Public Broadcasting Service

They made viewers laugh, stay up late, sing along and play games. How personalities such as Lucille Ball, Jack Paar and Merv Griffin influenced the small screen is explored in "Pioneers of Television," a new PBS miniseries that starts Wednesday. The four programs -- covering sitcoms, late-night shows, variety shows and game shows -- include hundreds of clips and the observations of small-screen pioneers and people who knew them.

PBS has awarded documentary filmmaker Ken Burns an unprecedented 15-year contract to continue providing public television stations with his signature films on American history. "What that represents is an extraordinary commitment from Ken that signals he plans to spend the rest of his professional life working with public television," said PBS President and Chief Executive Paula Kerger in an announcement Saturday to the semiannual gathering of the Television Critics Assn. in Pasadena.

When reporters speak, PBS listens. In January, journalists at the Television Critics Assn. tour questioned the wisdom of PBS launching Ken Burns' series "The War" on Sept. 17 -- the same week commercial networks debut their new fall programs. Since that week is dedicated to coverage of broadcast premieres, PBS would get leftover space, if any at all, they said. One week either before or after would give "War" more coverage, they said.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Barksdale Reading Institute have pledged a combined $11 million to fund the PBS Kids' series "Between the Lions," a learn-to-read program with high success rates in poor, rural communities. Several university studies have shown increases in literacy skills among children who watched the program at schools in Kansas, Mississippi and New Mexico.

PBS promised Wednesday to amend Ken Burns' upcoming documentary series on World War II to include stories about Latino veterans after activists complained he ignored their contributions to the American effort. Burns has also agreed to hire a Latino producer to help create the additional content, PBS said. The 14-hour documentary, "The War," is scheduled to premiere in September.

"Operation Homecoming," a documentary running Monday as part of PBS' "America at a Crossroads" series, offers a searing look at war through the personal writings of soldiers, including a profanity-laced description of a bloody firefight in Iraq. But except for in a handful of communities around the country, viewers tuning in to watch the one-hour film won't hear all of the language used by the troops.

PBS has hired a Latino documentarian to assist filmmaker Ken Burns with his upcoming World War II series, which had drawn complaints for failing to include the contributions of Latinos. Hector Galan, a film and television producer from Austin, Texas, will be brought in to assist Burns with the 14-hour series, which has already been produced and is scheduled for release in September. Galan produced the 1996 series "Chicano! History of the Mexican American Civil Rights Movement" for PBS.

Academy Award-winning director Jonathan Demme and PBS' Tavis Smiley will team up every night next week to present Demme's series on the post-Katrina efforts of various New Orleans residents as they try to reclaim their homes, neighborhoods, lives and livelihoods. "Right to Return: New Home Movies From the Lower 9th Ward" was filmed in New Orleans during 2006, leading into January of this year.

After a year on the hot seat as president and chief executive of the Public Broadcasting Service, Paula Kerger admitted this week that she was "still trembling" as she answered questions from reporters and critics. She had this to say about the network's most controversial issues: * Ken Burns' much-anticipated 14- or 15-hour (or 14 1/2 -hour) documentary, "The War," is still being edited, but it will have three new stories from the Latino and Native American perspectives woven through it.

PBS collected 22 nominations Tuesday to lead the field in the running for the 28th annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards. CBS followed with 19 nominations, ABC received 15, and NBC got 14. The only other outlets with more than two nominations were CNN and HBO, which each garnered six, and Cinemax and the History Channel, which each nabbed five. Fox News Channel didn't enter the competition.