PBS: Click, Clack, and King Lear

PBS President Paula Kerger and WGBH President Jon Abbott came to the Globe this afternoon to meet with reporters and editors. Kerger, who marked her two-year anniversary in the job in March, talked about her vision for PBS, which she sees concentrating in three areas: public affairs, children's programming, and the arts.

Kerger and Abbott also talked about the ways that PBS is putting its content onto other platforms, such as iTunes, Hulu.com, and the free students'-service iTunesU (where biographies of U.S. presidents, culled from WGBH's "American Experience" series, represent some of the top downloads, Abbott said.)

As for what's specifically coming to PBS stations? Kerger wouldn't say for sure whether "Click and Clack's As the Wrench Turns," the animated sitcom about the Boston-based NPR show "Car Talk," would get a second season, though she did note that responses were decidedly mixed and that no new episodes have been ordered. And she said there has been no decision about what PBS will do when it airs a filmed version of the stage play "King Lear," starring Ian McKellen. The controversy: the play a full-frontal nudity scene, fearing McKellen. It's unclear, at this point, what the FCC will allow and what PBS is willing to risk for the sake of art (and for the sake of buzz and audience buildup, too).