Current (https://current.org/tag/pledge-specials/)
The 30-minute show, which discusses how racial relations of today are reflected in the civil rights movement, is part of a package that includes rebroadcast rights for Eyes on the Prize I and II.
Fans of Masterpiece’s hit Downton Abbey await arrival of the British drama’s third season, PBS and some 70 local stations hope to reel them into the public TV membership fold with a Nov. 25 pledge special.
PBS began mining national Nielsen data for pledge-drive audience insights in 2009, but it hasn’t learned what to do about declining pledge ratings.
Current’s Pledge Pipeline previews 17 shows heading to public TV on-air membership drives in December 2012 and March 2013.
I love standing on a stage — especially in the American heartland — and saying to 500 public television supporters, “Fear is for people who don’t get out much. When we travel, we get out. And, in the same way, when we watch public television, we get out.”
There’s a lot of fear being pushed in our society these days, and as I see it, the flip side of fear is understanding. And, like travel, public television promotes understanding. As much as I love to talk about Europe and the value of a journey that takes you outside your comfort zone, I also love to talk about the mission of public TV to challenge us with new ideas — especially if they get us out of our comfort zones.
Current’s first Pledge Pipeline previews 36 shows heading to public TV on-air membership drives in December 2011, March 2012 and beyond. Producers and distributors provided this information in response to Current’s questionnaire. December ’11
’60s Pop Rock: My Music
Producing organization: TJL Productions. Distributor: PBS. Length: 75 minutes in four acts (SD 4:3).
… This is our deepest embarrassment as public broadcasters. I have heard the arguments, and I understand the imperatives, but to think that, hucksters aside, we spend more of our energy and on-air promotional time, pushing programs that have nothing to do with our mission, is shameful….
The PBS Board tweaked its rules governing one of public TV’s touchiest ongoing internal disputes.
Posted in Current’s reader forum, DirectCurrent, by Mark Jeffries on April 22, 2009 at 12:55pm
In the Current article on spring fundraising and pledge drives, they say that Twin Cities Public Television (KTCA, St. Paul) placed its emphasis on the fans of established programming instead of relying on the off-message poppy concerts, Lawrence Welk retrospectives and disguised infomercials that have become too often the bread-and-butter of pledge drives — the concept, of course, that public radio has been able to emphasize in pledging for years with great success. Can I hope that the success of TPT might inspire other PTVers to dump what must be expensive shows to license and bring pledge drives back to the proper emphasis of the regular programming that regular viewers of PTV stations want? Or is that just too much to ask and that PTV programmers are just hooked on the Suze Orman and Andre Rieu FlavorAid? Replies to this discussion
Reply by Ezra Wall on June 10, 2009 at 3:15pm
Public broadcasters across the board receive ever-decreasing portions of their financial support from taxpayer sources.