Social TV Makes Big Progress in 2013

Posted on January 28, 2013 by ITVS Staff

By Kelsey Savage, PBS Interactive
Originally published on the PBS Station Products & Innovation Blog

Lounging around on your couch, clicker and blanket in tow, might not seem like the most overtly social activity. Yet, these days, even when we’re spending the evening parked in front of the television, we’re able to connect with our friends immediately about a show’s plot progression. In particular, Twitter has been leading the way for developing a strong social TV landscape.

In Nielsen’s annual “Station of The Media: The Social Media Report”, social TV demonstrated a growing user base. By June of 2012, over a third of Twitter users tweeted about a program on television, with the age 35-44 demographic being the most likely to comment on a TV show. In order to measure the power of social television, Nielsen will be working with Twitter to establish “a syndicate-standard metric around the reach of the TV conservation” by fall 2013. For the first time, broadcasters will be able to get an estimate of the number of people that participated or were exposed to an online conversation about their programming.

Public Media has also been capitalizing on the growth of social TV. Most notably, tech-savy, Downton Abbey lovers can check their Twitter feeds for instant feedback about the Dowager Countess’ latest sassy remark through the #DowntonPBS hashtag. PBS has also facilitated celebrity moderators, like Austenprose (@austenprose), The Daily Beast (@televisionary), Tom and Lorenzo (@tomandlorenzo) and Vulture (@vulture), to join the conversation. Their second-screen remarks add another dimension to the viewing experience. They make Downton feel like more than just TV show and more like a community. Continue reading →

Women and Girls Lead Takes on Violence in 16 Days

Posted on November 13, 2012 by ITVS Staff

From November 25 to December 10, Women and Girls Lead joins its partners in 16 Days of Action to eliminate gender-based violence. The 2012 global campaign focuses on the effects of militarism on women and girls.

Violence against women and girls is a global crisis that cuts across all countries, classes and cultures, touching the lives of women and girls in every community. According to the United Nations, approximately one out of every three women worldwide has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime. Violence prevention is a central issue in the Women and Girls Lead campaign and many of our partners. Each year, we join efforts in a 16-day, all-out activism blitz to put gender-based violence into the public spotlight.

The 16 Days of Action to eliminate violence against women kicks off on November 25th, International Day for the Elimination of Gender-Based Violence, and ends on December 10th, Human Rights Day. More than four thousand organizations from 172 countries have participated in the campaign since it launched at the Center for Women’s Global Leadership (CWGL) at Rutgers in 1991. Women and Girls Lead is one of them, offering films that amplify the stories of survivors and educate the public about the factors that contribute to violence. Continue reading →

Words Are the Building Blocks for New Ideas

Posted on May 16, 2012 by ITVS Staff

ITVS and PBS Food are proud to present three videos from Douglas Gayeton’s The Lexicon of Sustainability multiplatform project, which uses photo collage, animation, and hand-written typography to explore terms and ideas behind sustainable agriculture.

The Lexicon of Sustainability is based on a simple premise: people can’t be expected to live more sustainable lives if they don’t even know the most basic terms and principles that define sustainability.

For the past three years Douglas Gayeton and Laura Howard-Gayeton have crisscrossed the USA to learn this new language of sustainability from its foremost practitioners in food and farming. Alice Waters on edible schoolyards. Wes Jackson on reinventing wheat farming. Joel Salatin on embracing the value of saner farming practices. Vandana Shiva on the global imperative of protecting seeds. Paul Stamets on how mushrooms can save the world. Will Allen on Food Security. Temple Grandin on the humane slaughter of animals. Farmer John on the revolutionary idea of community-supported agriculture.

Continue reading →

The Social Entrepreneur: Helping Women Not Only to Survive but Thrive

Posted on May 8, 2012 by ITVS Staff

A Women and Girls Lead Spotlight
By Siiri Morley, Founding Partner, Prosperity Candle

Siiri Morley in Lesotho

If someone had told me in college that I would end up getting an MBA and running a business, I would have been offended and said something like “well, you must not understand what I stand for.”

It took me a while to figure out how my diverse interests in anthropology, fair trade, social justice, women’s rights, and international development would come together into what everyone was urging me to get: a “real career”. The fact that these interests would all find a home in business sometimes still surprises me.

As a social entrepreneur running Prosperity Candle, many would still argue that I don’t have a “real career”, but to me, this is the most meaningful and important work that I’ve done.

To better understand how I came to see the potential for business to empower women economically and socially, I should tell you more about my work in the Peace Corps in a small southern African country called Lesotho. Continue reading →

Bhutto Producer Mark Siegel Reflects on Benazir Bhutto

Posted on April 23, 2012 by ITVS Staff

Mark Siegel, co-producer of the documentary Bhutto, discusses his relationship with the former Prime Minister of Pakistan. The film, which aired last season on Independent Lens, earned a Peabody award earlier this month. Siegel and filmmaker Duane Baughman will accept the prestigious award on May 21 in New York.

PBS Brings ‘Sunshine’ to Online Film Festival

Posted on March 22, 2012 by ITVS Staff

The PBS Online Film Festival features 20 unique short films in various categories. From ‘Girl Power’ to ‘Offbeat’ and everywhere in between, PBS highlights the stories that only public media can tell.

Watch Sunshine: Single Dads on PBS. See more from PBS Online Film Festival.

Dig deep into your roots and welcome diversity with this week’s ‘Who Are We?’ shorts. ITVS is proud to have Sunshine: Single Dads, a short companion piece to the ITVS documentary Sunshine. In this short, single parenthood becomes even more complicated when the parent is a father and that father is gay. Sunshine: Single Dads tells the male side of one family’s unconventional parenting journey across generations.

PBS will announce the People’s Choice Winner on April 16th, so be sure to vote for your favorite film by clicking on the “like” button after watching the videos.

For a complete listing of short included in the PBS Online Film Festival, please click here.

An Extra Day To Be Black

Posted on February 29, 2012 by ITVS Staff

On this extra day of February, our friends at the National Black Programming Consortium (NBPC) talk to visual artist Michael Paul Pritto to discuss his thoughts on Black History Month.

A Determined Filmmaker Returns to Open Call

Posted on February 16, 2012 by ITVS Staff

Filmmaker Judith Helfand’s latest documentary Cooked was one of a dozen projects accepted into ITVS’s latest round of Open Call funding. She offered BTB this roundup of the producer’s orientation, held last week in San Francisco.

I started writing this amidst the din of the one week orientation for filmmakers funded through ITVS’ most recent Open Call. I’m finishing it from the relative “quiet” of my Upper West Side apartment, save for the garbage trucks way below on 84^th- otherwise known as Edgar Allan Poe Street, the two-year-old running on the bare wood floor above me in 11B, and the hammering from somewhere in my pre- WW1 building.

The “din”: the walla walla of 20 independent producers, each in a different state of disbelief, gratitude, relief, giddy nervousness, tenacious “I can handle anything that comes my way” and “thank you but don’t touch my digital rights”. It has since turned into a low comforting roar/buzz/oral memory playing in the background as I write up these reflections.
Continue reading →

Oakland Rallies Behind The Interrupters

Posted on February 14, 2012 by ITVS Staff

Last week, Community Cinema broke records at the Oakland Museum of California with more than 450 audience members in attendance for The Interrupters. The documentary, by filmmaker Steve James, will premiere Tuesday February 14 on PBS’ FRONTLINE. Watch a clip from the Community screening in Oakland, below:

In partnership with KQED, The Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Youth ALIVE!, the Urban Peace Movement, and a host of other youth organizations represented, the film showed to a standing room only packed house in two theaters.

Youth were at the center of the discussion and made up the majority of the audience. The panel included Ameena Matthews and Eddie Bocanegra, Violence Interrupters featured in the film.