Local filmmakers will have an opportunity to get their movies seen by a wider audience when WQED launches "Filmmaker's Corner," a one-hour showcase for independent filmmakers that will be hosted by WQED producer Minette Seate.

WQED vice president of production Darryl Ford-Williams said it's long been a goal to showcase locally made productions, including short features. But the station hasn't had the funding to support such projects, including the cost of closed captioning for the films. Now they do.

"It's a place for people who have never had an outlet creatively," she said. "They belong here, and I'm glad we were able to find a way to get it done."

"Corner" will premiere Jan. 23 with the one-hour Chris Ivey film "East of Liberty" about the East Liberty neighborhood.

Other news that came out of yesterday's meeting of the WQED board of directors:

• WQED chief operating officer Deborah Acklin has verbal and written commitments for funding magazine show "On Q" through September 2010. On Monday's "On Q," reporter Tonia Caruso tells the story of a living donor kidney transplant followed by an in-studio discussion of organ donation.

• The pilot for a middle school-targeted series, "Science Mission 101," will be distributed nationally, and the station is working to raise funds to produce a series.

• On Sept. 30 WQED finished its 2009 fiscal year, during which there were layoffs and 11 positions eliminated, $56,388 in the black with a $1.9 million decrease in payables and $300,000 more cash than a year earlier. Acklin said there are no plans for additional layoffs.

• WQED-FM exceeded its December pledge goal by $21,000, and the station has achieved a goal of becoming among the Top 5 of classical public radio stations nationally by percent of market population served.

• Last month's open house that featured the Neighborhood of Make-Believe from "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" will be followed by a spring open house with the reconstruction of the interior of Rogers' home on the classic show, if the station can get funding for the event. More than 5,000 people toured the studio in one weekend for last month's open house, traveling from 71 cities, 10 states and four countries.

Oakland-based Family Communications, Inc., the nonprofit company founded by Fred Rogers in 1971 to produce "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" and other projects, will rename itself The Fred Rogers Company in 2010.

Kevin Morrison, FCI chief operating officer, said the name change was a board of directors initiative to honor the company's founder.

"It's an extra tribute to Fred on top of the statue," he said, referring to a statue on Pittsburgh's North Shore that was unveiled this fall.

In addition, with the company actively pursuing the production of new television programs, including a pre-school show in development with PBS, it makes sense for the company to carry Rogers' name.

"If we're going to have this company putting new things on television that embody Fred's approach and his name would not be in the credits otherwise, it was important to a number of board members to say, 'This is who we are.' You immediately know when you have that name on there who you are."

As expected, Channel 11 has hired former Washington, D.C., and New York City news anchor Todd McDermott, a Buffalo native, to replace Bob Bruce, who retires after today's broadcasts.

McDermott begins at the station on Jan. 4.

KDKA-TV will broadcast the Children's Hospital Free Care Fund telethon tonight from 7-8. "The CBS Evening News With Katie Couric" will air at 6:30 tonight.

Pittsburghers woke up to an ice storm Sunday morning that coated roads with the thinnest layer of ice and had local TV stations scrambling to find ways to report on a story when they could not send crews into the field.

Well, most stations, but not KDKA-TV. At 8 a.m., a televangelist droned on and at 8:30 a public affairs show aired in its usual time slot. I received this e-mail from a viewer named Hal, who works in commercial real estate: "Please wake up KDKA-TV and tell them there is currently a major weather event. They don't even have a crawl on the screen let alone coverage. They're asleep. Please wake them."

Although I did not see it, KDKA did scroll weather and road closing information, according to news director Coleen Marren. And she said KDKA.com, which can be operated remotely, was also "constantly updated Sunday morning."

She said because KDKA-TV has no regularly scheduled Sunday morning newscast, there was no production crew on hand to put reporters on the air. Station executives opted not to call a crew in due to the hazardous road conditions. No changes to their staffing are planned.

"This was such a unique circumstance," Marren said. "When there's snow, you can use a 4-wheel drive. ... It's hard to imagine another situation like this."

Except, perhaps, another Sunday morning ice storm.

Viewer Hal went on complain about stations' self-promotion and what he perceives as often needless weather scrolls, but he said, "This is one time where they should have been out there, and they have miserably failed."

Often I'm critical, too, when local stations don't move away from breaking news coverage once there's nothing left to say, but in this case, with the parkways shut down, continuing coverage seemed warranted. That doesn't mean it will always be the best coverage or that there won't be repetition, but it is worth keeping viewers apprised as conditions change. And for viewers put out by that coverage, there's an easy solution: Turn off the TV.

WTAE and WPXI do offer Sunday morning newscasts and had staffers on duty, but they had to take more creative approaches to coverage because it would be dangerous to send reporters and photographers out on the road.

WPXI had weathercaster Kevin Benson on with anchor Kimberly Easton, who was also on duty during the April police shootings. Easton was pretty animated as she tried to fill air time ("Where do you think you're going? You're not gonna get anywhere!"), and the station won the early award for best video for scenes that appeared to be shot outside the station's Summer Hill facility of cars sliding down a road and smashing into other vehicles.

On WTAE, phone calls from eyewitnesses and staffers (Kelly Frey, Erin Kienzle) and the use of traffic cameras (pretty effective) had to suffice in the early going. Anchor Janelle Hall handled the live coverage with the same even-keeled calm she showed during the April shootings.

HBO's "Flight of the Conchords" will not return for a third season. ... HBO will premiere "The Pacific," a World War II miniseries from the producers of "Band of Brothers," on March 14. ... Mt. Lebanon native and Carnegie Mellon University graduate Joe Manganiello ("Spider-Man") has landed the role of the werewolf Alcide in the upcoming third season of HBO's "True Blood." ... Peters native Ashley Elmore, a 1998 graduate of Peters Township High School, will compete in ABC's next edition of "The Bachelor" (8 p.m. Jan. 4). ... PCNC adds a syndicated show, "Recipe TV," airing Sunday at 10 a.m. beginning this weekend.

Follow TV news from the Post-Gazette on Twitter or Facebook. I'm registered as RobOwenTV on both sites.

Today's TV Q&A responds to questions about "The Middle," ice storm coverage and meteorologist schedules at WTAE. Tuned In Journal includes blog posts about "Jersey Shore" and classic TV Christmas episodes streaming online. Read online TV coverage at post-gazette.com/tv.

In this week's Tuned In podcast, enterprise reporter Maria Sciullo and I discuss the Golden Globes TV nominations, the "Dexter" season finale and "The Sing-Off." Listen or subscribe at post-gazette.com/podcast.

TV columnist Rob Owen's Tuned In+ is featured exclusively on PG+, a members-only web site from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Our introduction to PG+ gives you all the details.