''Worldfocus'' was an American

newscast News broadcasting is the medium of broadcasting various news events and other information via television, radio, or the internet in the field of broadcast journalism. The content is usually either produced locally in a radio studio or telev ...

focused on international

news News is information about current events. This may be provided through many different Media (communication), media: word of mouth, printing, Mail, postal systems, broadcasting, Telecommunications, electronic communication, or through the tes ...

and reporting. The newscast was originally anchored by

Martin Savidge Martin "The Savage" Savidge (born May 27, 1958) is a Canadian-American television news correspondent. Savidge worked for NBC News and was a special correspondent and former anchor for public television's '' Worldfocus'' nightly news program in t ...

and later hosted by

Daljit Dhaliwal Daljit Dhaliwal (born 8 September 1962) is a British newsreader and television presenter. Dhaliwal is a former news presenter for the Al-Jazeera English news service that broadcast from Washington DC. Previously, she was the anchor chair of ...

. It was produced by

WNET WNET (channel 13), branded on-air as "Thirteen" (stylized as "THIRTEEN"), is a primary PBS member television station licensed to Newark, New Jersey, United States, serving the New York City area. Owned by The WNET Group (formerly known as the ...

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

and distributed to U.S.

public television Public broadcasting involves radio, television and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service. Public broadcasters receive funding from diverse sources including license fees, individual contributions, public financing ...

stations by

American Public Television American Public Television (APT) is an American nonprofit organization and syndicator of programming for public television stations in the United States. It distributes public television programs nationwide for PBS member stations and independ ...

. It ceased broadcasting on April 2, 2010.

History and operation

The program launched on October 6, 2008, in many cases replacing ''

BBC World News BBC World News is an international English-language pay television network, operated under the ''BBC Global News Limited'' division of the BBC, which is a public corporation of the UK government's Department for Digital, Culture, Media and S ...

'', which continued to air on some public TV stations; following the cancelation of ''Worldfocus'', many of the stations that had dropped the BBC program have since resumed carrying it. ''Worldfocus'' was not part of the national

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

schedule and did not air on all U.S. public TV stations. '' Worldfocus'' was a "testing ground", and "important laboratory" for new digital production techniques. The program uses a number of producers and reporters from a variety of international media sources. News stories and video segments are used from:

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster ** Disney–ABC Television ...

Al Jazeera English Al Jazeera English (AJE; ar, الجزيرة‎, translit=al-jazīrah, , literally "The Peninsula", referring to the Qatar Peninsula) is an international 24-hour English-language news channel owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network, which is own ...

Asian News International Asian News International (ANI) is an Indian news agency that offers syndicated multimedia news feed to news-bureaus in India and elsewhere. Established by Prem Prakash in 1971, it was the first agency in India to syndicate video news and , is t ...

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...

Channel 2 (Israel) Channel 2 ( he, ערוץ שתיים, Arutz Shtaim), also called "The Second Channel" ( he, הערוץ השני, HaArutz HaSheni) was an Israeli commercial television channel. It started doing experimental broadcasts funded by the television tax. ...

Channel 10 (Israel) Channel 10 ( he, ערוץ עשר, translit=Arutz Eser), formerly known as Israel 10 ( he, ישראל 10, translit=Yisra'el Eser), was an Israeli free-to-air television channel. Operating under the auspices of The Second Authority for Televisio ...

the Christian Science Monitor ''The Christian Science Monitor'' (''CSM''), commonly known as ''The Monitor'', is a nonprofit news organization that publishes daily articles in electronic format as well as a weekly print edition. It was founded in 1908 as a daily newspaper ...

Deutsche Welle Deutsche Welle (; "German Wave" in English), abbreviated to DW, is a German public, state-owned international broadcaster funded by the German federal tax budget. The service is available in 32 languages. DW's satellite television service con ...

, ITN,

LinkTV Link TV, originally WorldLink TV, is a non-commercial American satellite television network providing what it describes as "diverse perspectives on world and national issues." It is carried nationally on DirecTV (ch. 375) and Dish Network (ch. ...

NBC News NBC News is the news division of the American broadcast television network NBC. The division operates under NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, a division of NBCUniversal, which is, in turn, a subsidiary of Comcast. The news division's var ...

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

NHK , also known as NHK, is a Japanese public broadcaster. NHK, which has always been known by this romanized initialism in Japanese, is a statutory corporation funded by viewers' payments of a television license fee. NHK operates two terrestr ...

, and

Rede Globo TV Globo (, "Globe TV", or simply Globo), formerly known as Rede Globo, is a Brazilian free-to-air Television broadcasting, television network, launched by media proprietor Roberto Marinho on 26 April 1965. It is owned by media conglomerate Gr ...

Awards and changes to show

Worldfocus received

Emmy The Emmy Awards, or Emmys, are an extensive range of awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international television industry. A number of annual Emmy Award ceremonies are held throughout the calendar year, each with the ...

nominations for its broadcast series ''Crisis in Congo'', as "Best story in a regularly scheduled newscast", and ''21st Century Africa'', as "Outstanding feature story in a regularly scheduled broadcast". ''Crisis in Congo'' also won the 2009

Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award The Robert F. Kennedy Awards for Excellence in Journalism is a journalism award named after Robert F. Kennedy and awarded by the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. The annual awards are issued in several categories and were est ...

in the international television category. On the August 28, 2009, program, host Martin Savidge announced that Daljit Dhaliwal would be taking over his role, while Savidge would still host one week a month and have an opportunity to "step out from behind the desk." Savidge became a special correspondent (Dhaliwal's former role) for the show and served as host occasionally on Worldfocus.

Cancelation

On March 8, 2010, Daljit Dhaliwal announced at the end of that night's program, that ''Worldfocus'' would cease programming on April 2, 2010. The'' Worldfocus'' official website cited "fundraising difficulties" as the reason for the program's demise. In fact, Worldfocus was several million dollars off its fundraising goals. Overall ''Worldfocus'' was very expensive to produce, and did not bring in the crucial viewer donations as

had reliably done for years before. Cutbacks, dismissal of personnel, and cancelation of other

programs were blamed on spending for ''Worldfocus'', although WNET CEO

Neal Shapiro Neal B. Shapiro (born March 9, 1958) is the President and CEO of WNET. He worked previously as the President of NBC News and the executive producer for ''Dateline NBC''. Prior to this Shapiro spent 13 years as a news producer at ABC News. Early ...

denies this. Neal Shapiro said, "Given the economic environment we now face, it is not prudent to continue the broadcast at this time". ''Worldfocus'' failed to garner an audience above 300,000 people. WNET had planned ''Worldfocus'' to be the flagship program of an expensive new studio then under construction at

Lincoln Center Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...

. The completed studio was later used for other programs. In April 2010 WNET started again airing

, the very program that'' Worldfocus'' had replaced in 2008.

References

External links

*{{official, http://worldfocus.org/ PBS original programming 2008 American television series debuts 2000s American television news shows 2010s American television news shows 2010 American television series endings