Programming and Education Services Restructured
Company-wide Staff Cuts To Take Effect
Alexandria, VA - March 15, 2001 -- Preparing for the implementation of a new three-year strategic plan, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) announced today a restructuring of its programming staff, a consolidation of education services and a company-wide reduction in staff. PBS president and chief executive officer Pat Mitchell made the announcement late this afternoon at PBS headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia.
The principal elements of the staff realignment are:
- John Wilson and Jacoba (Coby) Atlas will assume additional management responsibilities as co-chief program executives, jointly supervising the entire programming staff. Mr. Wilson will manage children's, fundraising and syndicated programming, as well as program scheduling. Ms. Atlas will oversee factual programming (news and public affairs, history, nature, science and observational documentaries), fiction and performance.
- Mr. Wilson and Ms. Atlas will continue to be joined by Cindy Johanson, senior vice president, PBS Interactive, and regional programming vice presidents Alyce Myatt and Gustavo Sagastume on the senior programming team responsible for greenlighting, funding and commissioning all content for the PBS National Program Service. In addition, programming vice president Pat Hunter has been promoted to senior vice president, adding project management to her budget and departmental operations responsibilities. She will report to both Ms. Atlas and Mr. Wilson.
- PBS Education will take responsibility for PBS TeacherSource (the teachers' site on PBS.org) and become part of the Member Affairs division. Senior vice president of education, Jinny Goldstein, will now report to executive vice president of member affairs, Wayne Godwin.
- PBS will reduce its total workforce by 9 percent, a third of which is derived from vacant positions.
"This strategic plan and realignment involved hard choices made in the context of challenging economic realities and a dynamic media environment," said Ms. Mitchell. "These changes were necessary to make us a more focused, efficient and effective enterprise dedicated to providing our member stations with distinctive, differentiated content and education services that are valued by their communities."
The PBS board of directors will review the three-year strategic plan and corresponding budget at its next meeting on March 29. These changes are intended to facilitate the implementation of the new plan.
PBS, headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia, is a private, nonprofit media enterprise owned and operated by the nation's 347 public television stations. Serving nearly 100 million people each week, PBS enriches the lives of all Americans through quality programs and education services on noncommercial television, the Internet and other media. More information about PBS is available at PBS.org.
Contact:
Tom Epstein
PBS
703/739-5074