PBS
PBS Shines Light on Independents at 2012 Annual Meeting
By Lois Vossen
Senior Series Producer, Independent Lens
Lois Vossen, Senior Series Producer of Independent Lens
Each spring, PBS hosts its Annual Meeting, an opportunity for people from across the public television landscape to come together and see what worked the year before and look ahead to what the coming year holds. The PBS Annual Meeting is attended by public television station staff including general managers, programmers, outreach and publicity staff, along with members of the minority consortia, series producers, presenting organizations, and staff from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
› Continue reading
Preview: POV’s 25th Season
Launched in 1988 to showcase new and challenging point-of-view documentaries on PBS, POV (Point of View) has grown to become American television’s longest-running series dedicated to contemporary nonfiction programming.
Watch POV Season 25 Preview on PBS. See more from POV.
POV launches its 25th season on Thursday, June 21, 2012 at 10 PM (check local listings) with award-winning filmmaker Jennifer Fox’s My Reincarnation, the story of a father’s spiritual persistence and a son’s spiritual awakening. The regular season runs through Thursday, Oct. 18 and continues with two special presentations in the fall and winter.
Click here to see the full broadcast schedule.
Half the Sky Wins New Fans at PBS Annual Meeting
By Tamara Gould
Vice President, ITVS International
Based on the bestselling book by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn, Half the Sky will premiere as a special presentation on Independent Lens in October 2012. The project is a cornerstone of the Women and Girls Lead campaign and was on display at last week’s PBS Annual Meeting in Denver.
Just back from the PBS annual meeting in Denver and was absolutely thrilled by the response from stations to the upcoming Half the Sky series, which will air on October 1 and 2 as a special presentation of Independent Lens.
This project has been several years in the making, taking up the ambitious work of New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn who wrote Half the Sky to highlight the challenges that women and girls are facing worldwide — issues like trafficking, maternal health, female genital mutilation, and gender based violence.
› Continue reading
RECAP: Doc U — The Future of Docs on PBS
By Katharine Relth
On Thursday, May 10th, Independent Lens Senior Series Producer Lois Vossen sat on a panel for “Doc U: The Future of Docs on PBS” in Los Angeles, CA. The event was presented by the International Documentary Association.
In preparing for last night’s Doc U: The Future of Docs on PBS, each one of the panelists (and probably most of the audience) thought that they would be gearing up for some major mobilization. Up until Wednesday, May 9, the IDA and other proponents of quality independent programming like Kartemquin Films had joined together to release a public campaign against PBS’s recent decision to move its exemplary series for independent documentaries, Independent Lens and POV, from their long-established slots on Tuesday night to Thursday night, a slot reserved for local programming. But the day before this panel was set to mobilize the documentary community to support IDA and Kartemquin’s PBS Needs Indies campaign, the Public Broadcasting Station announced that both Independent Lens and POV would find a new home on Monday nights. This was an incredible victory for everyone involved. The IDA was so pleased with this announcement, hoping it will mean a renewed viewership for the programs affected by the earlier change. › Continue reading
The ITVS Indies Roundup
A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.
Get your creativity on! Longshot Radio and Radiolab talked about creativity, revision, and failure at the 99% Conference in New York City last week. For your listening pleasure, they compiled their editors’ picks of podcasts from the event.
Behold the TV of the future: using an iPad as a remote, you can control the features that appear on your screen and the overall size, which can stretch the length of your living room wall. Wired claims this is just “what the TV industry needs to stay relevant.”
“I want a man like Putin, who doesn’t drink. I want a man like Putin, who won’t make me sad.” These are the actual lyrics to a Russian pop song. This gem is explained in the new PBS show SOUND TRACKS that will broadcast in Fall 2012. Until then, you can watch their series on the web to learn the political and cultural stories behind music around the world.
› Continue reading
New Primetime Home for Indie Series Emerges From Independent Strategy Task Force Meetings
ITVS President and CEO Sally Jo Fifer Applauds Year-Round Monday Slot on PBS Core Schedule to Help Meet First-Order Mission of Public Broadcasting
I’m pleased to report that the Independent Strategy Task Force has emerged from months of conversation to deliver a new 10 p.m. primetime slot on Monday nights for Independent Lens and POV. This is great news for our series filmmakers and audiences, but more importantly it affirms the partnership and mission that independents and public broadcasting steward together: amplifying diverse voices to strengthen our democracy.
› Continue reading
Doc U: The Future of Docs on PBS
On Thursday, May 10th, Independent Lens Senior Series Producer Lois Vossen will be speaking at the panel “Doc U: The Future of Docs on PBS” in Los Angeles. The event will be presented by the International Documentary Association.
Independent Lens and POV have continually provided a broadcast slot of independent documentary films on PBS. In May 2011, due to schedule changes in PBS’s prime-time schedule, both programs were moved to Thursday evening – a time traditionally reserved for stations’ local and syndicated programming. The inconsistent time slot has been problematic for Independent Lens, with a significant drop in viewership since the schedule change.
Since then, both shows have been the topic of much debate and the documentary community has rallied in support, resulting in PBS’s public announcement to reconsider another schedule shift and together with a newly formed Independent Strategy Task Force, work together in order to rectify the issue. Paired with the significant cuts to PBS’ nonfiction programming from the National Endowment for the Arts, the future remains unclear as to what is in store for independent documentary films and public broadcasting.
› Continue reading
ITVS Announces Production of American Graduate Latino Programming
The national public media initiative’s goal is to address the growing Latino high school dropout crisis.
Nationwide, Latino students face an increased risk of dropping out of school. 41 percent of Latinos ages 20 and older do not have a high school diploma, compared to 23 percent of blacks and 14 percent of whites. To address the growing high school dropout crisis among Latinos, the largest and youngest minority group in the U.S., Independent Television Service (ITVS) – the leading funder of U.S. independent public television productions – is launching American Graduate Latino as part of the national public media initiative, American Graduate: Let’s Make It Happen, made possible by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
Launching in November 2012 with a series of shorts, American Graduate Latino will provide the core American Graduate initiative with broadcasts and online programming in both Spanish and English to engage viewers, teachers, and community leaders in identifying and implementing solutions to the high school dropout crisis.
Statistics on the U.S. Latino dropout crisis as reported by Pew Resource Center, 2010. Courtesy of ITVS.
The ITVS Indies Roundup
A curated list of indie news and recommendations from ITVS’s Rebecca Huval.
Good news continues to pour in from the passage of the JOBS Act. For example, indie filmmakers could raise up to one million dollars. Cue the Dr. Evil face.
Can the art-form of cinéma vérité and Werner Herzog benefit from the input of technologists? MIT Open Documentary Lab thinks so. “There’s this perception that documentary is this staid medium,” Sarah Wolozin, director of the new Open Documentary Lab, told Nieman Journalism Lab. “It’s not. It is this place of innovation. And I think a lot of documentary filmmakers have lost their connection to that history.”
› Continue reading
Bhutto Producer Mark Siegel Reflects on Benazir Bhutto
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.
Recent Posts
Archives
Categories
- #ILDocClub
- All Video
- Ask Programming
- Audio Podcasts
- Awards
- Community Cinema
- Community Classroom
- Exclusive
- Film Festivals
- Filmmaker Profile
- From the President's Desk
- FUTURESTATES
- Global Voices
- Half the Sky
- In the News
- Independent Lens
- Indie Roundup
- Inside Indies
- Institutional Updates
- ITVS Broadcasts
- ITVS Deep Dive
- ITVS Funding
- ITVS indie roundup
- ITVS Indies Showcase
- ITVS International
- Live Chat
- Minority Consortia
- New Online
- On the Road
- Producer Resources
- Public Media
- Recently Funded
- Social Media
- Social Screening
- Special Events
- Talkback
- Uncategorized
- Women and Girls Lead
Related sites
Film Blogs
Public Media Blogs
-
Get the Beyond the Box e-newsletter, sent monthly with the latest news about ITVS, funding opportunities and more. Enter your email and sign up.
-
Sign up for the Independent Lens newsletter. Get news once a week during the broadcast season (fall-spring).