AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Lost Remote
Using data from Hitwise, which roughly estimates online traffic, PBS.org says it’s beating ABC.com, NBC.com, CBS.com and Fox.com in share of online visits since late May. PBS says traffic is up 25% from the 2006-07 season to the 2007-08 season. “Much of this growth has been driven by enhancements to PBS.org’s video offerings and [...]

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Silicon Alley Insider

PBS and its member stations distribute video on a variety of services, including iTunes (AAPL) Joost and Adobe Media Player (ADBE). But that distribution is about to get a lot wider.
The public broadcaster and hundreds of its local broadcast stations have adopted technology from The Platform (CMCSA) to syndicate and share video. Which [...]

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Is PBS Still Necessary? - The New York Times
For the eighth straight year the Bush administration has ritually proposed taking a hefty whack out of the federal subsidy for public broadcasting. The cuts would in effect slice in half the money that public television and public radio get from the government. If we follow the [...]

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PBS, Local Stations Launch iTunes U Content - Press Release
Newly Available on iTunes U: K-12 Educational Resources, Video Lectures and More
Teachers, students and lifelong learners now have a new source for free, educational multimedia, as PBS and local PBS stations KQED (San Francisco), WETA (Washington, D.C.), WGBH (Boston) and WNET (New York) begin offering high-quality [...]

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Rights to OMN technology to be given to public TV - Current.org
On behalf of public TV, stations in New York and San Francisco plan to accept the gift of Kontiki, an economical online video distribution technology used by the BBC iPlayer, AOL and Open Media Network.
Two years ago, Mike Homer, a onetime Netscape exec who [...]

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The PBS Foundation and Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) today announced an award of $1 million to the PBS Foundation from the Adobe Foundation Fund at Silicon Valley Community Foundation. The grant, part of the Adobe Youth Voices global philanthropy initiative, will establish PBS’s Adobe Youth Voices Venture Fund and support PBS Foundation operations.
Through the venture [...]

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PBS today announced it will be adding more video content — including selected online-only features, program excerpts and extended previews from its award-winning series and specials — to its official YouTube(TM) channel (http://www.youtube.com/pbs). With more than 3,000 subscribers and nearly 700 videos already posted to the channel, PBS’ decision to provide more video options follows [...]

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Source: Current.org
37.8 million people tuned in to watch all or part of Ken Burns’ series The War, announced PBS in a press release yesterday. The series won a 4.7 national average household rating, and on average, 7 million people were watching the saga at any given time.

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One Story, 50 Tools, Infinite Possibilities — PBS.org/Learning Now
This post tells a story about an educator, but it’s great value is links to various online storytelling tools.
Educator Alan Levine has proven the adage that there’s more than one side to every story by demonstrating 50 multimedia techniques to present the same tale. The result is [...]

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