What if you took a national digital public TV channel, re-focused it on a younger, more diverse demographic (median age 36), created an open source, media-rich web presence to feed it, and invited anyone with public media content to play (including creative types without transmitters).

You’d see strong growth, a batch of exciting new talents, boundaries erased between radio and TV, and some... [read more]

What if you took a national digital public TV channel, re-focused it on a younger, more diverse demographic (median age 36), created an open source, media-rich web presence to feed it, and invited anyone with public media content to play (including creative types without transmitters).

You’d see strong growth, a batch of exciting new talents, boundaries erased between radio and TV, and some innovative technical breakthroughs. Two key participants in shaping and running this project will share the ideas, the successes, the challenges and some hard-won wisdom from one of public media’s most promising new ventures.

WORLD was first created in 2007 as a 24 hour digital non-fiction, news and documentary channel for Public TV stations: a partnership of WGBH, American Public Television and WNET, funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Then, in July of 2010, these partners launched a highly focused but ambitious
re-thinking of the project, aiming to reach and engage a much broader audience and younger demographic across multiple platforms.

Bob Lyons, the Director of New Media for Radio and TV at WGBH, oversees the project’s online platform, and Kavita Pillay, an independent film maker, was drafted as Managing Editor and chief editorial muse of the web presence. In this session they’ll share the strategy, research, surprising discoveries (good and bad), and inspiring content examples. Public media-minded content creators are most welcome.