You probably know you can expect news on your local public radio station or that your kids can watch Curious George, Daniel Tiger or Thomas the Tank Engine every day. Your family may even gather together to tune into Downton Abbey or NOVA. What you may not know is public radio has the largest news bureau in Florida, public television stations have an education department that works with local school districts and they all work together across the state through the Florida Public Broadcasting Service (FPBS).
When a storm approaches Florida, your local public radio station broadcasts statewide updates through the Florida Public Radio Emergency Network (FPREN) to help ensure millions of residents are as informed and as safe as possible. However, if that storm is bearing down on Pensacola or Fort Myers, those residents will hear local information on the very same station created and delivered by their own public broadcasting station reporters.
It is that dynamic — that 25 local radio and television stations can work independently or take advantage of the power and resources of a statewide network — that makes the Florida Public Broadcasting Service so important — and unique.
“There is a community of stations throughout Florida tied to each other but charged with the mission to serve their local communities,” says FPBS Executive Director Janyth Righter. “It is a large broadcast network that acts as one entity, working together to deliver education, emergency management and public affairs content that reaches 99% of Florida’s population through traditional broadcast, online tools and community engagement.”
While many states have only one public television or radio station, Florida public broadcasting is a network of independent stations that employs more than 1,000 engineers, reporters, producers, educators, outreach staff and other professionals.
“Even where there is a state network, the ‘independent’ stations in other states don’t always work together like they should. In Florida we use satellites to provide programing as needed on a statewide basis, and we swap programing and send it out that way, too,” says Eric Smith, former general manager of WSRE in Pensacola and a founding member of FPBS.
FPBS Provides Statewide Perspective
An important function of FPBS is coordinating statewide efforts on behalf of the local stations. FPBS has produced and broadcast gubernatorial and Senate debates for over 40 years, works with state leaders in education, offers a single point of contact for statewide sponsorship, drives advocacy priorities and connects stations to provide state services that enrich Florida communities.
“FPBS really delivers on statewide underwriting and coordination of our efforts in working with state government agencies,” says Rick Johnson, general manager of WGCU-FM/TV in Fort Myers, and FPBS Board chair.
“Janyth Righter provides a one-stop place where corporations can take advantage of the sponsorship opportunities, marketing and exposure in the markets they want. These are companies that wouldn’t necessarily have known how to find a single radio or TV station, but they find them through FPBS and reach the exact people they are targeting.”
FPBS also serves as the primary legislative advocate for public broadcasting in Florida. “The staff works with lobbyists who advocate on behalf of all the stations, which is very effective because when you go as a unified group you get much better reception. Legislators appreciate people who are organized, and we’re very organized, thanks to FPBS,” Johnson says.
Connecting Local, State and National Broadcasting
Public radio stations and the National Public Radio programs they carry are an important link to reporting that helps listeners analyze and think through the news, Johnson says. “The local stations help listeners translate a lot of what’s happening nationally and internationally into what is happening locally.”
Part of the reason public broadcasting is both successful and important for Florida is that it is such a huge and diverse state, according to JoAnn Urofsky, general manager of WUSF-FM/TV in Tampa, and the past Chair of the FPBS Board.
“It’s unique in that we have very different markets that we serve, but we all have a common purpose in serving educational needs of Floridians,” she says.
A strong Tallahassee presence helps local stations provide services such as Florida PBS Learning Media, an open-platform, digital library of all the best content from PBS over the last four decades. It also houses dynamic new content to serve parents, teachers and students from Pre-K through 12th grade, Urofsky says.
“It also helps us coordinate programs such as Stories of Service, an umbrella of multi-platform features, local events and veteran’s resources created to provide a deeper understanding of our nation’s military history and the men and woman who have risked, or given, their lives in our service,” she says.
There are currently 12 member radio stations, broadcasting news and other programming across the state. “I think it would be difficult for anyone to argue that in terms of radio news, there is anything that compares to what these stations are providing,” Urofsky says. “That’s an incredibly important contribution to the public agenda.”
Urofsky says it’s important to remember that PBS has a 45-year history of providing educational programs that serve audiences throughout the state.
There is one more important thing to remember, she says: “None of it would be possible without local support. For most stations their highest single source of funding comes from viewers and listeners, but we also get great support from communities and local corporations.”
Public broadcasting is not a business in the typical sense, and its employees do not treat it as just a job, according to Smith. “Passion is the thing that most of the people I know who work in public television and radio in Florida have. We want to make sure that our mission is complete, and that mission is to be of service to our community, and to provide what they need for educational public programming and information.”
For information on what is available on your local public TV or radio station, or to contact them about getting involved, visit fpbs.org/public-media-stations.