re: the seeming lack of organization - in the US, the individual PBS stations make their own shows rather than the entire network, so other than potentially drawing national funding to assist, the woodwright shop is made by a single public broadcasting station in North Carolina. These run at the local level and they all run a bit differently.
Here in Pittsburgh, we have a very active local station and so does Boston. Our station doesn't focus on much in terms of hobby, but more on state-wide specials and national specials that are more far-reaching.
At any rate, that probably has a lot to do with why the release, organization and coordination, etc, isn't done as timely or neatly as it would be if it was from a large cable network or one of the networks like NBC or ABC.
In terms of offering new episodes that you can already see for free, the PBS stations often aren't quite as strict from a revenue perspective. They can probably charge other stations to pick up the woodwright shop, but none of those involved is going to get hyper if they lose a penny because someone streams the shows online.
(if it was any of the latter, they'd probably ask Roy to generate fake drama, anyway - at least that's the way it was when I stopped watching TV about 6 years ago).
