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Bill Moyers has a new public-affairs series coming to PBS with the same name as his 1970s series, Bill Moyers Journal. The press release says “Moyers is re-inventing the broadcast for the 21st century” which appears to mean there’s a podcast and a Web forum. We’ll find out Friday nights starting in April. The premiere, ‘Buying the War’, “explores the role of the press in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.”

Ken Burns agreed to extend his agreement with PBS to 2022. The agreement states that Burns will produce at least three major series and two to three shorter films for the US pubcaster. The agreement also includes home-video and AV rights through at least 2025.

PBS also announced that Burns’s 14-hour WWII series, The War, will air in September 2007. But there is a bit of controversy about the scheduled air dates. Lisa de Moraes writes in the Washington Post, “Desperate TV critics threw themselves at the feet of PBS suits and begged them not to debut …’The War’ during so-called Premiere Week — when most of the series on the commercial broadcast networks would make their debuts — because it was sure to get buried in the avalanche…John Boland, PBS’s chief content officer, listened patiently to the critics, and then Boland said nuts to you as nicely as he knew how.”

You can read the PBS press release about the release about Bill Moyers here, and the release about the Ken Burns deal here. The Moyers PBS website will be pbs.org/moyers. The Washington Post article is here (free registration required).