About PTS
Many producers have created outstanding television programs of national interest, programs of entertainment and educational value, programs which deserve to receive wide viewership on some form of nationwide television.
For a truly national TV release, that leaves PBS and its affiliated public television stations as “the only game in town” for documentary and educational content. Alas, PBS member stations themselves don’t pay license fees for content (although many still produce content of local or regional interest). In recent years, station operating and programming budgets have been slashed. Content and scheduling decisions have been "outsourced.” On the national level, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) itself reserves its content production and acquisition budgets for specific mission-focused programming initiatives.
Today, the search is on for the next Downton Abbey or Daniel Tiger. Dues collected by PBS from member stations also finance, in part, the production of pledge programming (concerts, self-help lecture shows by best-selling authors, etc.) — shows designed to encourage viewers to support their local stations (monetary pledges in return for premiums — books, DVDs, audio CDs, concert tickets, and the satisfaction of supporting public television). Long-running primetime series (Nature, NOVA, The American Experience, American Masters, Frontline, Independent Lens, POV, etc.) commission new programs and occasionally acquire completed ones from producers they know and trust. Most of these ongoing strands are produced by such major public television stations as WNET (New York), WGBH (Boston), WTTW (Chicago), or WETA (Washington, DC). The strands themselves are primarily financed on an annual or multi-annual basis, by corporations and foundations.
Aside from these primetime series, PBS-member stations get most of their programming for “free” (aka “fully-underwritten”) because, they are, after all, providing the viewers (and the PBS audience demographic is outstanding, if a bit older). But of course, it is left to independent producers to organize financing for their projects on their own. Many programs and series are presented and exchanged within the system by public television stations themselves; many more come from independent producers and distributors.
Janson Media is one such independent distributor. Our PTS division manages national public television syndication campaigns, acting as a Presenter or a Distributor (terms that are somewhat interchangeable). These campaigns must be managed effectively on many levels — creative, legal, and technical – as well as from a “marketing” standpoint, as PBS program executives must be convinced to add a program to their schedule, and to find an effective time slot for it. In the syndication world, this is called “clearing markets.”
PTS campaigns are typically paid for by corporate or foundation underwriters who want to be associated with the program or series and put their good name in front of the highly-coveted PBS demographic and a nationwide audience. This is usually done via the mechanism of the 15 or 30-second “enhanced underwriting credit” at the top and tail of each program airing. Underwriters may also receive credits on websites and on any and all educational outreach and promotional efforts. Occasionally, campaigns are paid for with private financing, sometimes uncredited in either the spots or the credit rolls.
When financing a national Public Television Syndication (PTS) campaign, it is of vital importance to understand the PBS self-interest rule, which forbids program funders that have a “vested interest” in the content of a program. This rule seeks to prevent the over-commercialization of our public television airwaves, and helps to keep public television as an independent voice in an overwhelmingly corporate-dominated media landscape. Program producers must raise their finance independently of any “pay for play” funders. Even the appearance or the perception of “pay for play” can be problematic with many public television programmers, and rightfully so. And yet, ironically, a great deal of daytime programming on PBS member stations in the lifestyle and how-to categories is inherently produced and structured with what are, clearly, product placements. Cooking shows, travel shows, sewing and knitting and baking shows, etc. So too, PBS pledge (fund-raising) shows are virtual infomercials for book authors and publishers, or for performing artists. So the financing mechanisms at work in the public television landscape are arcane, to say the least.
Still, PTS is careful to avoid taking on the distribution of programs which have clearly been financed or sponsored by “pay for play” funders. If there is an issue of perception only, but the editorial content is truly independent of a sponsor’s influence, we will consider takng on distribution. Read the Sponsorship Guidelines here.