
In the second episode, Facing Our Fears, we look at emotions that are commonly regarded as obstacles to happiness — such as anger, fear, anxiety, and despair.

Episode 3: Wednesday, Jan. 6, at 8 p.m.
The last episode, Rethinking Happiness, explores happiness. It is so critical to our well-being, and, yet, it remains such an elusive goal for many of us.