Current (https://current.org/tag/pbs-annual-meeting/)
Even when it’s safe to bring hundreds of conventioneers together in hotel ballrooms, digital meeting platforms will make it possible for more people to participate.
The conference drove home the importance of diversity, education and innovation.
What’s the biggest risk you took in the past year?
We asked attendees at the PBS Annual Meeting in Chicago about their efforts to attract younger audiences.
“This is a new way to experiment around building buzz for a series.”
The public broadcaster is “reimagining the very core” of its “educational value proposition.”
We contemplate the challenges and the opportunities involved in expanding public television to new audiences.
SAN FRANCISCO – Amid previews of upcoming programming at the PBS Annual Meeting, including a groundbreaking 14-hour series on the Roosevelt family from Ken Burns, came extraordinary news of a record-setting donation for Masterpiece. Executive Producer Rebecca Eaton told attendees that the icon strand, through its Masterpiece Trust, will receive $3 million from longtime supporter Darlene Shiley on behalf of herself and her late husband Donald. Shiley’s local station, KPBS in San Diego, will share a portion of the contribution. The gift triples Shiley’s previously unprecedented $1 million donation in 2012. Since its inception in 2011, the trust has raised nearly $10 million for Masterpiece and local stations designated by donors.
The event kicked off Tuesday with its largest crowd in at least a decade.
PBS staff asked Current to stop photographing as Brant Olson was put against a wall and handcuffed.
Three dozen general managers have coalesced around a proposal by PBS Interactive chief Jason Seiken to jump-start low-cost local video production at public TV stations. Seiken laid out his plan for reinventing public TV’s new media strategies during the PBS Annual Meeting in Denver.
From the opening moments of its 2001 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PBS drew on the city’s role in U.S. history and a series of in-person presentations to foster pride and other warm fuzzies among 1,300 conference attendees. In a spoof of Antiques Roadshow with actors as the founding fathers, APTS President John Lawson presented a letter by Alexander Hamilton to appraisers Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. “We must secure our union on solid foundations — it is a job for Hercules,” Hamilton wrote. Lawson feigned amazement when the letter was deemed to be of “immense worth.” For plenary sessions in a convention center ballroom, PBS put on highly produced shows, with musical performances, staged interviews, scripts rolling on multiple teleprompters and program-related stunts replacing many of the clip screenings of past years.