PBS: An Overview
PBS in Brief
- PBS is a private, nonprofit corporation, founded in 1969, whose members are America's public TV stations.
- PBS provides quality TV programming and related services to 355 noncommercial stations serving all 50 states, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.
- PBS oversees program acquisition and provides program distribution and promotion; education services; new media ventures; fundraising support; engineering and technology development; and video marketing.
PBS Member Stations
- 168 noncommercial, educational licensees operate 355 PBS member stations.
- Of the 168 licensees, 86 are community organizations, 56 are colleges/universities, 20 are state authorities and six are local educational or municipal authorities.
PBS Programming Activities
- The National Programming Service (NPS) is the major package of programs that PBS distributes to its member stations. It features television's best children's, cultural, educational, history, nature, news, public affairs and science programming.
- Programs distributed on the NPS are produced by PBS stations, independent producers and sources around the world. PBS does not produce programs.
PBS.org
- www.pbs.org www.pbs.org is one of the most trafficked dot-org websites in the U.S.*** and home of comprehensive companion Websites for more than 1,800 PBS television programs and specials, as well as original Web-only content, podcasts, blogs, streaming video and real-time learning adventures. Visitors to www.pbs.org can delve further into the subjects they most enjoy - from news to history and the arts to science and technology.
The Public Television Audience
- PBS is averaging a 1.4 primetime rating during the 2006-2007 season.**
- 73 million people in almost 46 million households watch public television during an average week, while most American households (63%) and nearly 125 million people tune into public television in a month.
- PBS' audience is twice as large as many of the commercial channels available today.
** October '06-May '07 average. PBS' rating may be understated owing to Nielsen's program of replacing analog meters with digital meters in the households of the national sample. Stations must encode their signals to be recognized by the digital meters, but few PBS stations have begun to do so. Such unrecognized viewing cannot be credited to PBS and thus is lost, reducing the overall national rating.
*** Source: Nielsen//NetRatings, May 2006 Domain Report (U.S., Home and Work)
Demographics
The demographic breakdown of PBS' audience reflects the overall U.S. population with respect to race/ethnicity, education and income.
|
% of U.S. Population |
% of PBS Audience |
|
| Race/Ethnicity of HOH* |
|
|
| Black |
12.1% |
11.3% |
| Spanish Origin |
10.4% |
11.0% |
|
| Education of HOH* |
|
|
| 4 Yrs. High School | 14.3% | 14.5% |
| High School Grad. | 30.2% | 29.7% |
| 1-3 Yrs. College | 27.8% | 26.1% |
| 4+ Yrs. College | 27.8% | 29.7% |
|
| Household Income |
|
|
| $20,000 | 21.3% | 20.9% |
| $20-$39,999 | 23.0% | 22.7% |
| $40-$59,999 | 17.4% | 17.2% |
| $60,000 + | 38.3% | 39.2% |
*HOH = Head of Household
All audience data provided by Nielsen Media Research.
All data was gathered from October 2006-May 2007
July 2007
|
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