CPB FY 2014 Business Plan

CPB's annual business planning cycle has three stages: a review of the Corporation's Goals and Objectives, approval of the operating budget, and endorsement of the business plan.

• The Goals and Objectives set priorities for CPB's work at the long-term strategic level. The Goals and Objectives were updated by the Board in April 2013.
• The operating budget and the associated confidential supplemental schedules reflect the expected funding levels for the statutory and contractual obligations over which CPB has limited discretion, such as support for Community Service Grants (CSGs), the National Program Service (NPS), the Independent Television Service (ITVS), the national minority consortia (NMC) and music royalties.
• The Business Plan outlines CPB's anticipated allocation of discretionary resources for the coming fiscal year.

The plan is organized around a set of "strategic priorities" that describe how CPB intends to implement the Goals and Objectives in the coming year, but balanced against a shorter time frame to enable us to respond to both challenges and opportunities for CPB and public media.

Consistent with the past two years, the proposed strategic priorities for FY 2014 are:

• Digital and Innovation,
• Diversity,
• Dialogue and Engagement,
• Healthy Stations and System,
• Education,
• Journalism, and
• Transparency and Integrity.

In the body of this document, we present each strategic priority and the major projects we currently anticipate undertaking to advance that priority. We include projects that we believe will require both significant financial resources and significant staff work at CPB to complete. We have not included projects in this public version of the business plan that involve proprietary information or confidential negotiations.

We have placed each project under the strategic priority that we believe offers the best fit. Most projects, though, have broad impact and advance more than one strategic priority. The nature of the projects we present here may change as events warrant. Throughout the year, we will keep the Board informed of the progress of the business plan.

At the current time, the amount of our FY 2014 appropriation is uncertain. We are preparing this business plan under the assumption that we will be funded at a level similar to FY 2013, approximately $422 million.

As a result of budget cuts, we have continued to streamline the number and type of projects included in the business plan by following these principles:

• A commitment to initiatives that demonstrate the value of public media locally and nationally and that combine high quality content with robust community engagement. The impact of this powerful combination makes the case for public media as important to community life and worthy of community support as well as local, state and federal funding.
• A commitment to strengthening the efficiency, effectiveness, productivity and sustainability of public media by helping stations and the system raise funds and reduce overhead and operating costs.
• A commitment to the Three Ds, Digital, Diversity and Dialogue, which are part of virtually every CPB initiative. Digital - innovation through technology, leadership, and management - is a driver of efficiency and productivity as well as impact. Diversity is critical in creating content and developing community engagement initiatives that are relevant to communities that are increasingly multicultural. Dialogue is at the core of station impact.

Strategic Priority One: Digital and Innovation

CPB helped to provide the leadership for public media's transition from analog to digital technology. While our initial work was focused on providing support for the stations to transmit digital signals, it soon grew to include support for content and distribution projects that made use of emerging digital technologies. This work was transformational in paving the way for public media to engage with audiences across a wide array of platforms.

The digital and innovation priority includes the development of multicast and multi-platform content, innovative uses of technologies to deliver content, new engagement models, creative collaborations, and preservation and access to the rich content from our past. A few of the ongoing, high-impact CPB-funded projects in this area include:

• The World Channel, a digital multicast television service targeting younger and more diverse audiences. Now about to enter its third year of operation, the channel delivers content to more than 65 public television licensees around the country.
• The Public Media Platform (PMP), a digital solution to the technological and business challenge of sharing content across public media's various platform. This digital project harnesses the power of NPR, PBS, stations, and producers, allowing for the seamless sharing of content and ultimately benefiting public media audiences around the country.
• The Online Video Engagement Experience (OVEE), developed by ITVS and now in use by stations across the country, allows audiences to simultaneously interact with public media content and each other. OVEE allows for the "virtual" screening of public television and radio content and provides participants with the opportunity to engage and exchange opinions and ideas.

Much of the support for these projects came from the Digital Fund, which Congress provided to help public media transition to digital technology and keep pace with technological advances. The elimination of the Digital Fund in 2011 has left us with the challenge of encouraging innovation in content and service within the constraints of our general appropriation.

The areas related to digital technology that are priorities in FY 2014 include spectrum policy and the future spectrum auction, interconnection, and leveraging technology to drive system efficiency.

SPECTRUM POLICY: WHITE PAPER

Nothing is more fundamental to public broadcasting's service than spectrum. Spectrum is the natural resource that allows public broadcasting to deliver on its mandate for universal service: providing a high quality public media service to the entire nation for free. While services such as cable television, satellite service, and Internet access continue to grow in importance as distribution platforms for public media, these services are far from free. Over-the-air delivery remains the sole practical manner for public media to deliver on its universal service objective.

CPB recognizes the importance of broadband service and supports federal efforts to expand accessibility. The spectrum auction offers an opportunity for public media to become more efficient in its use of spectrum while enabling some stations to obtain additional financial resources in the process. Nevertheless, this opportunity comes with challenges and trade-offs, including: the potential compromise of universal service; the reduced potential for service diversity to communities with many different demographic groups; and the financial and service impact on stations that must change frequencies or technical facilities as a result of spectrum repacking without benefiting from auction revenues.

The Association of Public Television Stations (APTS) has focused on important aspects of the spectrum auction that will directly affect station operations: the need to develop auction strategies for stations that choose to participate that will maximize revenue for the system, requirements for stations to reconfigure their transmission facilities as a result of spectrum reallocation, and the process for reimbursing stations for these costs.

CPB's focus is broader and complements the work of APTS: to develop a framework that improves public media's ability to deliver high quality service to the American public. Unlike the rest of the broadcasting world that will participate or be affected by the spectrum auction, public media is about service, not financial gain. While some of CPB's work may touch on financial issues - potential spectrum revenue, distribution of that revenue, implications for CSG and other grant policy, and similar issues - the bulk of CPB's efforts will involve questions of service, including the importance of over-the-air content delivery, over-the-air emergency services, mitigation of service overlap, expansion of service diversity, and the potential for expanding service through non-broadcast delivery.

Our approach to tackling these complex issues is similar to the method we used in exploring another recent topic of national importance to the system: alternatives to federal funding. We will engage in significant system consultation, secure the services of policy, economic, service, and legal experts, and explore a wide range of issues and potential courses of action. We will present findings and recommendations in a "spectrum white paper" designed to inform the system, policy-makers and legislators. We have retained Booz & Company to assist in gathering relevant data and forming recommendations. We anticipate that work on the white paper will continue through this calendar year, with a target date for the paper's release of early next calendar year.

We will develop a plan for dissemination and implementation of the paper's findings during the balance of FY 2014.

CONTINUED SUPPORT FOR FUTURE INTERCONNECTION PLANNING

Currently public radio and public television operate two independent satellite systems for distributing national content to local stations. In a few years these systems will reach the end of their useful lives. In the past, Congress has appropriated funds to CPB to refresh these systems. CPB would normally request funds to refresh the public television system in FY 2015.

In FY 2013, CPB brought together NPR, PBS and other system leaders to encourage a rethinking of distribution for public media. Advances in technology may allow the use of more flexible and efficient distribution alternatives such as terrestrial broadband distribution as an alternative to satellite technology and the use of cloud storage to reduce the need for distribution in real time. Technology may also make feasible the use of a single distribution system for public radio and public television, further reducing costs. These systems are complex. Responsibility for their design therefore best rests with PBS and NPR. CPB may have a role to play in convening stakeholders, supporting planning, engineering, and other studies, and encouraging consideration of novel approaches to distribution. CPB will continue to support this work in FY 2014.

RURAL STATION DIGITAL EQUIPMENT EMERGENCY RECOVERY GRANTS

Consistent with priorities set by the CPB Board, we have set aside some funding to provide emergency financial assistance to rural, economically-challenged public TV and radio stations. These funds will support the purchase and installation of digital equipment that has been damaged as a result of a natural or man-made disaster or act of terrorism.

SUPPORT FOR PARTICIPATION IN TV MULTI-STATION MASTER CONTROLS

This program will continue work that has begun as part of the FY 2013 business plan. We plan to invite stations to apply for grants of up to $50,000 to pay for equipment or fees that are required to take advantage of multi-station master control facilities. Outsourcing of these functions relieves stations of the need to engage periodically in significant fundraising to replace or refresh master control equipment. In addition, in many cases, stations are able to reduce operating expenses by outsourcing this function.

Priority for grant support is given to stations that can demonstrate difficulty in securing capital equipment funding (based on market size, type of service, location or technical circumstances), with the highest priority being rural stations.

Strategic Priority Two: Diversity

CPB's commitment to diversity is not just a response to the growth of racial and ethnic minorities in the nation; support for diversity 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 emphasis on diversity is also driven by a very practical reason: the business imperative to reach and develop new audiences. Public media stations, so reliant on community support, need to expand audiences if they are to grow and succeed in the 21st century. Forward looking institutions like KPCC in Pasadena are expanding their news operations to better serve Southern California's growing multicultural communities while also expanding their potential donor base. Similarly, as mentioned in the Digital section, more than 65 public television licensees are now offering the World Channel, a 24/7 multicast service from WGBH in Boston that is programmed to attract younger and more diverse audiences.

Delivering high quality content of interest and value to diverse audiences is a consideration in virtually every grant that CPB makes. In addition, CPB works in four specific areas to increase service to diverse audiences:

• CPB works with PBS, NPR, and other national networks and producers to increase nationally distributed content of interest to diverse audiences. CPB created the Diversity and Innovation Fund (D&I Fund) to increase the diversity of PBS's primetime schedule and children's offerings and to encourage the production and distribution of digital content as a way to reach younger and more diverse audiences.
• CPB provides grants to a number of national organizations focused on the development of content for diverse audiences, including: the Independent Television Service (ITVS), the National Black Programming Consortia, Latino Public Broadcasting, Vision Maker Media, Pacific Islanders in Communications, and the Center for Asian American Media in public television. In radio, CPB funds programming that serves Native American, Latino and African American audiences, including nationally distributed Native America Calling, Undercurrents and Noticiero Latino, as well as the 24-hour stream of Native American content, NV1.
• CPB works with the station and producing communities to advance diversity in the system. CPB provides grants for professional development and training; CPB funds research that illuminates the interests of diverse audiences and the effectiveness of public media content in serving those interests; and CPB requires that stations establish diversity goals in workforce, management, and on their boards and community advisory boards.
• CPB supports a variety of radio organizations that support stations that serve minority audiences. Many minority-owned stations operate in unique and challenging environments, such as stations on Native American reservations or based in very rural areas where resources to support the stations are slim. The minority organizations help increase station capacity by providing centralized services and support such as assisting with financial reporting, CSG compliance, and professional development.

CONTENT

DIVERSITY AND INNOVATION FUND

Each year, CPB allocates $7 million to the Diversity and Innovation Fund (D&I Fund). The fund was created in 2010 to support television broadcast and interactive projects that are aligned with CPB's Goals and Objectives and PBS programming strategies. Like the Challenge Fund, projects funded by the D&I Fund require the approval of both CPB and PBS to receive a grant. The focus of the fund has been to support diversity in content, theme, producing talent and audience development. While it is very early to name specific projects that may receive D&I grants in FY 2014, it is likely that projects related to American Graduate will continue to receive D&I support. We also anticipate that we will fund primetime specials on a variety of topics and a potential children's program through the D&I Fund.

SCPR ONE NATION

The One Nation project was launched by Southern California Public Radio (SCPR) in 2011 to serve the information and news needs of Latino and other multiethnic communities. The project uses community engagement strategies to attract more diverse audiences in the Los Angeles area to its daily public affairs program, Take Two, which discusses and debates the most important diversity issues of the day. Evaluations are showing that the project has already begun to expand, diversify and transform the public media audience of its producing station and indicate that the One Nation project is a strong model for other stations interested in expanding audience diversity.

CODE SWITCH LOCAL -- EXPANDING THE CONVERSATION: RACE, CULTURE AND ETHNICITY

NPR's Code Switch was launched in 2012 with a goal of enhancing NPR's diversity across all of its national services: news programs, online and mobile services, blogs, and other multimedia content. The work of producers funded by Code Switch is appearing regularly on NPR's signature programs as well as on digital platforms.

CPB is considering building on the success of the NPR Code Switch initiative by extending it to local stations as a regional initiative.

TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

CPB supports the development of human capital within the public media system. Our support reflects dramatic shifts in audience demographics, rapidly evolving technologies, and the ongoing need for well-trained journalists, producers and editorial leaders. In FY 2014, CPB is exploring ways to fund professional development that builds diverse leadership within station management, that develops leaders qualified to operate across television, radio and digital platforms, and that ensures the continued creation of quality content that serves audiences.

Strategic Priority Three: Dialogue and Engagement

Increasing understanding and dialogue through enhanced community engagement has become an essential component of stations' service to their communities. Projects such as Ready To Learn, Facing the Mortgage Crisis, and American Graduate have demonstrated the potential for stations to increase local service, attract financial support, and deliver community-based outcomes.

Most of CPB's efforts to foster community engagement are focused on the American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen initiative. Because of the importance of engagement associated with this initiative, we have included it in the Dialogue section although it is equally as vital to our Education priority and there are significant elements of the project that are relevant to our work in journalism.

Though we are still in the development stages, we have also included a brief description of our veterans project, which features both national content and a significant local engagement component.

AMERICAN GRADUATE: LET'S MAKE IT HAPPEN

American Graduate: Let's Make It Happen helps stations inform their communities about the high school dropout crisis: causes, potential solutions, and community efforts underway to address the crisis. The initiative includes extensive support for production of national content, local and regional reporting, town hall meetings, public service announcements, media experiences for high school students to keep them interested in completing their high school education, and community convening and engagement activities.

The American Graduate initiative incorporates an evaluation methodology designed and conducted by the John Hopkins University's Everyone Graduates Center to help stations assess the impact of their efforts. The Center's findings are clear: stations participating in American Graduate are playing a positive and significant role in increasing community capacity to confront the dropout crisis.

In FY 2014, CPB will launch phase two of the American Graduate initiative, incorporating opportunities for improvement identified by the Everyone Graduates Center. PBS will participate with a renewed focus on early learning as a preventative measure and CPB will expand the scope of American Graduate to encompass a cradle-to-career agenda. We will continue to support the creation of new content to illuminate the causes and potential solutions to the dropout issue. We will increase the size of our network of participants and continue to measure the impact of our efforts.

AMERICAN GRADUATE CONTENT

In FY 2014, CPB will continue to make grants to support the creation of national content relevant to the dropout issue including exploration of issues relevant to diverse communities disproportionately affected by the issue, to rural communities, and to those with learning disabilities. The content may also include coverage of issues around early education, the role of alternative schools and after- and out-of-school programs, and challenges around STEM, among others. Local stations and national producers will contribute to this content by providing education reports and special series for national distribution.

CPB is currently awarding grants to ten radio stations to support local reporting on the dropout issue that will begin to air in FY 2014. We will explore funding expanded news coverage of the dropout issue in FY 2014 by making grants available to national news producers to do more in- depth reporting on the issues.

Given the lead time of content production, particularly in television, some content funded in FY 2014 will be scheduled for broadcast during FY 2015 and FY 2016.

AMERICAN GRADUATE COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Community engagement efforts are a particularly important part of the American Graduate initiative. Local issues such as the quality of local schools, local economic issues, local poverty rates, and similar factors have a profound impact on dropout rates. Local stations know their communities and can engage local leaders, educators, and nonprofit organizations to identify causes and solutions that are uniquely suited to their communities. They can produce and broadcast relevant content, convene and broadcast town hall meetings, and serve as a trusted resource for their communities about this issue.

In FY 2012, CPB identified and awarded grants to a set of HUB stations as anchors of the American Graduate initiative. HUB stations are located in communities with the severest dropout problem and have the willingness and the ability to produce content, convene meetings, and conduct activities that help communities address the local dropout problem.

CPB plans to make a second round of HUB station grants in FY 2014. These second round HUB grants will support initiatives designed to target communities with significant populations of African American and Hispanic students whom research shows have disproportionately high dropout rates.

HUB stations will provide local news and public affairs coverage of the dropout issue, offer support, leadership, and convening services to existing community service organizations working on dropout issues, and develop or expand in-school or after-school programs for their communities.

IMPACT MEASUREMENT

CPB helped to lead the system from outreach to true engagement with local communities. The Public Awareness Initiative was a tipping point for public media in moving the system from a legacy one-way model of outreach to a more sophisticated, two-way, dialogue-based model of engagement. This steady progression from the work of the National Center for Outreach (NCO) to the National Center for Media Engagement (NCME) helped to transform stations as community partners. Our funding for NCME has ended as we take the next step to shift those resources to develop systems of measurement that will help stations assess the effectiveness of their engagement work.

Stations have taken significant interest in finding effective ways of measuring and communicating about the impact of their service. As engagement has moved to the center of many stations' services, measurement of impact has become more important to them. As an indication of station interest in this area, the Major Market Group has begun to explore impact measurement models with its own resources.

In FY 2014, CPB plans to work with stations and the system to explore practical, affordable but effective methods of measuring the impact and effectiveness of community engagement. We will focus on engagement activities connected with American Graduate as a platform to develop these methods. We plan to tap the expertise of academics and research experts in measurement and evaluation to help us develop these measurement models.

While we will use American Graduate as the "laboratory" for developing impact measures, our ambition is to identify approaches that can be used to evaluate a wide variety of public media engagement initiatives.

VETERANS PROJECT

In FY 2014, CPB will continue to support national programming and local content and engagement activities that are about and relevant to veterans and that connect returning veterans to their communities. National content will include a number of television and radio productions scheduled to air throughout FY 2014, including National Memorial Day Concert, National Salute to Veterans, the StoryCorps Military Voices Initiative, Coming Back with Wes Moore, The Homefront, and La Batalla. We will provide a grant to Wisconsin Public Television to help align the national content with the work of stations on the ground. In addition, CPB will award grants to twelve public broadcasting stations in communities with significant populations of veterans to create local content and build local partnerships.

Strategic Priority Four: Healthy Stations and System

Public media is working through a number of significant challenges: the planned TV spectrum auctions, the loss of key sources of equipment funding (PTFP and CPB's digital appropriation), and the looming need for rebuilding national interconnection systems. These challenges are in addition to the day-to-day demands faced by what is now the everyday pace of change: new technology and media distribution platforms, new services offered by new media entrants, and new funding and subscription models to support these services.

CPB's commitment to bolstering the financial and operational health of the public media system is unwavering even in this more challenging and increasingly competitive environment.

For a number of years, we have supported scaled approaches to common technology, back office and development functions at stations. We have funded multi-station master controls, common online infrastructure such as PBS Bento (a centralized website development tool), centralized fundraising operations such as the APTS-DEI Grant Center, and the Contributor Development Partnership, a scaled fundraising effort now being used by 97 stations. These projects have helped stations to operate more efficiently, improve performance, and maintain local content and services.

We've continued to conduct in-depth financial and operational analyses of stations that are experiencing sustainability issues. We have rewarded stations that have successfully consolidated key operations with supplemental CSG funding. We've convened system leaders and experts to consider spectrum policy and future interconnection needs.

In FY 2014, CPB will continue to apply all of our assets - funding, leadership, expertise - to help stations achieve their highest service ambitions and to improve their prospects for sustainability.

COLLABORATION GRANTS

This grant program was established in FY 2013 to support radio and TV projects that use collaboration, consolidation and centralization to:

• preserve service by stations that deliver sole or unduplicated services to a specific audience or region;
• improve station efficiency in key functional and administrative areas; and
• improve station performance in local content and services.

Grants range from $200,000 for in-market collaborations to $750,000 for projects that can scale nationally. Several station groups have recently applied for collaboration grants and their proposals for FY 2014 grants are under review. With the continued development of the Public Media Platform and increased participation in multi-station master controls, more public media stations will have two-way connections to each other than ever before. We expect to support other innovative station collaborations that take advantage of this increasingly networked environment.

PBS SOCAL - IMPROVED CONTENT AND SERVICES FOR THE LOS ANGELES MARKET

KOCE, also known as PBS SoCal, has taken up the mantle of primary station in Los Angeles, the nation's second largest market after KCET withdrew from PBS membership. Transitioning from a secondary station based in Orange County to the primary station serving the entire Los Angeles area is no trivial matter. For example, at the time it dropped its affiliation, KCET operated with about $55 million in revenue and with about 120 employees; KOCE operated with $11 million and about 40 employees. KOCE had no physical presence inside Los Angeles and little representation on its board from Los Angeles.

Since the transition, KOCE has completed some important steps: it has added prominent leaders from Los Angeles to its board, increased its fundraising, established an office in Los Angeles, and hired a seasoned chief operating officer. However, it has a long way to go to scale up to a level needed to provide first-rate service to such a large and complex area as the Los Angeles metropolitan area. CPB, PBS and KOCE are working together to help KOCE acquire the resources to expand its fundraising capacity and establish the station as a Los Angeles institution. This will likely be a three- to five-year effort. In FY 2014, we will continue to be focused on support for institution-building within KOCE, with a particular emphasis on expanding the station's fundraising capability.

STRENGTHENING STATIONS: FINANCIAL AND OPERATIONAL ANALYSES

CPB will continue to provide funding for operational and financial analyses of stations that are experiencing a financial or operational crisis, have a failing or dramatically changing business model, are in danger of falling below minimum NFFS requirements, or healthy stations that are potential partners and collaborators with challenged stations. We plan to use outside experts to examine stations.

RADIO CSG COLLABORATION PROGRAM

In FY 2014, CPB will implement the new Radio CSG Station Collaboration Program designed to encourage the public radio system to achieve more effective and efficient scale and enhance public service. The Station Collaboration Program will support collaborations and consolidations through multi-station mergers and consolidations; content partnerships; and administrative and development collaborations. Stations participating in these collaborations will receive larger CSG base grants for up to three years. FY 2014 will be the first year of the five-year program, which was approved by the Board as part of the Radio CSG Review recommendations.

TV CSG SUPPLEMENTAL PROGRAMS

In FY 2014, CPB will continue to encourage efficient operations through programs incorporated into the TV CSG program. These programs will provide larger CSGs to encourage stations to:

• reduce inefficient overlapped services through the coordination of schedules and cooperative management of bandwidth; and
• enter into comprehensive operating or management agreements with other stations to improve system efficiency while preserving local service.

Strategic Priority Five: Education

Public media's commitment to education has been a pillar of its service for more than 45 years. From the start, our system of local stations transformed how children learn by using television to teach letters, numbers and social and emotional learning through iconic series such as Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood.

In FY 2014 we will help public media continue to serve as a trusted provider of quality content for today's youth that educates and entertains.

CHILDREN'S CONTENT

Despite the well documented success of public television's children's content in improving children's academic achievement, pressure on federal and state budgets and the changing economics of content distribution are making it increasingly difficult to fund new children's programs. In FY 2014, CPB will begin discussions with educational and media experts including PBS and Sesame Workshop, stakeholders, business leaders and funders to discuss the educational needs of America's children, public media's role in serving those needs, and how the system can position itself for new federal and philanthropic funding opportunities.

While we help the system look for new approaches to funding and distributing educational children's content, we will continue to support the production of educational series that have proven to have high educational value and appeal. Examples include Dinosaur Train, SuperWHY, Sid the Science Kid and Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood. CPB will make grants to producers of new and existing series in order to strengthen and maintain a competitive schedule of children's content on PBS, ensuring that public media remains among the most trusted and safest educational destinations for children.

READY TO LEARN

The mission of Ready To Learn is to improve the math and literacy skills of two- to eight-year olds, especially those from low-income backgrounds, through interactive, cross-platform content. This transmedia content supports the idea that "anytime is learning time" and helps prepare children for success in school. In FY 2014, Ready To Learn will enter its fourth year of the five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Education. This will be a pivotal year as CPB and our Ready To Learn partners launch a new preschool math series, measure impact and learning of Ready To Learn content, and release Sesame Workshop's Progress Tracker.

More specifically, CPB and our Ready To Learn partners will debut the new preschool math series, Peg + Cat, on-air, online and on mobile platforms; continue production of an elementary age children's math series Odd Squad, which will premiere in fall 2014. We will launch the Progress Tracker (a tool that enables parents and educators to follow children's performance as they complete educational game play across all Ready To Learn platforms the child used), produce and distribute transmedia learning resources that can be used in summer and after- school settings, and evaluate the efficacy of Peg + Cat transmedia content in early learning environments such as preschools, afterschool centers and the home.

Strategic Priority Six: Journalism

National surveys conducted over the last 10 years demonstrate the trust Americans have in public media. The most recent² survey confirms that PBS and its member stations are ranked first in trust among nationally known institutions. A cornerstone of this trust is public media's news and public affairs programming.

The CPB Board convened roundtable discussions about public media's role and future at the Aspen Institute in 2009, which reaffirmed our commitment to journalism as a vital component of the services that public media offers the American public. Since that time, CPB has supported numerous local and national projects that have introduced new approaches to producing and distributing news. Many of those projects continue to flourish and are becoming sustainable without additional CPB grants.

Over the past year, CPB has supported the system in continuing its major strides to maintain and improve its role as a provider of trusted news and information. For example, our grants have allowed Frontline to maintain a year-round footprint, increased capacity at NPR for international reporting and multiplatform coverage of topics around culture, diversity, race and ethnicity in our nation, fostered the station reporting collaborations known as the Local Journalism Centers, and delivered tremendous local and national coverage of the dropout crisis in America through PBS NewsHour.

In FY 2014, CPB will continue to support capacity -building and content production in public media news and public affairs. The projects we are planning to support will help public media play a greater role in meeting communities' information needs. A recent Knight Foundation report³ affirms the vital nature of our grant-making in this area, stating, "Making positive change happen in communities requires the free flow of quality information. If the news and information environment is in trouble, so is civic life."

PBS NEWSHOUR WEEKEND EDITION

CPB is supporting PBS NewsHour as it partners with WNET to create the PBS NewsHour Weekend Edition. For the first time NewsHour will have a seven-day, national primetime presence, just as their commercial broadcast counterparts do. The Saturday and Sunday broadcasts will be produced at WNET's New York studio and will incorporate other public media news and public affairs assets into the original broadcast and digital content. This mix of content from national public TV and radio series as well as local station programming will provide an opportunity to create a new model of public media cross-collaboration and production efficiencies. PBS NewsHour's Hari Sreenivasan will anchor the weekend editions which will begin airing in September 2013. CPB provided support for the initial series in FY 2013 and anticipates continued support for PBS NewsHour Weekend Edition at the same level in FY 2014.

LOCAL JOURNALISM CENTERS (LJCs)

CPB launched the LJCs in 2010 by funding seven of these editorial collaborations that are comprised of public television and radio stations focused on one subject area through delivery of in-depth, multimedia, multiplatform news coverage. The LJCs have increased journalism capacity in over 40 local markets. While the original LJCs are evolving and working to become self-sustaining, CPB plans to support the establishment of two new LJCs, which together will include approximately ten stations, focused on new topical areas.

Strategic Priority Seven: Transparency and Editorial Integrity

Public media stands as America's most trusted media. That trust was built over several decades, and maintaining it requires conscious effort and new methods to meet the challenges presented with today's technology and circumstances. As such, public media must be represented by highly transparent and accountable organizations that produce high-quality, fair and accurate journalism, effective educational content and services, and authentic cultural and musical programming.

The public rightly expects a high level of transparency and integrity from public media organizations and their content. CPB's role is to encourage our grantees and public media partners to meet those expectations, and we do so through a variety of means. For example, CPB CSG policy requires stations to adhere to specific transparency requirements. CPB funds projects that establish a framework of voluntary measures that stations can adapt and follow. In grants that support journalism or public affairs content, we have sought to increase transparency in reporting. In FY 2014, we will continue to work with the public media system to ensure the highest level of transparency, accountability and editorial integrity.

ADOPTING THE EDITORIAL INTEGRITY CODE

In FY 2014, CPB will support continuing efforts to motivate and assist stations in adopting the Code of Editorial Integrity for Local Public Media Organizations and developing local policies and guidelines that put the principles of the Code into local context and circumstances. This work will include an outreach and education campaign to increase station awareness of the importance of having such policies in place and demonstration projects in which stations of different types will receive assistance in working through a complete policy development process appropriate to their situations.

The Code was an item on the agenda of the recent meeting of the leadership of the Affinity Group Coalition. The Code received widespread support by the members attending the meeting. The leaders of each coalition committed to working with the members of their affinity groups to encourage them to adopt a formal code around editorial integrity, either by adopting the Code of Editorial Integrity for Public Media Stations or modifying it to fit their own unique circumstances.

Conclusion

For FY 2014, CPB will carry out significant, important, and highly focused work to support the public media system. Guided by the Board of Directors, we are focusing on the essential characteristics of an effective public media service, whatever the external environment.

These essential characteristics include: a healthy system of local stations, responsive to and capable of meeting critical local needs such as the dropout crisis; powerful services in journalism and education that have been hallmarks of public media from its earliest days; a system that embraces the challenges of diversity, changing as our nation changes to serve all of 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 and however they tune in.