KIOS-FM partnered with Omaha Public School District’s broadcasting classes to help students with consistently poor reading and writing skills. The project taught broadcasting students the basics of newsgathering and reporting using a relatively new form of digital technology, the Marantz PMD-620 recorder. The new equipment and the chance to air their work on-air and online motivated the young participants to improve their reading, writing, and critical thinking skills.

When the economic downturn hit Nebraska in 2008, NET Television and the University of Nebraska’s extension office developed a multiplatform Recession Survival Guide. Its broadcast program featured segments―all later streamed online―in which experts presented concrete ways to cut food costs, manage household expenses, reduce personal debt, save energy, and handle the stress related to an economic downturn. Additional online content about how to achieve cost savings for agriculture and livestock production, maintain and strengthen family relationships, and start a home garden complemented the broadcast. NET Television and the university’s extension office held a dozen related community engagement events in libraries, on campuses, and at county fairgrounds around the state.