George Page, Creator and Host of Nature, Succumbs to Cancer

George Page, whose rich voice and infectious enthusiasm for the natural world made him one of public television's most popular personalities as on-air host of the weekly series Nature, succumbed to cancer on June 28, in Equinunk, PA. He was 71.

Mr. Page's journalism and broadcasting career spanned more than 50 years, but he was best known as the creator and voice of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning wildlife and natural history series, produced for PBS by Thirteen/WNET New York. The series debuted in 1982 and will mark its 25th season on the air this coming fall.

Mr. Page introduced and narrated each episode of Nature, until an illness prompted his retirement from television in 1998. He then devoted his time to the completion of a book, "Inside the Animal Mind," which explored the latest research and findings about animal intelligence and self-awareness. The well-received book became the basis of a three-part miniseries of the same name, broadcast on Nature in January of 2000.

During his 26 years at Thirteen/WNET, Mr. Page also served as director of science and natural history programming, and was responsible for such notable series as Travels, The Brain (also a Peabody winner), The Mind, and Medicine at the Crossroads.

New Vice Presidents Named at Oregon Public Broadcasting

Oregon Public Broadcasting has promoted four individuals to vice president: Lynne Clendenin to vice president of Radio Programming; Jeff Douglas to vice president of Local Production; Morgan Holm to vice president of News and Public Affairs; and Lynne Pollard to vice president of Interactive Services.

An OPB Original Production: Tour Fort Vancouver with the History Detectives

Your mobile phone soon could be your source for on-site tours of some of the nation's most popular tourist destinations, thanks to Oregon Public Broadcasting, History Detectives and a group of technology and business partners. Together, they just launched a mobile content prototype, dubbed "Road Trip," using Fort Vancouver as the first historic site to get the mobile Road Trip treatment.

OPB hopes the prototype will be the first in a national rollout of interactive, mobile tours developed and hosted by the History Detectives from the popular PBS series.

The tour, available as a stand-alone mobile application for download on your cell phone, includes an interactive map of Fort Vancouver, along with a series of short videos about the historic trade center in its heyday. History Detective Wes Cowan walks mobile users through the fort's architecture, furnishings and frontier-era medical facility. The mobile tour has an interactive feature that lets users quiz themselves and their family as they walk around the grounds of the fort.

"Right now the application is available for download only on Sprint's Samsung A900 phones, but we hope to expand the application to other phones in the future. This is a great example of OPB making its content available over a multitude of platforms, so you can watch us anytime, anyplace," said Marion Rice, executive producer of the project.

"The History Detectives Road Trip is a unique mobile application accessible through an easy access icon residing on the phone at a desired location, enabling fans of the series to access extra content on their mobile phone and interact with the series beyond the confines of their living room anytime they want. For the first time, our viewers have a permanent and a very visible access to an appealing application that extends the original program," said Rice.

Under the auspices of the American Film Institute's Digital Content Lab, OPB partnered with Rentrak, Lion TV, Big Spaceship (a Los Angeles design firm) and NPTV (an interactive development firm in Paris) to use their BANDO technology that enabled a rapid development for this unique mobile application. The Road Trip is being distributed by Sprint on their Samsung A900 phones with PowerVision enabled. Use the Search function to find "HD Road Trip." Download the Road Trip locally to your phone.

History Detectives airs on the stations of Oregon Public Broadcasting Television Mondays at 9pm.

OPB Digital Television Comes to Bend Area

Installation of Oregon Public Broadcasting's new digital television antenna in Bend will take place in July. Work is scheduled for completion by the end of the month.

During the installation process, service to BendBroadband customers (in Bend, Redmond and Sisters) should not be affected. Crestview cable service, serving Prineville and Madras, may be affected; however La Pine will lose cable and off-air service for this period. Viewers with satellite service will not be affected. And viewers with antenna-only reception in Bend and the immediate area should continue to receive OPB TV via a lower power signal. Those with antenna-only reception in Prineville should be able to receive the OPB TV signal on channel 16. In addition, Sunriver will lose the Chambers Cable signal and the OPB TV off-air signal. Those served by BendBroadband should not lose service.

OPB Radio service will operate on lower power while the installers are working, but OPB Radio service should be relatively unaffected.

A temporary antenna has been providing limited DTV service to the Bend area since last summer. The new antenna installation was scheduled for completion last July but experienced delays due to manufacturing issues and subsequent shortages of materials being diverted to the areas damaged by hurricane Katrina and then winter weather conditions. OPB apologizes for any inconvenience and thanks viewers and listeners for their patience during this time.