Quick Takes: PBS head clings to KCET

PBS executives are in active discussions with cash-strapped KCET-TV Channel 28 to keep the Los Angeles station a vibrant part of public television, PBS President Paula Kerger said Wednesday during the semiannual TV press tour in Beverly Hills.

In town to tout her new slate of national programming, Kerger took a reporter’s question about KCET’s precarious financial situation, which was reported in The Times Wednesday. Station executives, hit hard by a drop in contributions and intense competition from other channels, are weighing leaving the PBS network and going independent, among other options.

“We have worked with KCET for 40 years, and I hope we work with them for another 40 years,” said Kerger. “That’s my intention.”

—Martin Miller

Robbins’ show pulled, replaced

Tony Robbins’ reality show has been pulled from NBC’s schedule after just two airings.

The network said Wednesday that reruns of the game show “Minute to Win It” will claim the Tuesday-night slot vacated by “Breakthrough With Tony Robbins.”

The Nielsen Co. said this week’s airing of “Breakthrough” drew an audience of only 2.8 million viewers. The series, in which inspirational speaker Robbins helped couples overcome tough challenges, had been scheduled for six episodes.

—Associated Press

TV academy’s Governors picks

Veteran talent agent Norman Brokaw and the Ad Council were named Wednesday as this year’s recipients of the Governors Award from the board of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. They’ll be honored in conjunction with the Emmy Awards this month.

The Governors Award is bestowed on “an individual, company or organization that has made a substantial impact and demonstrated the extraordinary use of television.”

Brokaw began working at the William Morris Agency in 1943 and is credited with helping steer many of its star clients into the fledgling television industry, such as Loretta Young. The Ad Council is a nonprofit organization that is the country’s leading producer of public-service announcements.

—From a Times staff writer

Late-period Dali, remember this?

A new exhibition opening exclusively in Atlanta explores artist Salvador Dali’s late work, including several major pieces that haven’t been seen in the U.S. in half a century.

Dali is best known as a surrealist, his melting watches an iconic image of that movement. But after about 10 years, his relationship with that group grew strained in the late 1930s for a variety of reasons, artistic and political. “Salvador Dali: The Late Work,” opening at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta on Saturday, focuses on the period from 1940 to 1983.

“It’s become a really interesting area for investigation because you have Dali’s career, which spans almost all of the 20th century, but historically people have really only looked at the 1930s,” said exhibition curator Elliott King. “It was almost like he died in 1940.”

Among the works on view are “The Madonna of Port-Lligat,” which is on loan from Japan and hasn’t been seen in the U.S. since 1951; “Santiago El Grande,” an homage to St. James that is on loan from Canada and hasn’t traveled since 1959; and “Christ of St. John of the Cross,” which hasn’t voyaged to the U.S. from its home in Scotland since 1965.

—Associated Press

‘Tattoo’ gal goes boxing this year

The three volumes of Stieg Larsson’s wildly popular Millennium Trilogy — “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” “The Girl Who Played with Fire” and “The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest” — will be released as a box set, with an additional book about the author, in time for the holidays, publisher Knopf has announced. It will retail for $99.

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FOR THE RECORD:
Stieg Larsson: A Quick Takes item in Thursday’s Calendar section about the release of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy in a boxed set said that the author died of cancer in 2004. He died of a heart attack. —

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The three books make up the complete set of mysteries featuring Lisbeth Salander, an edgy computer hacker, and journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Written in Swedish by Larsson, a journalist who died of cancer in 2004, the books are reported to have sold more than 25 million copies worldwide.

—Carolyn Kellogg

Finally

Streisand salute: The Recording Academy and the MusiCares Foundation will salute Barbra Streisand in February as the 2011 MusiCares Person of the Year, honoring her creative accomplishments and philanthropic work.

Academy leader: Veteran film executive Tom Sherak has been reelected to his second term as president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

Plastic dates: Yoko Ono’s long-running Plastic Ono Band, which she and Sean Ono Lennon revived last year after a long hiatus, will perform Oct. 1-2 at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles.