Weekdays remain more important to local stations in terms of news ratings, but weekends are about to get a little more competitive.

Beginning April 11, WPXI will move the start of its Sunday morning newscast from 7 a.m. to 5:30 a.m. to take on WTAE head-to-head. Currently, WPXI begins its local news broadcasts at 7 a.m. Sunday. KDKA has no regularly scheduled Sunday morning local news. WTAE began airing news at 5:30 a.m. Sunday in June 2007. (All three stations begin Saturday newscasts at 6 a.m.)

To make way for its expanded morning news, Channel 11 will displace a Catholic Mass that has aired on the station for decades. The Mass will continue to air at 6 a.m. but will relocate to over-the-air RTV (Channel 11.2) and cable's PCNC, which means viewers who get their television over the air or via cable will continue to be able to watch the Mass. Only those who rely solely on satellite television, which does not carry RTV or PCNC, will lose access to the Mass.

WPXI program director Mark Barash said he did not know how many viewers receive the station only via satellite.

"We were feeling like there was an audience looking for news on Sunday mornings, and our viewers were kind of saying, 'Where's your newscast?' and we didn't have one," Mr. Barash said. "We did some research and felt like it was the right thing to do."

The Mass will replace infomercial time WPXI sells on RTV, Mr. Barash said, and the Mass will continue to be produced in WPXI's facility.

The Rev. Kris Stubna, secretary of Catholic education for the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh, said Channel 11 executives approached the diocese about making the change about a month ago.

"We've been a partner with Channel 11 for more than 30 years with this televised Mass," he said. "Any change is challenging, but we're grateful for the fact that we will be able to get the Mass out [on these other channels]. It will require making sure people can access those channels. We'll need to do some re-education, and we're hopeful our viewers will be able to be served by that."

Ratings from May 2009 showed the televised Mass on WPXI to be one of just two programs at that hour to register any viewership. The Mass had a consistent 1 rating while news on WTAE averaged a higher 3 rating. Public affairs shows on KDKA and "Sesame Street" on WQED did not receive significant enough viewership to warrant a numerical rating, according to The Nielsen Co. ratings book.

"We've never actually had those kinds of statistics," the Rev. Stubna said. "There are times when [the Mass] has been bumped because of an emergency or something happens and we get flooded with phone calls, so we know anecdotally from experience that a lot of viewers are watching. It's a great outreach to people, especially the elderly in our community."

He said the diocese also hopes to get the program streamed on its website in 2011.

Channel 11 continues to staff up, hiring a new general assignment reporter, Julie Fine, who will arrive in mid-April. Fine comes to WPXI from her hometown station, Buffalo's WKBW, where she has worked for the past eight years. Prior to that she was a reporter at WJET in Erie.

At Thursday's WQED Multimedia board meeting, vice president of production Darryl Ford-Williams said she's considering what the next iteration of daily local magazine program "On Q" might be and has narrowed the focus to three models.

After the meeting she declined to specify what those models might look like.

"It is conceivable that there will be a show with a different name or many shows with different names," Ms. Ford-Williams said. "We will absolutely have a strong local program presence."

A decision on the future of "On Q" or a successor program is likely to be made by June, including the importance of retaining the "On Q" name, she said. Reconceiving "On Q" is not an effort to find a way to make the show at a lower budget.

"No, that would be hard," Ms. Ford-Williams said. Once a model is chosen, "the very next thing we have to do is [figure out] what it would take to execute, whether or not we need to staff up. I can't imagine we'd need less [staff]."

In other programming news, producer Rick Sebak's latest national show, "Breakfast Special," will likely air on PBS in July. His next local show, slated for March 2011, is tentatively titled "Small Towns, Moving Pictures," which looks back at Western Pennsylvania communities using amateur film and video footage from decades past.

Ms. Ford-Williams said "Filmmakers Corner," which began in January, will continue airing mostly new episodes through June. She will seek to secure funding to continue the showcase for local filmmakers in the fall and to expand the show's Web presence at WQED.org.

WQED's previously announced plans to film three concerts at the Benedum May 21-23 will result in national pledge specials that will air in December, March 2011 and December 2011. Two will be Doo Wop shows and one will feature folk and '60s-era musicians. Confirmed performers for the three concerts include Ronnie Spector, The Kingsmen, Davy Jones of The Monkees, The Miracles and Bill Haley's Comets.

Financially, WQED appeared to be in better shape as of Jan. 31, 2010, compared to the same period a year earlier. Contributions were up by about $419,000 and accounts payable were down. The nonprofit has improved its planned giving donations from $225,000 in 2008 to $578,000 in 2009 with an expectation of $1 million in 2010.

WQED-FM host Ted Sohier was recognized for 20 years of employment at the company and the board was introduced to Jennifer Stancil, hired last month as WQED's new executive director of education.

During the Fred Forward children's media conference at the Fred M. Rogers Center at St. Vincent College earlier this week, the 2010 Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship Award winners were announced. Recipients have visited Pittsburgh before, but this is the first time the winners have been announced in Western Pennsylvania.

Terri Clark, executive director of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation, which sponsors the scholarships with Ernst & Young, said the opportunity to get this year's three recipients mixing with other Fred Forward participants and educators was too good to pass up.

"It's more than just presenting the scholarships, it's a way to introduce and expose them to every attendee at the conference and the potential discussion that can come about," Ms. Clark said Monday evening. "It's a way for them to talk about the work they aspire to do."

From about 85 applicants, this year's scholarship recipients, who each get $10,000 and mentoring by children's media pros, are:

• Rachel Schechter (research): She's earning a Ph.D. in child development from Tufts University and plans to research the relationship between children's use of media and learning.

• Xavier Raphael Vanegas (production): He's working on a master's in motion picture production from the University of Southern California and plans to develop an animated children's program.

• Christina Zagarino (production): She's in the midst of studying for a master's degree in child development at Tufts and plans to use her scholarship to produce short videos that encourage viewers to participate in physical activity to combat childhood obesity.

And how are past recipients of the scholarship, now in its sixth year, doing career-wise? Nancy Steingard, chairwoman of the education committee for the TV Academy Foundation and co-president of Two Friends Entertainment (the company that made tonight's "Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars" on Disney Channel), said she recently hired two past winners. Michelle Tessier and Thy Than will work on animating a 26-episode television series whose title remains under wraps but will air on a cable network.

"Our goal is for these people to take a leadership role in children's programming," Ms. Steingard said.

The final episodes of TNT's "Saving Grace" begin airing Monday at 10 p.m. ... The Associated Press reports "Life" drew 6.1 million viewers in its first episode and 5.8 million viewers in its second episode Sunday. ... The third season premiere of AMC's "Breaking Bad" delivered the show's highest ratings ever, about 2 million viewers. ... HBO has renewed "The Ricky Gervais Show" for a second season. ... Alan Cumming, who has been a guest star on recent episodes of "The Good Wife," has signed on to return as a series regular next season, per Entertainment Weekly. ... Disney has canceled the syndicated "At the Movies," once known as "Siskel & Ebert," after 24 seasons. The last episode will air in August. ... Too late to review, National Geographic Channel changed the premiere of "Breakout" (9 p.m. Sunday), which chronicles prison breaks, to an episode about the 1997 escape of "the Pittsburgh Six" from Western Penitentiary. ... Fox has finally canceled the terrible sitcom "'Til Death." ... Just one episode into their second seasons, Showtime has renewed "Nurse Jackie" and "United States of Tara" for third seasons.

In today's online TV Q&A, there are responses to questions about Conan O'Brien, late-night ratings and a young actor on "Parenthood." Tuned In Journal includes posts on new Comcast HD channels, "Fly Girls" and the "Caprica" mid-season finale. Read online TV content at post-gazette.com/tv.

This week's Tuned In podcast includes conversation about "Breaking Bad," "24" and "Caprica." Listen or subscribe at post-gazette.com/podcast.

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