UNC-TV is joining WRAL's Here to Help Disaster Relief Telethon, which will simulcast on both stations Wednesday, April 20, from 7 to 8 p.m.

The telethon will raise money to help North Carolinians devastated by Saturday's tornadoes. In addition to the evening telethon, phone lines will be open from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Wednesday (call 1-800-424-9725) and donations can also be made securely online.

All money donated will fund relief missions now underway by the Triangle Red Cross, Samaritan’s Purse, the North Carolina Baptist Men’s Association and the Salvation Army of Wake County.

Programming note: 'Nightly Business Reoprt,' which usually airs on UNC-TV at 7 p.m., will air at 1:30 a.m. instead.

WRAL will air a documentary tonight in which CEOs of three North Carolina tech companies reveal the secrets to success.

The CEOs of Cree, Red Hat and SAS reveal how their companies earned billions while others went belly up.  The program is hosted by WRAL News anchor Gerald Owens.

Governor Beverly Perdue's State of the State address will be broadcast live tonight beginning at 7pm.

News 14 Carolina, UNC-TV and WRAL will all air the speech, which is expected to last about an  hour. WTVD will air the speech on their digital broadcast channel 11.2. News 14 will begin their coverage at 6:50. The speech will also stream live on the UNCTV.org, WTVD.com and WRAL.com websites.

The final moments of a bank robbery-turned-hostage situation in Cary were carried on the live local news this afternoon, and two local stations found themselves in a sticky situation when that scene turned deadly.

WRAL showed footage of the suspect leading a hostage from the Wachovia bank with a gun to the hostage's head, and then cut away right before the man was shot dead by police. WTVD also cut away from the scene, but when they returned, they say they accidentally showed a replay that included footage of the robber being shot. On subsequent replays, footage of the man being shot was not shown.

The UNC vs. Boston College basketball game will preempt "NCIS: Los Angeles" and "The Good Wife" tonight on WRAL.

If you want to watch those shows, you'll need to set your recording device to catch them after the end of "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson," which usually ends around 1:35 a.m. 

According to WRAL, "NCIS: Los Angeles" will air at approximately 1:37 a.m. (subject to ACC Basketball runover), and "The Good Wife" will air at approximately 2:37 a.m. (subject to ACC Basketball runover).

WRAL recommends setting your recording device to record from 1:30 a.m. - 4:30 a.m to make sure you get everything, even in the case of basketball runover.

WRAL's 11 p.m. newscast will air immediately following the game.

Jim Goodmon, CEO of Capitol Broadcasting, said this week that reporting of the student assignment issue in Wake County had been too balanced. Goodmon, a vocal supporter of Wake schools' long-standing diversity policy, said that reporters typically talked with each side of the debate and then quit reporting. He compared it to a reporter working on a story about whether the Earth is round or flat. The reporter quotes one academic saying the Earth is flat and another saying it's round. "I've done my job. Film at 11," Goodmon said. He believes deeper reporting would show that the diversity policy is the correct course to take.

Goodmon made his comments Monday at the annual Martin Luther King Triangle Interfaith Prayer breakfast. Capitol Broadcasting owns WRAL-TV and its website. He said WRAL reporters are "the best." But he said, "I'm mad at them." Goodmon did not mention The News & Observer but confirmed later that his comments included coverage of the issue in The N&O. --John Drescher

WRAL will air the UNC vs. Clemson basketball game tonight at 8pm, which means "NCIS" and "NCIS: Los Angeles" will be preempted.

Those programs will air at 1:37am and 2:37am (they have to wait until after "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson"). To be on the safe side, WRAL suggests setting your recording devices to record from 1:30am to 4:30am.

Also, if you're taping "The Good Wife" at 10pm, you probably want to set that to go a little longer too, just in case the game runs long.

The voice of public radio's political coverage in North Carolina is going commercial.

Laura Leslie, who has covered state politics and government at WUNC for more than six years, is joining WRAL as a multimedia reporter. Her last day at WUNC is today, and she'll start at WRAL on Friday.

In her new role, Leslie will continue coverage of the legislature and state politics. Leslie said she'll focus mostly on expanding WRAL's online coverage, including webcasts and podcasts, as the General Assembly prepares to return to Raleigh.

"I'll be telling the same stories, but I'll have new ways to tell them," she said. "The news business is changing and legislative coverage needs to change with it. I see it as an immense opportunity."

Recruiting Leslie signals that WRAL, owned by Raleigh-based Capitol Broadcasting, is seeking to beef up its legislative coverage as Republicans control the General Assembly for the first time since 1898.

According to our friends over at ACC Now, the Duke vs. St. Louis basketball game, scheduled to tip off at noon Saturday on WRAL, has been moved to the WRAL Fox affiliate WRAZ (aka Fox 50).

WRAL is moving the Duke game in order to air coverage of the funeral of Elizabeth Edwards.

Coverage of the funeral begins at 12:30 with a special, "Remembering Elizabeth Edwards," and then the funeral will be aired beginning at 1pm. The coverage will also stream on the WRAL.com website.

WRAL occasionally airs funerals of well known local people. They aired the funeral of Senator Jesse Helms in 2008 and the funeral of NCSU basketball coach Kay Yow last year.

UPDATE: The funeral will also air at 1pm on the MSNBC cable station.

Raleigh TV station WRAL's news division has had a foot in the music business since at least the 1970s, when John Tesh got his start there before finding later fame as a new-age pianist (and "Entertainment Tonight" anchor). The tradition continues with two new releases from WRAL newscasters.

First up is Bill Leslie, who was Tesh's roommate in Raleigh way back when and nowadays plays Celtic-flavored guitar when he's not reading the news on-camera. Leslie has a new instrumental album out titled "Simple Beauty," and it's picking up a fair amount of radio airplay. The album checks in at No. 1 on the latest ZoneMusicReporter chart for new-age music.

Then there's Pam Saulsby, who goes the jazz-diva route on her first album "The Full Measure of a Woman" -- which has genre standards including "Fever" and "Fly Me to the Moon," but also a jazzy reading of "California Dreamin'." You can hear Salusby sing it live Saturday at Maggiano's Little Italy at Durham's Streets at Southpoint. She also has dates scheduled at The Mint in Raleigh Nov. 13 and at The Umstead in Cary Nov. 20.

ADDENDUM (11/5/10): Well, this is embarrassing. A note from WTVD's Larry Stogner:

[John Tesh] never worked at WRAL. He was at WTVD. I know because I was at WRAL then and Bill Leslie was at WKIX radio.

On The Beat deeply regrets the error.