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PBS Gathers Think Tank, Explores Future

PBS is assembling a think tank of leaders in child education, entertainment, and technology, to discover how PBS can survive and thrive during a time when new technology and new ways of accessing media have intersected, and as a new generation of children - unlike any that have come before - begins their TV viewing years, USA Today reports.

The think tank is part of a five-year initiative called PBS Kids Next Generation Media. New elements for PBS include PBS Kids Go!, an afternoon programming block geared toward 5-8 year-olds, and It’s a Big, Big World, a series set in a rain forest geared toward the preschool set. Curious George, an animated version of the wildly popular books, will premiere next fall, after tantalizing the nation’s kids in a feature film this February.

While Nielsen doesn’t track PBS on a weekly basis, PBS says it has five of the top 10 programs for kids ages 2-5. However, it faces increasingly stiff competition against cable channels such as Nickelodeon and Disney, whose recent successes with Go, Diego, Go and Little Einsteins, respectively, have apparently struck just the right chord among preschoolers.

But it’s not the competition driving the initiative - at least, that’s what Lesli Rotenberg, senior vp for PBS Kids Next Generation Media, claims. Rather, it’s about what America expects from PBS, and that’s children’s welfare.