Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) (2024)

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), private, nonprofit American corporation whose members are the public television stations of the United States and its unincorporated territories. PBS provides its member stations with programming in cultural, educational, and scientific areas, in children’s fare, and in news and public affairs but does not itself produce programs; the programs are produced by the member stations, independent producers, and other program producers worldwide. PBS headquarters are in Alexandria, Virginia, outside Washington, D.C.

The early years of public television in the United States were dominated by National Educational Television (NET; founded in 1952 as the Educational Television and Radio Center), which relied primarily on funding from the Ford Foundation. Following the creation of the Public Broadcasting Act (1967), the government-funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was established, and in 1969 it founded the Public Broadcasting Service as a successor to NET. The PBS broadcast network debuted in 1970. In its initial years, PBS featured such acclaimed programming as the children’s shows Sesame Street (begun 1969) and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood (1968–2001; with Fred Rogers), the performing-arts series Evening at Pops (1970–2005) and Great Performances (begun 1972), the science-oriented Nova (begun 1974), and the current-affairs show Washington Week in Review (begun 1967; later titled Washington Week). Viewers were also drawn to the instructional The French Chef (1963–73), with Julia Child; the political talk show Firing Line (1966–99), hosted by William F. Buckley, Jr.; and the drama anthology Masterpiece Theatre (begun 1971; later Masterpiece), presided over for many years by Alistair Cooke.

Throughout the network’s history, many of its other series achieved considerable renown, including The MacNeil/Lehrer Report (begun 1975 with news presenters Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer; now PBS NewsHour), Live from Lincoln Center (begun 1976), Live from the Metropolitan Opera (later titled The Metropolitan Opera Presents; 1977–2006), This Old House (begun 1979), Mystery! (begun 1980; later subsumed into Masterpiece), Nature (begun 1982), American Playhouse (1982–93), Frontline (begun 1983), The Frugal Gourmet (1983–95; with Jeff Smith), Smithsonian World (1984–91), Adam Smith’s Money World (1984–97), American Masters (begun 1986), The American Experience (begun 1988; later titled American Experience), and Antiques Roadshow (begun 1997). Eponymously titled talk shows hosted by Charlie Rose and Tavis Smiley began in 1993 and 2004, respectively. In addition, PBS aired numerous documentary films (including several prominent works by Ken Burns), as well as a variety of series originally produced for British television.

As a corporate entity, PBS is governed by a board of directors, consisting of the company president, general directors from outside the organization, and representatives from some of its hundreds of noncommercial member stations. Member stations are licensed variously by community organizations, universities, state authorities, or local educational or municipal authorities. Funding for PBS is derived from various sources, including the U.S. federal government (through the CPB and other departments and agencies), state governments, member stations’ dues, corporations and foundations, and the contributions of viewers.

In addition to managing the National Program Service, which provides programming to member stations, PBS and its subsidiaries engage in a number of other activities. Some of these endeavours have included offering college-credit television courses, providing instructional programs for elementary- and secondary-school students, selling goods and services to raise funds for PBS and member stations, offering high-speed data delivery to homes and businesses, distributing video recordings of public television programs for both public institutions (such as schools and libraries) and the retail market, and researching and developing technical systems for the network and its member stations. In 2005 the company helped launch PBS KIDS Sprout, a cable television channel geared toward preschool children.