CPB FY 2015 Business Plan

Between FY 2002 and FY 2011, Congress supported public media's adoption of digital technology with a special appropriation. Originally, this appropriation targeted the conversion of station transmission from analog to digital. In later years, Congress recognized the importance of public media's development of new forms of content and service to both fully exploit the potential of digital broadcasting and to expand the reach of public broadcasting to portable devices and other emerging media technologies. Some of the larger content and service projects funded with the digital appropriation included The American Archive of Public Media; multicast services like V-Me and World; online infrastructure like The Public Media Platform, OVEE, PBS Bento, and Merlin; educational services like PBS LearningMedia, and PBS KIDS GO!

Since the digital appropriation ended, we have had to focus our resources on fewer projects. However, it is essential that we keep pace with technology and increase public media's ability to provide our content and services on digital and mobile platforms. In this regard, we will continue to embrace innovation through the allocation of discretionary programming and system support funds.

CPB will support projects that make use of established platforms such as PBS Digital Studios, PBS KIDS, and NPR One. We will also support projects that use social media to expand their reach and impact, such as FRONTLINE, PBS NewsHour, and Localore. We will work closely with PBS, NPR, and other program producers and distributors to coordinate our digital and innovation strategy with the aim of expanding and advancing public media's digital services.

We will also establish a two-year initiative that is designed to identify and support partnerships between public media stations and new digital journalism/nonprofit organizations that are emerging in many communities. The project will begin by identifying a few locations that are ripe for a significant partnership. CPB will then support the local station in moving from occasional informal story collaborations into stronger, ongoing, formal alliances with the partnering organization.

The priority to reach and serve an audience that includes all Americans has been a core value of public media since its earliest days. The Public Broadcasting Act states that:

6. it is in the public interest to encourage the development of programming that involves creative risks and that addresses the needs of unserved and underserved audiences, particularly children and minorities;
7. it is necessary and appropriate for the Federal Government to complement, assist, and support a national policy that will most effectively make public telecommunications services available to all citizens of the United States… . ¹

CPB's commitment to diversity reflects this founding principle of public broadcasting. CPB's emphasis on diversity is also driven by a very practical purpose: the need to reach and develop new audiences. Public media stations rely on community support. Stations need to reach audiences effectively if they are to thrive in the 21st century.

For FY 2015, our Diversity grants will focus on three areas:

1. Content Creation: Support the creation of content that serves the needs of diverse audiences.
2. Professional Development: Create initiatives that help to diversify the station, system, and producer leadership of public media.
3. Organizational Support: Support public media organizations and stations whose mission includes increasing diversity in public media.

Support for the Creation of Content

CPB supports the creation of content that meets the objective of diversity in all of our content- oriented grant making. The Education Department supports the objective of diversity in virtually all of the children's content projects that it funds. These projects are described under Education.

Projects Supported through The Diversity and Innovation Fund

The Diversity and Innovation Fund (D&I Fund) is an annual allocation of $7 million. It is the largest source of support for content that is specifically designed to appeal to diverse audiences. Through the D&I Fund, CPB works closely with PBS to support major content initiatives that incorporate diversity in a meaningful way for the PBS primetime schedule, the PBS KIDS block, and PBS digital content platforms.

Since FY 2011, the D&I Fund has supported more than 40 nationally distributed content and innovation projects. Projects likeComing Back with Wes Moore, 180 Days: A Year Inside an American High School, TED Talks Education, March on Washington, and Ruben Salazar: Man in the Middle bring diversity to public media's primetime television and broadband services.

The D&I Fund is closely aligned with both the American Graduate initiative and the Veterans Coming Home project, which are described later in this document. CPB is developing several new initiatives through projects supported by the Minority Consortia. CPB will also consider providing support for efforts to increase diversity on camera and behind the camera in these projects.

In FY 2015, CPB will also increase support for Web-based video content. The goal is to help public media reach younger and more diverse audiences. Supporting short-form, mobile- optimized content also has the potential to attract a new, younger group of content producers to public media.

Projects Funded Outside the Diversity and Innovation Fund

CPB strives to meet the objective of diversity in most or all of its content grants, not just grants made through the D&I Fund. We plan to fund those projects that have a significant diversity component in addition to the content that the D&I Fund will support.

Public radio's music content has primarily included three genres: jazz, classical music, and Triple-A (a flexible music radio format that is largely based on singer-songwriters). CPB will explore expanding music options.

CPB will maintain its support for radio programming that serves Native American audiences, specifically the nationally distributed Native America Calling and UnderCurrents.

Professional Development

If public media is going to maintain its relevance to an increasingly diverse and multicultural nation, it must first reflect that diversity in its own professional and creative workforce. In FY 2015, CPB will help the public media system improve the diversity of its workforce by funding four areas of professional development:

• Programming leadership;
• Producer mentoring;
• Station leadership; and
• Entry-level talent development.

Organizational Support

CPB is committed to helping public media organizations improve their operating effectiveness. CPB will continue to evaluate and analyze practices that increase effectiveness and efficiencies across the entire system.

In FY 2015, we will also continue to fund organizations whose mission is to help minority-owned stations succeed.

The CPB Board of Directors has established Dialogue as a strategic priority to help stations strengthen their local connection through content and engagement. CPB supports the efforts of local stations through a variety of engagement projects, most recently through two key initiatives, American Graduate and Veterans Coming Home.

American Graduate

American Graduate is a public media initiative that addresses an issue of national and local concern: annually, nearly 1 million young people fail to graduate from high school. American Graduate is composed of public media radio and television stations working with more than 1,000 nonprofit, business, community, and faith-based organizations, and parents and teachers, to help communities understand the dropout issue and help young people stay on the path to a high school diploma. The American Graduate initiative has been recognized by Members of Congress, leaders in the foundation and business worlds, educators, parents, and at-risk high school students. Through the combination of trusted content and effective community engagement activities, American Graduate has helped stations fulfill their vital community role and has opened new doors with key stakeholders and funders.

While overall graduation rates are improving, dropout rates remain high among Native American, African American, and Latino communities across the United States.

In FY 2014, CPB provided grants to 33 stations in communities where graduation rates were low. In FY 2015, under the continuing leadership of Nine Network in St. Louis, these stations will partner with community organizations and individuals to support their efforts to keep youth on the path to high school graduation.

In FY 2015, we anticipate providing grants as part of American Graduate to support the creation of national and regional content and the implementation of related engagement activities.

CPB will provide grants to support national content to several organizations that will deliver national and regional content around the graduation issue. Ongoing coverage on the PBS NewsHour, national content from other producers, and local productions from American Graduate stations will provide a springboard for community dialogue and events led by local stations.

CPB intends to support the broadcast of a fourth annual American Graduate Day. American Graduate Day is a national, multi-platform event and multi-hour broadcast dedicated to illuminating issues affecting education outcomes for high school students.

CPB will provide grants to stations to share success stories and celebrate the leaders and everyday heroes who have helped the country make progress in high school graduation rates. These stories of "American Graduate Champions" will be distributed through broadcast, on the Web, at local events, and through social media. They will underscore the important role that volunteer mentors have in a young person's educational success.

Veterans Coming Home

CPB launched the Veterans Coming Home project in FY 2014 in response to station interest in serving the 2.5 million service members who are transitioning to civilian life. CPB's support to Wisconsin Public Television (WPT) helped launch the project and guide stations' work in local production, partnership development, town hall meetings, and volunteer and job fairs. Twelve stations in communities with a high proportion of veterans received grants. Working with community-based partners, stations are recognizing veterans for their service; sharing their stories, opportunities, and challenges; and increasing the number of veterans connecting with local resources to support their successful transition to civilian life.

While the military community knows well the challenges of multiple deployments, combat injuries, and long-awaited homecomings, few civilians truly understand the complex realities of our troops' service and sacrifice.

In FY 2015, CPB will continue to fund national content around veterans' issues. CPB will provide grants to fund news coverage and will continue to support related national programs such as the National Memorial Day Concert and StoryCorps' Military Voices. We will also fund documentaries, special programs, and original digital content.

CPB will continue to fund Veterans Coming Home station engagement grants. In the past year, stations' community engagement work has been an important catalyst for veterans seeking to reconnect with their communities upon their return from service in Iraq and Afghanistan. In FY 2015, CPB will provide funding so that stations can focus on Iraq and Afghanistan veterans' challenges around re-entry and improve civilian understanding of veterans' issues.

Over six years ago, the public media system - national organizations and stations - set out a vision for the future of public media in the digital age, emphasizing that broadband and broadcast are complementary. Today, the public media system continues to work to fulfill the needs of our audiences in an environment characterized by a converging media and telecommunications world. As we enter FY 2015, a number of developments have the potential to affect public access to public media's service, the financial and operational underpinnings of the public media system, and the continuing multi-year pattern of change in the way the public uses media in general and public media in particular.

CPB will work with the public media system to prepare for the spectrum auction and repacking process. We will help the station community cope with the engineering and legal challenges associated with the repacking process. We will also help to assess and address the financial and economic consequences resulting from potential areas of over-the-air service loss created by the auction and repacking.

CPB works with stations and the system to strengthen the financial and operational health of the public media system. In recent years, we have encouraged stations to use technology to achieve greater efficiencies in back office and developmental operations, and we will continue this effort in FY 2015.

In the coming year, CPB will continue to work to build a stronger, more efficient, and more effective public media system.

• We will fund research that can provide greater insight into how specific audiences are using public television and how we can increase the appeal of our content and services to those audiences.
• We will continue to support multiple station collaborations or consolidations with the aim of increasing local service and reducing redundant infrastructure.
• We will work with PBS and NPR to plan for public broadcasting's future interconnection needs.

The Future of Public Media

Public radio and public television have served our nation well for over 47 years. Changes in demographics, economics, and technology, however, are challenging the public media system with respect to audience, funding, and, in some cases, relevance.

Public media has remained relevant by becoming an early adopter of new technologies, enabling us to deliver high-quality content to new publics on the move. We have enhanced our service by embracing over-the-air broadcasting and broadband distribution of our content. How the American people choose to consume media, public and commercial, will continue to evolve, and CPB, as thought leader for the system, will address these challenges and opportunities that specifically impact public media. Through a series of structured discussions with leaders from relevant fields, we will shape a vision for public media and identify obstacles to achieving that vision. Our goal will be to enhance our service to the American people, consistent with our mission.

Interconnection System Development

Interconnection is the backbone of public broadcasting. The public television interconnection system is used by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), other national public television distributors, state and regional public television networks, individual public television stations, and individual producers. The system is used to distribute television programming and related materials to 172 non-commercial, educational television licensees in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa. These licensees, holding approximately 20 percent of FCC television licenses, reach nearly 100 percent of the U.S. population, from large cities to extremely rural and tribal areas, with quality educational and cultural programming. In addition, the interconnection system connects to the NPR Network Operations Center (NOC) and two existing CPB-sponsored television joint master control facilities (funded by CPB to encourage system efficiency and consolidation of services). The system also enables distribution of programming to American servicemen and women overseas via the Armed Forces Radio and Television Service and to audiences around the globe via the Voice of America (VOA).

CPB will continue to work with PBS and NPR to plan for public broadcasting's future interconnection needs.

Television Community Service Grant Review

The Public Broadcasting Act requires CPB to consult with stations periodically on the formula and policy criteria used to calculate television and radio CSGs. The last television CSG review was completed in 2010. CPB will begin a television CSG review in FY 2015.

The CSG review will consider a broad range of issues such as station health, diversity of service, incentives for rural service, and collaboration and consolidation, as well as matters related to non-Federal financial support and administrative issues. In addition, the CSG review will consider what, if any, changes to CSG policy should be taken in light of the FCC spectrum incentive auction tentatively scheduled to take place in mid-2015.

For more than four decades, public media has placed education at the heart of its service. In FY 2014, CPB supported advancements in public media's efforts to provide quality educational content and resources to students, their families, and teachers. Through a wide range of activities targeted at improving educational outcomes for youth, local stations have been at the center of community conversations about education. They have leveraged their on-air, online, and community presence to advance local education efforts.

Public media provides a trusted, proven service within an educational media environment that is constantly changing. Research paints a picture of kids in the driver's seat, actively choosing what they watch across multiple media platforms. New and well-resourced broadcast channels are targeting the pre-school audience, and more homes have access to mobile platforms than ever before.

Through the PBS KIDS broadcast schedule, online and on mobile platforms, public media reaches millions of children each day with content that has been recognized by parents, children, researchers, and the U.S. Department of Education as both entertaining and high in educational value. Multiple studies have shown the effectiveness of public media's children's educational content, especially for low-income children, their parents, and caregivers.

Ready To Learn

Ready To Learn (RTL) is a grant program under the aegis of the U.S. Department of Education. The purpose of RTL is to provide educational content for preschool students. The content is designed to prepare preschoolers for school and then improve their academic performance once they reach school. RTL targets students from low-income families who have limited access to daycare and preschool.

RTL operates in five-year cycles. Grants are provided competitively by the U.S. Department of Education for a term of five years. However, the five-year commitment is contingent on the program receiving an annual appropriation from Congress each year. Congress has appropriated funds for FY 2015, the last year of the current five-year cycle.

The current RTL cycle is primarily focused on math and science education using a "transmedia" approach to content design and distribution. Transmedia refers to content design that flows across multiple media forms and delivery platforms. The approach is integrated, which allows children to move from television to a mobile platform to the Internet seamlessly as they interact with the content and the associated educational materials.

The U.S. Department of Education requires an extensive research component to prove the educational merit of the content produced with RTL funds. The research results have been very positive, showing that low-income children exposed to RTL content can perform at the same level as their more affluent peers when they reach school.

During this year, CPB will finish the final year of the current five-year RTL grant cycle and produce an evaluation and final report that show the impact of this multi-year effort. The primary focus will be scaling the resources developed in this grant to 22 stations and beyond to the entire public media system. We will also work with our partners and lead the development of an innovative proposal for the next RTL grant through the U.S. Department of Education.

In FY 2015, CPB, in partnership with PBS, will develop the following RTL components for America's children, their families, and educators.

Transmedia Content. In FY 2015, PBS and its children's media partners will develop and disseminate the final wave of national content funded through this round of RTL. This content includes Odd Squad, the new elementary math series scheduled for public launch in November 2014. Additionally, PBS and partners will continue to develop new installments of digital games and apps for Peg + Cat, The Electric Company, and selected PBS KIDS titles.

Research and Evaluation. Transmedia content being developed through this grant will continue to be evaluated by two research teams, including the Educational Development Center, Inc. (EDC) in collaboration with SRI International and WestEd. During FY 2015, the firms will evaluate the educational results of the content in home settings. The firms will write a capstone paper on the lessons learned from the 2010- 2015 CPB/PBS/Sesame Workshop grant of Ready To Learn.

Station Engagement. During FY 2015, CPB will use RTL and our own discretionary American Graduate PBS KIDS Fund resources to support a third cohort of national transmedia demonstration stations across the country. These stations will implement an innovative set of multi-platform educational activities for home, school, and out-of- school settings that will apply best practices in early learning to these environments.

The American Graduate/PBS KIDS Fund

In February 2014, CPB and PBS announced the establishment of the American Graduate/PBS KIDS Fund. The Fund is a two-year commitment by CPB and PBS to support the creation of new children's content and to allow stations to collaborate with community-based educational partners to better serve parents and caregivers of young children.

The American Graduate/PBS KIDS Fund was inspired by the success of stations' local community engagement work through American Graduate, a recent survey by PBS that revealed parents' concerns about their children's readiness for school, and an increased national emphasis on early childhood education and its role in preparing children for future success.

In FY 2014, CPB provided a grant from the Fund to support a new children's series, Nature Cat, and a grant for Season 2 of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. CPB also provided several grants to stations to help parents and educators of children from low-income communities effectively use math resources that were developed under Ready To Learn.

In FY 2015, we will provide another grant to support Season 2 of Peg + Cat, a program for preschool children that teaches math concepts and skills, including problem solving and perseverance. The new season will also offer a suite of content and engagement resources to promote, guide, and celebrate young mentors in local communities. Research has shown that when older children act as mentors and role models for younger children, both older and younger children can experience social-emotional and academic benefits.

We are in the very early stages of concept development for additional projects that we may support through the American Graduate/PBS KIDS Fund. We will also provide grants for children's content and services from other discretionary funding sources. These projects include support for new children's content, PBS LearningMedia, and projects that involve young people directly in creating media content.

PBS LearningMedia

PBS LearningMedia is a growing and expanding service reaching more than 1 million teachers. It is a free destination for educators to access tens of thousands of classroom-ready, curriculum-based digital resources, including videos and interactive content, as well as audio, documents, and in-depth lesson plans. PBS LearningMedia gives stations a platform to build partnerships with schools and districts, attract local and state funding, and expand their educational footprint in their local service areas.

CPB's support has allowed PBS to fill in critical content gaps, making it a valuable tool for stations and teachers. In FY 2014, CPB funded WGBH to lead collaboration with nine other public media stations and producing partners to create middle school math content for distribution on PBS LearningMedia. Based on best practices learned from this current grant, and coupled with analysis to determine continuing content needs, CPB will support the development of new content that meets the needs of students and educators, ensuring that stations continue to deliver a service that is locally valued and effective.

In 2009, CPB worked with the Aspen Institute to convene a series of discussions about the role of public media in American life. At the time, many local newspapers were in danger of collapse due to the recession and disruption caused by new digital media channels. At these discussions, the CPB Board reaffirmed journalism as an essential service provided by public media for a well-functioning democracy. Following the Aspen meetings, the CPB Board made journalism a strategic priority, and management developed grant initiatives to support an increase in public media's news content, both nationally and regionally.

More recently, the pessimism about the future of journalism has begun to change. According to a recent report by the Pew Research Journalism Project:

"… there is a level of energy to the news industry not seen for a long time. Even as challenges of the past several years continue and new ones emerge, the activities this year have created a new sense of optimism - or perhaps hope - for the future of American journalism."²

Public media has an important role to play in the future of journalism. To underscore the importance of journalism in the digital age, CPB has created a new position, Senior Vice President for Journalism and Radio. Our goal is to build journalism capacity in public media, including audio, video, television, radio, digital, and mobile media.

CPB continues to be instrumental in helping public media maintain and improve its ability to serve as a trusted provider of news and information. We support FRONTLINE to help it maintain a year-round footprint; we provide grants to NPR to strengthen international reporting; we funded expanded coverage of the dropout crisis in America; we provided grants to expand the number of Local Journalism Collaborations; and we supported the creation of a regional reporting collaborative in New York state.

In FY 2015, CPB will continue to support national reporting and capacity building at the station level for news and public affairs.

CPB continues to support excellence in journalism through several grants including NPR International Coverage. This grant will help to defray costs incurred by NPR as it provides award-winning international news coverage from its bureaus around the world. NPR broadcasts ongoing coverage of international events to more than 27 million people who listen to NPR programs and newscasts on public radio stations nationwide and to millions more Americans through its online and mobile digital media services.

CPB will support local stations, PBS, NPR, other public media organizations, and independent producers in planning and producing public media's coverage of the 2016 national presidential elections.

CPB will support efforts by a number of journalism teams to create more video content. Under this initiative, the Local Journalism Collaborations will expand their capacity to produce video content both for on-air and online distribution.

CPB is developing a three-year initiative to build a network of locally based station journalists who are capable of producing high-quality content for national and regional programs. CPB is planning an initiative that would provide grants to stations, NPR, PBS NewsHour, and others to work together in several regions across the country to strengthen the skills of station-based reporters and editors. The objective is to leverage public media's network of local stations to increase the flow of locally produced content of national interest to the signature national programs. An additional objective is to expand diversity into public media's journalism workforce and coverage to reflect the racial and ethnic diversity and range of perspectives throughout America.

PBS NewsHour

The PBS NewsHour is public television's pre-eminent news program and one of the few sources of in-depth news reporting and analysis available on television. Effective July 2014, ownership of the program was transferred from MacNeil/Lehrer Productions to WETA. CPB is planning to support WETA's efforts to revitalize the program as it works to expand NewsHour's editorial partnerships, foster audience engagement across media platforms, and promote its sustainability.

PBS NewsHour Weekend

PBS plans to continue support for PBS NewsHour Weekend, which was launched in September 2013 and established a seven-day presence for PBS' signature news reporting operation. These 30-minute broadcasts include original broadcast and digital content from local stations as well as national and international producers.

FRONTLINE

CPB is in discussions with FRONTLINE to continue funding its year-round investigative journalism programming for the coming year.

Strategic Priority Seven: Transparency and Editorial Integrity

Public media is regarded as America's most trusted media; maintaining that trust is of the highest importance. CPB encourages stations and public media in general to meet high levels of transparency and integrity in both their operations and programming.

CPB requires CSG recipients to adhere to specific transparency requirements, and CPB considers an organization's commitment to transparency when making funding decisions.

In FY 2015, we will continue to work with the public media system to ensure the highest level of transparency, accountability, and editorial integrity.

Editorial Integrity Project

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 directs CPB to protect public broadcasting entities "from interference with, or control of, program content or other activities." The Editorial Integrity Project is a multi-year effort to develop guiding principles for stations and station licensees to support editorial independence and integrity in station program production and editorial decision making. To date, more than 180 radio and TV stations have adopted a version of the Public Media Code of Integrity.

In FY 2015, we will support continuing efforts to encourage the adoption of the Code at more stations and by more licensees.

CSG Diversity and Transparency

Over the past few years, CPB has significantly increased the amount of information that CSG recipients must make available to the public, especially with regard to the diversity of its staff and programming content.

In FY 2015, CPB will expand the amount of staff-led online and in-person training around these requirements. CPB will also support the development of tools and materials that make it easier for stations to maintain compliance with the transparency requirements.

In FY 2015, CPB will continue to support an agenda of important, highly focused work to advance and strengthen public media's service to the American people. This agenda will be guided by the vision and priorities established by the Board of Directors in the Goals and Objectives.

The outcomes of this agenda include: a healthy system of local stations, responsive to local issues and community concerns; services in journalism and education, hallmarks of public media from its earliest days; a system that embraces the challenges of diversity and serves our citizens in all of their varied ethnicities, cultures, and economic and social backgrounds; and a system that uses technology to reach listeners and viewers wherever they are, however they tune in.