. 2015 LOCAL CONTENT AND SERVICE “Thanks for enriching my life with your wonderful programs!” REPORT TO THE COMMUNITY – Elaine B.,THIRTEEN Member Our Mission: Media with Impact Our Purpose: WNET is a multi-media public service non-profit that delivers life-long learning and meaningful experiences to our communities. Our content inspires curiosity, encourages action and nurtures dreams. LOCAL 2015 KEY LOCAL VALUE SERVICES IMPACT WNET’s mission “Media In 2015, WNET WNET had a deep with Impact” drives us continued its work local impact in 2015, to work as partners in producing quality reaching more than our community to programming on-air and 89 million viewers inspire positive change. online for both local monthly in the tri-state Whether expanding and national audiences area through stations local news and public in the areas of Arts, THIRTEEN, WLIW and affairs programming News and Public NJTV. through NJTV News or Affairs, Science and MetroFocus, high- Nature and Children’s. More than 65,000 New lighting local arts Special national series York educators organizations and focused on JFK and accessed curriculum- offerings through NYC- LBJ and Vietnam, ready resources for ARTS and Theater Treasures of New York, free from PBS Close-Up, or raising Off-Broadway theater LearningMedia New awareness and support and challenging issues York, featuring for solutions to the such as health and materials created by dropout crisis, WNET is wellness, the drop-out WNET. committed to our tri- crisis and local politics. state community. 2014 LOCAL CONTENT AND SERVICE REPORT Stories of Impact Dropout Crisis: American Graduate The fourth annual American Graduate Day took place on October 3, 2015. The live, multi-platform event was broadcast from Tisch WNET Studios and hosted by Soledad O’Brien. 50+ nonprofit organizations across the country were featured on the broadcast. American Graduate Day 2015 was broadcast in 49 states covering 138 markets, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. Local Theater: Theater Close-Up As a theater capital of the world, New York has a multitude of small, Off-Broadway theaters producing groundbreaking works, seen by limited audiences during their short runs. Season Two featured a range of new plays, including Rasheeda Speaking, starring Dianne Wiest and Tonya Pinkins and directed by Cynthia Nixon. Theaters from throughout the tri-state area were included in the 2015 lineup. Engaging Young Students Encouraging children to engage in challenging education topics, from Shakespeare to Math to Engineering can be a challenge for teachers, parents and caregivers. WNET plays a critical role in sparking the interest of children in the classroom and at home. With learning tools like Mission US and Cyberchase Shape Quest, trusted programming like Cyberchase, Get the Math and Oh, Noah!, and dynamic curriculum-driven materials for the classroom, WNET is having an impact on young learners. 2015 LOCAL CONTENT AND SERVICE REPORT First Quarter Highlights First Quarter 2015 Following are highlights from the first quarter of 2015. National Production NATURE Snow Monkeys was an official selection of the Japan Wildlife Film Festival. The film was screened in Tokyo during the festival in August 2015. Invasion of the Killer Whales was selected as an Environment & Ecology Finalist among the New York Festivals World’s Best TV and Films. First quarter episodes included the three-part Animal Houses, hosted by fan favorite Chris Morgan; Mystery Monkeys of Shangri-La and Animal Childhood. Great Performances Episodes included Annie Lennox: Nostalgia Live in Concert and Boston Symphony Orchestra Andris Nelsons Inaugural Concert. The Hollow Crown II: War of the Roses completed filming, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Richard III and Judi Dench as Cecily, Duchess of York. American Masters Films included Jascha Heifetz: God’s Fiddler and American Ballet Theatre. Production began on films about Maya Angelou, Janis Joplin, Helen Keller, and Norman Lear. Special Projects Chasing the Dream, an 18-month public media initiative focusing on poverty and opportunity, launched on PBS NewsHour Weekend. The initiative will bring a greater understanding of the tremendous social cost of poverty as well as highlighting solutions. WNET was commissioned to produce a new online original series for PBS Digital Studios. The first trailer and first episode of First Person, a show about gender identity and sexuality aimed at a millennial YouTube audience, were released. New episodes are released every other Thursday at YouTube.com/FirstPersonPBS. Children’s and Educational Media “City of Immigrants,” the fourth Mission US educational game, launched nationally on February 11. The new mission follows the journey of a 14-year-old Jewish immigrant from Russia as she navigates New York’s Lower East Side and becomes part of the growing labor movement. Registered users for Mission US quickly reached 1 million, including more than 40,000 teachers. School Leadership in Action: Principal Practices videos is complete and has moved into post-production. Three of the programs were screened at a seminar in Atlanta for principals participating in the Wallace Leadership project. The first two new episodes of the revamped Bob the Builder series were completed. Grounded in a STEM curriculum, the new series features visually dynamic CGI animation, new and classic characters and all new stories. WNET will produce a PBS Parent site and PBS LearningMedia collection for the new series. Local Production Theater Close-Up Theater Close-Up Season Two went into production with Wiesenthal, a play about the riveting true story of Simon Wiesenthal, an ordinary man who did extraordinary things and Rasheeda Speaking, a play examining the realities of so-called “post-racial” America, starring Tonya Pinkins and Dianne Wiest. 2015 LOCAL CONTENT AND SERVICE REPORT First Quarter Highlights Local Production, cont’d Treasures of New York continued to highlight great New York institutions with The Landmarks Preservation Movement. 66th & Broadway, an event-oriented program taped at the Tisch WNET Studios at Lincoln Center, premiered in February 2015. The Major Market Group (MMG) Content Sharing Arts Initiative is in its third season with participating member stations. Following the success of two seasons of the MMG Arts and Culture initiative, the content sharing initiative was extended in 2014 to include SciTech Now, to tackle topics including technology, scientific discovery and innovation. In 2015, the program aired weekly on THIRTEEN, WLIW21 and NJTV as well as 25 other stations nationwide. MetroFocus continued as a weekly news program highlighting issues of importance throughout the tri-state region. Italian Americans of New York and New Jersey aired in February 2015 as a local companion program to the national PBS series, Italian Americans. NJTV provided live coverage of Governor Chris Christie’s annual budget address and his State of the State speech. Construction of the new Agnes Varis NJTV studio began at 2 Gateway Center in Newark. Community Engagement WNET added The Nature Conservancy, National Geographic, and the NY Wild Film Festival to its roster of partners through a premiere presentation of EARTH A New Wild at the Explorers Club in New York City. In partnership with the National Museum of the American Indian, the Welsh Government, Poets House, and the Endangered Language Alliance, WNET celebrated the premiere of Language Matters with Bob Holman, a new film by David Grubin. Guests were treated to live performances, a screening of highlights from the film, and a Q&A. WNET again joined forces with The New York Times and The New-York Historical Society to celebrate the Half the Sky Movement. This year, Save the Children was added to the partner list as THIRTEEN highlighted the film A Path Appears. The evening included a panel discussion featuring authors Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. WNET partnered with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture to present a screening of highlights from American Masters – August Wilson: The Ground on Which I Stand. The event included a panel discussion featuring Sam Pollard, the film’s Producer and Director together with Phylicia Rashad, Actor/Director; Constanza Romero, Wilson’s widow and Costume Designer; Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Actor/Director; and Richard Blint, Ph.D., Associate Director, Columbia University School of the Arts Office of Community Outreach and Education. The WNET Kids in the Community initiative continued in March by partnering with local libraries in celebration of National Reading Month. Curious George visited children at the Bronx Library Center, Richmond Hill Library, and Staten Island Library, and The Cat in the Hat visited children at the New York Public Library to promote literacy and children’s educational programming on THIRTEEN. Education Community Engagement & Content Development Digital Integrators: Through a series of workshops held at WNET, participating teachers shared best practices for using digital media in the classroom. The goal of the program is to create a cadre of PBS LearningMedia Digital Integrators, a community of New York City educators savvy in the use of digital media who offer their insights to each other, and to classroom teachers across the city and beyond. The workshops are part of the NYC DOE’s Innovation Partner Professional Development (IPPD) program WNET hosted a series of Early Learning Workshops for preschool and daycare providers throughout New York City. The third workshop in the series was held in January 2015 and trained providers from all five boroughs. Shakespeare Uncovered, Season 2: WNET partnered with 10 public television stations to create local companion productions and a series of community events designed to drive tune-in to the series and increase local understanding of Shakespeare’s life and works. WNET also developed a curriculum to accompany the six-episode 2015 LOCAL CONTENT AND SERVICE REPORT First Quarter Highlights Technology & Interactive In January, WNET completed initial testing for MVOD (Membership Video on Demand), a benefit for members that allows access to hundreds of hours of content.