Commercial Net Move to Reality Shows Opening an Opportunity for PBS, Kerger Says
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- As more cable channels opt for reality shows in their lineup, PBS is reasserting its importance as the U.S.’s primary TV and Internet destination for cultural and educational programming, said PBS President Paula Kerger at the summer press tour: “Channels that were supposed to replace PBS by offering history, drama, and arts programming have increasingly turned to reality television and the trend is only accelerating. If the rest of the media continues on its current trajectory, PBS and our stations will be the only enterprise whose sole purpose is to provide content of consequence both nationally and locally to all Americans."
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Kerger acknowledged that cable and broadcast networks are producing quality programming, but said: “When you set out to do work that is focused on the needs of people in communities, it takes you down a different path than if you're a commercial business focused most specifically on the bottom line. … Obviously, we need to run an organization that has a balanced budget, but at the same time, we have to meet the goals that we set out for ourselves within our mission. And so as some of the cable companies have moved into a slightly different direction, there is a big opportunity for public broadcasting to expand our work."
Kerger expressed gratitude to the American public for not letting lawmakers gut its funding, noting that in January, “public broadcasting was faced with a threat of losing federal funding. But at this critical moment, the American people reached out to their elected officials and were responsible for preserving federal funding for public broadcasting."
Kerger said the TV landscape has evolved. “It used to be that when I sat down and talked to various stakeholders about public broadcasting, people would say, well, you used to be the only one providing this kind of content, but there are now other opportunities. Now, as I have talked to people on [Capitol Hill], as I talk to other funders, as I go around the country and talk to organizations and community groups, most people are aware that [the cable channels] have not been able to sustain that and they've actually shifted. … We were created at a time when it was recognized that the commercial marketplace was not going to meet the information needs of citizens and that there was a space for a noncommercial broadcaster that could fill in those gaps. And even now in a 500-channel universe, those gaps still exist. Suddenly those opportunities have gotten a little larger."
As broadcast network audiences are eroding, PBS’s primetime viewership is up 7 percent year to year and viewership of PBS Kids programming is up 23 percent among children 2 to 11. In addition, PBS is now the leading source of children’s video online, and general audience apps for iPad and iPhone have now been downloaded more than 1.4 million times.
Kerger said the pubcaster also is expanding its reach through PBS LearningMedia. “We're partnering with leading institutions like The National Archives, The Library of Congress, NPR, NASA, the U.S. Department of Education, and many others to bring more than 14,000 research-based instructional resources to classrooms this fall."
Kerger called Florida’s action cutting all state funding to its PBS stations a challenge as well as an opportunity. “As in the newspaper industry, I think that there’s just a lot of shifts in how people are accessing content and using content, and our stations, prompted by the pressures both in federal and state funding as well as in philanthropy, are starting to look very carefully at different models of operation. In New York State, for example, the public television stations are building a joint master control … so that those kinds of structures don’t have to be replicated across the state."
The economic realities have forced stations to be more creative and efficient, Kerger said: “All of us are dealing with less resources but I think technology makes it easier for us to work together. I think at the end of the day, over the next few years we are going to shift as an industry as every other media company is. I think if we do this right and really think about how to build the kinds of partnerships that will enable us to put the majority of resources into the content, we'll end up a much stronger enterprise” and really be able “to do the kinds of work that we should be doing and that increasingly the commercial landscape is unable to take up.”