New partnership
- 1 May 08, 02:20 PM
For many years, the BBC has had a very important and productive partnership with public television stations in the United States. As you may have read in the last couple of days, that relationship is going to change over the next several months; what will NOT change is the simple fact that millions of Americans will still be able to see the work of BBC journalists around the world on their local public TV stations.
We will simply have a different, very strong partner station, KCET in Los Angeles, the second-largest public television station in the US KCET will replace WLIW, one of several public stations in the New York area, which has been our partner for the last decade.
PBS, the Public Broadcasting System in America, is not a network in the traditional sense of CBS or NBC or ABC. There is no central network office directing or ordering local stations to run certain programmes at certain times. Each station is free to make its own daily schedule, from a large 'menu' of material. Larger PBS-affiliated stations often act in a 'lead' or 'sponsoring' role for programmes; either programmes they produce themselves, or programmes that they acquire via purchase and/or partnership.
That latter arrangement (a distribution partnership with WLIW) is the way in which BBC News programs have appeared on PBS stations across America since 1998. Beginning this Fall, KCET will be our new partner, and we're confident they'll be a very good one, working hard to see to it that strong daily BBC News bulletins air on strong public stations, in prime time slots. WLIW has decided to attempt to produce its own daily bulletin of international news, though that station doesn't currently have any newsgathering capacity of its own, and has not yet announced who its international partner might be.
Of course, the BBC DOES have an incredibly able and robust international newsgathering operation, AND we already HAVE a US-based nightly news program focusing on international events: BBC World News America, the program that I produce. We've been on the air for seven months now...airing in the US on the BBC America and BBC World News channels...and we're proud of what we've been able to accomplish, including winning a coveted Peabody award in our very early days. I'm convinced that the combination of this flagship US program, AND BBC News bulletins airing on PBS through a new partnership with a very strong station, will help the BBC to continue to grow - both in influence and audience - in America.
Rome Hartman is executive producer of BBC World News America
