Why isn't Ted on PBS?

Ted Koppel is currently wrapping up a press conference to celebrate, I mean coronate, I mean announce his arrival at Discovery Networks. (In all likelihood most of his stuff will appear on Discovery Times Channel, not the mother ship, so contact your foot-dragging cable operator and shame it into adding Discovery Times.)

I had a less than fruitful exchange with him that kind of went as follows:

ME: When you  were opening your production company in the late 1980s, you seemed to be winding down on "Nightline," and you were producing documentaries for PBS.  I think it's noteworthy blah blah blah get to the question what does it say that you went with Discovery?

TED: Let me correct your memory.  It is correct that I set up a production company but it is not correct that I produced specials for PBS. So the answer to your question is, it means nothing.

(Laughter.)

Typical Koppel. If only I had checked Nexis before asking:

ABC newsman Ted Koppel anchors his production company's first PBS offering, "World Without Walls," tonight through Wednesday (WNET / 13 at 8). "After the Cold War" (tonight) looks at the shifts in global politics. "The New Global Marketplace" (tomorrow) deals with global economics overwhelming political ideas. "Culture in a Communications Age" (Wednesday) questions whether technological advancements will leave culture moribund. (Newsday, June 11, 1990)

So let me ask someone interested in the question ... namely you, the reader. What does it mean that of all the long line of organizations Ted Koppel associates with, he hooks up with NPR but not PBS? What does it say about PBS and where it's gone in 15 years?

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Also, I just learned something you probably already know, which is that Dave Marash has landed at al-Jazeera. Which, unlike CBS, has a lot of foreign bureaus.