In Letter TV, a language arts program to be screened at FirstView, punctuation marks host a newscast.

Annual screening conference for instructional TV
Bodwell award joins FirstView '98 agenda

Originally published in Current, Aug. 10, 1998

Some 220 educational media specialists will screen the new crop of nearly 120 ITV programs at FirstView '98, Aug. 20-26 [1998] in St. Louis. Overseas producers will return as FirstView incorporates the international coproduction meetings that CPB initiated in past years. Speakers will include KQED alumnus Milton Chen, now head of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, and David Brugger, president of America's Public Television Stations.

The concluding luncheon will feature a new Douglas Bodwell Award, named in memory of the late CPB education director, which will recognize lifetime achievement in instructional media, according to conference organizer Bill Meyers of National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA).

FirstView remains a key step in the process of selling and buying instructional video for classroom use. Of the 120 largely new series glimpsed for a few minutes Aug. 20-26, about 70 will be shown at greater length in the SatScreen satellite previews Se pt. 28-Oct. 2. Those that are purchased for the next school year will be fed to public TV stations and to schools via the National Instructional Satellite Service (NISS). Programs are transmitted via public TV or other means to schools, where they are generally videotaped for classroom use.

Though ITV has vanished from the daytime schedules of many stations, it continues to be transmitted by many stations at night. The latest CPB report on educational activities last fall, covering the 1995-96 school year, showed that 79 percent of licensees were transmitting ITV programs--75 percent on their main channels, 17 percent on cable channels and 11 percent on ITFS microwave systems.

Airtime devoted to ITV is declining slowly, however. In 1996, ITV occupied 7.9 percent of public TV airtime, down from 16.6 percent, 20 years earlier, CPB reported in its latest programming survey in May.

Last year, stations, school systems and other media buyers spent $4.3 million through two group buys, plus additional funds in direct deals with video distributors.

Two associations of public TV stations cooperate to maintain the market. FirstView, NISS and one of the group buys are organized by NETA, while SatScreen and the other group buy are run by Central Educational Network (CEN).

For the second time this year, educators registered to view SatScreen will have the option of buying the 25 hours of previews on a $125 set of videocassettes called "SatScreen in a Box," according to Mark Gorelczenko of CEN. Users increasingly are asking for screenings to be accessible through the Internet--an idea the organizers will explore, he says.

 

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Earlier story: Study finds instructional TV today is better integrated into the classroom curriculum, 1997.

Outside link: Detailed data on FirstView programs are available on a web site operated by longtime station education director Elaine Harbison.

Web page created Aug. 12, 1998
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