Chatting with Kevin Dando of PBS – Part 1: Kevin on PBS
December 8, 2008 :: Steve FisherEveryone has watched a PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) show at one time or another. It might have been to see some live music on Austin City Limits, an episode of Frontline or a Ken Burns documentary. Many of these programs are produced by local PBS stations (i.e. KLRU in Austin, TX, WGBH in Boston, MA) but share a goal of providing high quality programming shared across all PBS affiliate stations. For years they have produced incredible content for everyone but as new technologies have changed they want we consume content, PBS overall had to adopt or fade into irrelevancy.
In the center of all of this is PBS headquarters here at WETA in Arlington, VA is Kevin Dando. I met Kevin about three years ago when we both attended the Interactive portion of the popular South by Southwest (SXSW) conference. He is currently Director, Education and Online Communications at PBS and is helping keep PBS on the cutting edge by promoting the interactive content and, working with others, pushing social media at PBS in the broadest sense.
Recently I was able to catch up with him and talk about how things at PBS have evolved over the last two years and discuss the future of social media and its use in a place like PBS. Here is the transcript of that interview:
Steve: You have been with PBS for a number of years. Could you explain your role as Director of Education and Online Communications at PBS?
Kevin: My team and I oversee the marketing, media relations and promotions for all of PBS’s online/interactive and cross-platform content (both for kids and general audience programs), as well as all of PBS’s education services, of which there are many. We also oversee, for instance, PBS’s Facebook page and YouTube channel, both of which are linked to from our homepage at pbs.org.
Steve: Many people just think that their local PBS station produces all of their shows but that is not necessarily the case. Could you explain the PBS network and the impressive distribution system you all leverage?
Kevin: That’s a good question, and there’s confusion about this – our system is hard to parse down into a few sentences. Although some people think PBS is a network, it’s not — we’re actually a membership organization, and our members are the local PBS stations you know in your community.
Also, PBS itself doesn’t produce television programs — our local stations and independent producers around the world do that, and, for the most part, that’s also true online, although PBS Interactive does produce some online content. For the most part, though, local PBS stations and other producers are responsible for what you see on pbs.org and pbskids.org.
There’s a good, concise explanation of PBS and its relationship with our local stations, as you might guess, on pbs.org.
To be continued…
Next Time in Part 2: Kevin on Being an Early Adopter
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