Inside PBS Blog

If we've learned anything from this blog, it's that you have lots of opinions and like to let us know about them.

There's another way for you to share your ideas: The PBS Viewer Panel , a virtual community of 6,000 viewers like you who provide feedback on upcoming PBS programming and marketing initiatives.

This isn't empty feel-good stuff, either. The panel's counsel carries real weight with PBS's decision-makers.

Take our recent broadcast of "Carrier," the 10-hour documentary series about life aboard a nuclear aircraft carrier.

Before it aired, PBS sought the panel's feedback on several ways to advertise the miniseries. The ad slogan the panel chose as its favorite â€" "Life On Board" â€" is what PBS used to market the series.

The panel also helped choose the title for "Depression: Out of the Shadows," a documentary PBS aired last month.

The panel comprises roughly 6,000 people, about 90 percent of whom tell us they regularly watch PBS or visit PBS.org.

The panelists are volunteers; their names and contact information are confidential. (The folks in PBS's research department, which manages the panel, wouldn't even allow me to contact panelists to interview them for this blog.)

When PBS execs want help from the panel, they send an e-mail to its members to invite them to participate in an online study.

In most cases, the panelists are presented with several suggestions for a tagline or series title and are asked to choose the one they like best. In other cases, the panelists are asked open-ended questions.

Interested?

To serve on the panel, you'll need to answer a brief online questionnaire.

Once you've joined, you'll receive e-mail invitations to participate in future studies. You are free to choose the studies in which you participate.

To learn more, check out the panel's site.

And if you have other ideas about how PBS can solicit feedback from viewers like you, share your thoughts in the comments section below.