Celebrities and member stations alike came out in full force to support We ❤️ Public Television!, a live telethon produced Nov. 8 at PBS SoCal’s studios in Burbank, Calif.
The special features stars of PBS and the wider world of entertainment, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Josh Groban, Ken Burns, Ziggy Marley, Lily Tomlin, Marlee Matlin, Joe Bonamossa and Sierra Hull.
On its first airing as a live pledge event, the special garnered almost $18,000 in donations for PBS SoCal — four times what a typical fundraising show would bring in for the station on a Saturday afternoon. PBS SoCal aims to net even more when the special encores on Thanksgiving night, when it also releases for broadcasts by PBS member stations and streaming through the PBS App.
About 75% of stations have already committed to air it, including most major market stations, according to PBS SoCal executives, who estimate that even more will pick it up soon.
Producing the telethon while viewers are still thinking about federal funding cuts to public media was important, says PBS SoCal CEO Andy Russell. Going into December, which has traditionally been one of public TV’s strongest fundraising months, stations were looking for a special that “would tee up the public television story, remind people why they care, and ask viewers for support,” he explains.
Originally conceived as a live national telethon, plans called for a broadcast that combined elements from four different locations — Los Angeles, New York, Detroit and Nashville, says EP Maura Daly Phinney, PBS SoCal’s SVP of membership engagement and strategy. At one point, her team was in talks with PBS headquarters about collaborating on the special, “and they were enthusiastic.”
But as time ticked on, Phinney says, the two parties couldn’t agree on key details, such as whether the show would be a PBS production, how it would be funded and when it would air. When she learned that PBS had laid off staff in its fundraising programming unit in September, Phinney resolved to take the special back to PBS SoCal and produce it in-house.
When the production “got very big … with all sorts of people appearing on stage, it started sounding incredibly complicated, expensive and risky,” Russell says. “It grew to a point where it collapsed under its own weight.” But the core idea was important to pursue in a different way. “And that’s how we carried it forward.”
Stations across the country coalesced to help make it happen. Detroit PBS sent Fred Nahhat, SVP of production and a veteran of live broadcasts and fundraising programs, to help as on-screen pledge talent. And Nashville PBS recorded performances by Hull, Kathy Mattea, Molly Tuttle and Ketch Secor, the new host of its Tennessee Crossroads series.
The creative support didn’t stop there. “Pretty much every single major PBS series, if I asked them for something, they said ‘Yes,’” Phinney says. That’s how the special came to combine everything from a Great Performances clip introduced by Martha Plimpton to a bit of archival tape featuring Fred Rogers and Yo-Yo Ma, a Masterpiece preview from the new season of All Creatures Great And Small and a tribute to filmmaker Ken Burns teed up by Adam Arkin.
“Pretty much every station I asked tried to help and most were able to pull it off — even with [the show’s] nutty timeline,” Phinney adds.
Musician Ziggy Marley reads his book Pajammin’! to a group of children during a live broadcast of We ❤ Public Television! at PBS SoCal’s Burbank Studios Nov. 8. (Photo courtesy PBS SoCal)
To help enlist entertainers from beyond the world of PBS, the production team tapped talent booker Jennifer Stilson, who’d previously worked on PBS’ “Viewers Like Me” campaign. She came to the role with an existing list of celebrities who were enthusiastic about helping support public media.
“Jamie Lee Curtis was pretty much the first person to say ‘Yes’ and that she could be at the taping in person, which was fantastic,” says Phinney. “She was super enthusiastic, since she’s a big PBS fan. She even brought a picture of herself on Sesame Street with Elmo.” Other stars who appeared in studio or recorded pre-taped bits include Marlee Matlin, David Foster, Katharine McPhee, Judy Blume and Bill Nye, who performed a science experiment live on air.
Ultimately, We ❤️ Public Television is “a celebration of everything public television,” Phinney says.
Actor Martha Plimpton introduces a clip from Great Performances during a live broadcast of We ❤ Public Television! at PBS SoCal’s Burbank Studios Nov. 8. (Photo courtesy PBS SoCal)Russell says that the approach reflects the shift he’s noticed in the ways that viewers are responding. At live events hosted by the station over the past few months, viewers’ sentiments have shifted from a panic over the cuts to what he calls “looking at the future.”
“They want to be connected to the parts [of PBS] that they love, and so we thought the right tone and message for the show would be to celebrate [everything we do] while also recognizing how important it is and how people can make sure it continues,” he explains.
Hopefully that sort of message will resonate with the rest of the country when the special becomes available for free to all stations on Nov. 21. PBS SoCal is sending it out as a seamless three-hour pledge event, though stations will be able to customize their local broadcasts via three-minute local opt-outs. The on-screen phone bar can also be altered to include a local phone number and web address. The on-screen call-out for donations is essentially omnipresent, so viewers will constantly be reminded of the purpose of the show and how they can act.
Both Russell and Phinney say they’re beyond pleased with the final product. Russell calls it “a show that really reflects public television, both in terms of the full range of content and the history we’ve had working as a broad community, producing together.”
Phinney thinks the special will help stations fill out their local schedules for December, which she says seem to offer fewer pledge shows than in previous years, and boost fundraising results. She’d be open to repeating the event in years to come, given that a restoration of federal funding seems to be nowhere on the horizon. But she’s not sure it would be sustainable for PBS SoCal, which funded the whole production through generous local donors.
For now, Phinney just wants to focus on this special, which she hopes will bring in donors nationwide. “I really think it’s going to be a success everywhere,” she says.
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