But Who's Counting?

Transforming Public Media to Serve Modern Audiences with Amy Shaw of Nine PBS

• Anders CPAs + Advisors

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How does a 70-year-old PBS station evolve new approaches to public media to remain relevant and impactful even as the media landscape around it changes? Through innovative new approaches and a commitment to its community! Nine PBS is a St. Louis cornerstone with a long history of adapting to fit the changing times, and that constant evolution helped it become the most watched PBS station in the country, as a percentage of households watching. 

But Who's Counting? hosts Dave Hartley and Missy Kelley chatted with Amy Shaw, President and CEO of Nine PBS, about the remarkable journey of public media in St. Louis. Amy shared the origins of Nine PBS, highlighted the pioneering St. Louis Plan and discussed the significance of her journey to becoming the first female President and CEO of the station. The conversation also covered:

  • How Nine PBS built a financially-healthy not-for-profit
  • Human-centered leadership approaches all businesses can learn from
  • Why the station refused to downsize staff during the pandemic
  • The history behind how PBS became a powerhouse of community, content and connection
  • How Nine PBS found success on social media and the gap they fill

“We are not just doing things that are human and interesting and community-based, we’re also finding ways to make it sustainable at the same time.” – Amy Shaw

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Narrator:

You're focused on making important decisions to take your company to the next level. But who's counting? We are Counting on trends and insight to move your business forward operationally and strategically, focused on helping executives achieve their highest potential. But who's Counting is a podcast shedding light on and breaking down critical issues and opportunities for businesses Brought to you by Anders, cpas and Advisors.

Missy Kelley:

Hi, I'm Missy Kelly.

Dave Hartley:

And I'm Dave Hartley. Welcome to today's pisode of but who's Counting? Podcast. Our guest today is Amy Shaw, president and CEO of 9PBS, which is the most watched PBS station in the country, which was a fact I didn't know until today. In this episode, amy gives example after example of how 9PBS and PBS in general, in its 70-year history, has innovated consistently. I didn't quite expect that, given sort of what I thought about PBS, but for me, I learned a ton from the episode.

Missy Kelley:

Yeah, and my favorite nugget was to think about innovation as an incremental process rather than one big giant thing that you do. So take a listen, enjoy the episode. So I'm Missy Kelly.

Dave Hartley:

And I'm Dave Hartley.

Missy Kelley:

Welcome to the but who's Counting podcast. Today, we are joined by Amy Shaw, president and CEO of Nine PBS, who was named to this role in February of 2020 after serving the organization in various leadership roles, beginning in 2003. She is the first woman to lead Nine in its 70-year history. She is recognized as a national leader and innovator in community engagement and public media. She was inducted into the St Louis Media Hall of Fame in 2022 and named one of the 25 most influential businesswomen in the St Louis region by the St Louis Business Journal in 2021. Under her leadership, Nine PBS has become the most watched PBS station in the country as a percentage of households watching, and was recognized in 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023 by the Women's Foundation of Greater St Louis as one of the region's best places to work for women. Welcome Amy.

Amy Shaw:

Thank you so much. It's so good to be here. Thank you.

Missy Kelley:

It's so great to have you here. So I was reading about the history of 9PBS in preparation for this, and I learned that it was conceived by the St Louis community, spearheaded by the presidents of Washington University and St Louis University, along with hundreds of PTA members across the region who helped raise money to launch the effort, and the first broadcast was in 1954. Feels like there's an anniversary there. So how has public media changed over these, you know, 70 years, and what were the big innovations along the way? I imagine there were big changes, but probably some things that maybe didn't change. So tell us about that.

Amy Shaw:

So I think even the fact that we exist is a big innovation. So St Louis figures very prominently in the history of public media. So in the early 50s the FCC offered the opportunity for licenses for this new educational television. And the FCC put out a call to cities across the country and said hey, if you had a license, would you be interested in it?

Amy Shaw:

What would you do with it? How would you use this new medium of television to serve your community, to educate, et cetera? And so folks across the country really thought about this. But before our time, we're the eighth oldest public television station in the country, so we're pretty old compared to some of the new guys, like even Washington DC is many like two decades after us, and so St Louis is very early.

Amy Shaw:

So we were an innovator, and it was as you said, Missy, it was WashU, it was SLU, so it was education, it was corporate. The business community said we really think we could get behind this because it would strengthen our community to help have these educational assets. It was civic, it was even faith. Just, the community was very involved in this. And so what they did is they really put their heads together and they came up with something called the St Louis Plan. And the St Louis Plan was a model for community licensed public television. So the stations that came before us were all licensed to universities, they were licensed to state entities, and our founders thought the big innovation would be let's not have something that is encumbered by legislative concerns or political issues or you know, sort of a university overlay. They thought it would be really helpful to have a community responsive organization. So this is how we came about. Now we were going to be the first public television station licensed to a community in the country.

Amy Shaw:

However, as you mentioned those PTA moms we were a little short on the money so we were $100,000 shy of getting our license. So PTA moms did go to work. They raised that $100,000 shy of getting our license. So PTA moms did go to work. They raised that $100,000. We got our license. But in the meantime Pittsburgh actually borrowed that St Louis plan and they got on the air first. They are also celebrating their 70th anniversary. They celebrated in April. We will turn 70 in September. So we were so close. But even that St Louis plan and some of the founders of our station then went on to figure prominently in the founding of PBS, which doesn't happen until 1970. Pbs doesn't go on the air until 1970. The country and there wasn't really an affiliated network.

Amy Shaw:

So the fact that PBS came about and became this powerhouse of content and community and connection is really quite stellar and that really, I think is the innovation is from how we came about and the fact that 70 years later we're still connected to our community. It's the lifeblood of what we do. It's how we do our work. Education is so important that was the other big innovation of our founders is that they really thought of educational television as a way to connect with kids that didn't have access to high quality education, so they were teaching on TV.

Amy Shaw:

They were rolling TVs into classrooms as teachers were teaching via live broadcast from the studios on the campus of Washington University in the early, you know, mid to mid fifties, early sixties, as a way to level the playing field. So the kids had access to content they didn't otherwise have access to. And that still is who we are today with education. So it's. It is a remarkable and admirable and amazing history and one that I'm just so deeply proud to be a part of and having been at 9PBS for 21 years. But I also grew up in St Louis, so I grew up on our content, I grew up on the station and my parents were big fans, so it really means a lot.

Missy Kelley:

That is truly fascinating, and I grew up watching the content too, and there's just something very home-like about turning that station on. So I did want to just follow up on the fact that you are the first female in the 70-year history of the station. That feels like a big innovation, a big milestone, and I'm curious did that fact impact your approach to innovation and how you tackled this?

Amy Shaw:

Yeah, you know it's interesting. I think some of the timing of it plays prominently. So I think you know I was a little nervous being the first woman, that you don't want to be the first and the last, because if you're the first and there isn't a second, then it's a fluke. So it's important that there are people that come after me, and I honestly don't think it's as much about me as it just there was sort of a habit of the kind of leader that was selected and this is also not unusual in our industry. There were a lot of largely white men who were the leaders of public television stations around the country. So much has changed, but I was very honored to be the first woman, but also the timing with COVID. So I become president in February 2020.

Amy Shaw:

And then COVID, you know, six weeks later, here we go and you know, initially I felt very, I was very sad because I was just it had been such a tumultuous time before that that I was ready.

Amy Shaw:

We were ready for stability and we were ready for things to be maybe a little easier, and then to have a pandemic was really tough and but I think that I do think being a woman helped because we really I really focus on the human side of things and in a pandemic, you know, I think in crisis you become more of who you really are and so stretch to your limit.

Amy Shaw:

If you're a miserable person, I think you're going to be more miserable. If you're optimistic, you're going to be more optimistic, and I think that has served me very well and served our staff very well to be thoughtful about. All of our staff went home. We made sure that they got home and did not come back in, which was very, very hard because we were so used to being work-based and place-based. But we knew that everybody had families and even though we were considered an essential service, we wanted to take care of people. So I think being a woman helped there, because I was cognizant of you know all the family members who were, for the first time, teaching their kids on Zoom and dealing with all the chaos that they were doing and also not only chaos, but there were people were terrified.

Amy Shaw:

You know we didn't know what this was, and so I think being a woman has helped with that. I also think that because I had broken my shoulder terribly the week before I had become president and so I was pretty good, I was really banged up. You know, I wasn't driving, I was pretty heavily medicated because I was just feeling in place, and I think that made me very vulnerable to say to our team hey, I'm not really my best right now. I'm going to need a lot of help, and I think that helped as we were going into the pandemic as well. And so I think there are leaders for certain times and I feel grateful to be a leader at a time when I think my skill set and my demeanor was needed and necessary at that particular time and my demeanor was needed and necessary at that particular time.

Dave Hartley:

Yeah, Amy, so one of the unique things about 9PBS is that it's the most watched PBS station in the country as a percentage of households watching. So I think when you reflect on your leadership and then also the decades of history that came before you. Why is that? What is special and unique about 9PBS that makes it connect with the St Louis community? And then also, you've mentioned transparency, you've mentioned optimism. Are there unique things that are part of the culture there, that are part of that success, creating that success?

Amy Shaw:

Yeah, I think it goes back to our history, dave. I think it goes back to that place of really being community connected. That was so important and that community support was there from the very beginning. People really loved what we did early and then that continued. I do think that there was a time that the station kind of operated more like a commercial enterprise, certainly nonprofit, but maybe wasn't as community connected. But I think, you know, when I was, I was hired in 2003 and it was under a newer president who really wanted to get us back to community and wanted to get us back to education, and so I think that that has been an important thing wanted to get us back to education, and so I think that that has been an important thing.

Amy Shaw:

And I think the pandemic really, you know, people were at home, they were really tied to their television, especially live broadcast, at a time when television viewing is just continuing to go down, down, down and even though we're the number one station, every public television station, every broadcaster is seeing declines over the last 10 years. It's a pretty steady stair step. Now COVID slowed that a little bit because people were watching, but I think it is. You know, it's an apples to apples comparison. So in 2020, we officially became the most watched station. So that's the first time. In 2021, we were also the most watched station. Now, in 2022, we jumped to number two like by just by fraction, and then in 2023, we were also the most watched station, and so.

Amy Shaw:

I don't think it's a fluke. I think how we have behaved and conducted ourselves in times of crisis I think made people really connect to what we do, and I think how we changed our messaging on air. So you know when I think about 9PBS and, as you said, when you turn on our channel you just feel like you're home. I liken to our time in the pandemic, as that we were a warm blanket for people. It was comforting in a time where everything was chaotic and unknown. We were a staple and a constant and a lot of our content during that time that was so important and we were doing educational content for children who did not have access to high quality broadband, who were learning from home, who were definitely not on a level playing field, and so we were teaching on TV, which we continue today, but we have transitioned that to early childhood education versus school age, because we know that there are half of the kids in the St Louis region do not have access to high quality pre-K. So I think the way that we have done these things and the way that we talked about the work we did and centered community really has pulled people to us and really made people want to support us, and you know it's important also that we mentioned the financial support, because we are a community-supported institution and so our financial support has also really been strong.

Amy Shaw:

We are not just doing things that are human and interesting and community-based, but we're also finding ways to make it sustainable at the same time and that was one of the things that was really important to me as I was vying for this position is that we would be a financially healthy company.

Amy Shaw:

As a nonprofit, I think we feel like we have to limp along and, yes, we're never going to have the assets of a for-profit enterprise, but being nonprofit doesn't mean you can't turn a profit. It means we put those excess dollars back into the operations to serve our community even better and more effectively. And we are very financially healthy and that has allowed us to grow, which allowed us to do more in the community and support the community's needs as they've been expressed to us, which I think then pulls people to watch us on all different kinds of platforms. So it's been really an interesting ride, and I don't take lightly this number one rating, because it does tell me that people really want what we have, and we also have to provide it on every possible platform where people are as well.

Missy Kelley:

Sure, so you know, you mentioned the. You know being a nonprofit, and after 2020, many nonprofits struggled financially. There just wasn't the philanthropic, there weren't the donor dollars there. Did you experience that or was it different for?

Amy Shaw:

you. That was the thing I was. So I was terrified, missy, at the very beginning, because you know, here I am a new CEO and I'm thinking like we're going to have smooth sailing. We had been through a lot and I was very concerned about our financial picture. We were really tight, and so here we are, heading into a pandemic. All indications were that we were going to face some pretty stiff financial headwinds. And my big concern is and I had been through four other downsizing in the company that had hit us very, very hard over the years. And I just knew if we downsized people at the beginning of the pandemic. One, it would be not the human thing to do and I was very concerned for the people that we would have to let go. Two, I was also very concerned that we would never get back to a level of service that would allow us to do what people were asking us to do. And so I said to the board pretty early listen, whatever we do, we cannot downsize people. This is not the right time to do it. We will never get back to where we are. It'll take us a decade, we will have breached community trust, whereas some of my colleagues in public media were saying listen, you have to downsize early and often you can't carry this kind of freight on your books. You have to be prepared for these headwinds. Thankfully, we never had to make this choice.

Amy Shaw:

We were fine and part of this, I think we were very fortunate. Unlike a lot of other nonprofits that could not do the work that they do Think about the symphony or the aquarium People weren't going places. We were still very present in people's lives because we were broadcasting and because we were doing the work and we were connecting with people immediately on. What is it that was our unique asset and contribution to the community during this time? And we got connected. A friend of mine is a superintendent of schools for a pretty major school district. We got connected to him and through him we were on a Zoom with all the superintendents, curriculum directors, and this was very, very early.

Amy Shaw:

This was as schools were announcing they were shutting down and nobody really knew what to do. Everybody was trying to figure this out, and so we were on the Zoom and we said listen, we don't know what we can do, but we have a sense that there is something that we can offer here. And the superintendents and curriculum directors said listen, we're really concerned about our youngest children. They're not used to learning via technology. Now, the older kids are used to this, the younger kids are not. We're very concerned about parents. They're not used to this. They have no idea how hard this is going to be to teach their kids at home and to manage their kids' education. We're very concerned about kids that don't have access to high-quality broadband because everything's going to be electronic. And we're very concerned about math in particular, and reading Literacy was going to be such an important thing. And we said, okay, we can do this. So, and they also said you know, they were the ones that said, listen, you used to teach on TV. That's kind of your start. What about teaching on TV?

Amy Shaw:

And so within a month, we spun up a show with 12 local teachers teaching via Zoom. They would send us the files, we would edit them to the best of our ability and then broadcast them five days a week. We were doing at 1.3 hours a day. It was a pretty heavy lift. We paid the teachers. They were also teaching their kids and probably their own kids at home. So it was really like these incredible teachers who did this work and people really responded. So philanthropic supporters really supported that and this ability to connect with our community around the crisis, and so, again, we've been fortunate.

Amy Shaw:

But I also think we did not sit back and wait for something to happen. We really charged in and wanted to be of service and figure out how we could use our unique assets to support the community. You innovated, we did. You know it was also hard to think about all of our staff. You know they were. Everybody was in chaos because you know you're thinking about your family. You're terrified of getting this illness. You don't know what's happening, we don't know our financial picture, but people really just jumped in and did what they needed to do and we really have an extraordinary staff and I'll never forget that time because it was.

Amy Shaw:

It was a moment that none of us wanted, and I always joke that we have to make lemonade out of these moldy lemons and we really had a giant pile of moldy lemons. I mean it was bad. I also remember in 2020, so you know 2019, we really suffered a huge hardship. And in 2019, I kept saying to our staff listen. A year from now, we're going to be looking back at 2019. And we're going to say we just weathered so many hard, difficult things, and then 2020 came and it was so exponentially worse that it was really hard. So the last five years for so many people have been chaotic and challenging, and so our ability to innovate and iterate incrementally during that time, I think, is nothing short of amazing, because we're really small and scrappy. Now we have about 70 full-time people. At that time we were about 55 full-time people. So we're very, very small, but I also think we were small enough that we could really kind of wrap our arms around people and take care of people.

Missy Kelley:

So now that things have gotten back to normal-ish, we definitely have a new normal. How do you ensure that the station remains relevant when you have all of these streaming services and, of course, the ubiquity of smartphones, where you can get all of this content at the tap of your thumb?

Amy Shaw:

Yeah. So this is also part and parcel to your question about how things have changed over the years. I'm sure it was very, very difficult in the early days. I'm sure it was very difficult, but I think that there might've been some nice salad days in between there where you knew what you were doing, you knew how broadcast worked. People turned on the TV. There were four networks, maybe five or six, you know at best. And then comes cable, which really knocked people for a loop and I I wasn't in the industry then, I was much younger, but I do know people talking about how cable really upended the industry. And now those same people are saying the streaming tidal wave, that doesn't even cable doesn't even hold a candle to the streaming tidal wave. You know it's interesting. The president of PBS, who's an extraordinary woman her name is Paula Kerger and she's the longest serving CEO of PBS, she's been in the position for 18 years Says a lot about you know we use the same tools content creation, distribution but we're in very different businesses and so I tend to think we're in very different businesses.

Amy Shaw:

So while I have all the streaming services, it's sort of an occupational hazard and I enjoy what's there. It's a different game. So Netflix, other streaming services their priority is the bottom line, right, they're for-profit enterprises. It's about subscriber base, the volume of subscriber base, the margins, and profit and shareholder value. Our shareholder value is are we serving the citizens of St Louis? Because we're licensed to the community? So that's a very different enterprise when you're making decisions about what your shareholder value is versus profit, versus service. So we get a little bit lucky when it comes to our streaming and our content creation and distribution, because we get to really think about that more from a community perspective. Right?

Amy Shaw:

So we have something called Passport. It's a member benefit, it's a streaming service, but it's PBS content. It's extraordinary PBS content. There's actually more content in that library than on Netflix content. There's actually more content in that library than on Netflix, and it's a member benefit. So for a small monthly fee or an annual contribution, you become a member of 9PBS and you gain access to this incredible streaming library. Plus, we stream all of our local content for free, in real time and after the fact, so you can go find it, and a lot of the PBS content is also available just online via the app. So we try to make all of that content very accessible. We don't make a subscription fee a barrier to accessing that content, because we do want it to be available for everybody, and we also are continuing to iterate with more content on more platforms and also continuing the broadcast operation. That's, I think, the difference is that Netflix and others you know Hulu never had a broadcast operation. Netflix discontinued its DVD operation.

Amy Shaw:

We actually really need to keep the broadcast operation going for the time being, one for public service and safety. You know you think about storms coming through, and we've been through a lot of storms in St Louis. One of the most redundant and resilient technologies is broadcast. Our tower never goes out, and actually there were terrible storms this past week. Our transmitter is in South St Louis County and the power did go out and the generator kicked right on and we were never off air. So everybody still has that access, so we still have the ability to transmit and to offer messages of public safety. Cell phone technology, we know, doesn't do that always, and so there are still reasons to broadcast.

Amy Shaw:

There's also comforting about it, and if I miss it, I'm going to watch it on Passport after the fact, or sometimes I'll binge it before, and I have my foot in the other world of streaming and social media and technology, and so it's like we do all of it, so it's all changing, and I don't know that we're ever going to be in a place where we're like whew, we figured it out, we's going.

Amy Shaw:

We're going to have to continue to be on our toes, which is also really hard for our staff, I think, because I think people want things to settle down and be normal. And I was at a conference a few weeks ago and one of my colleagues said I was talking with him about change management and you know how do you keep your people safe during this whole time of all this change and keep them, you know, healthy? And he said well, you know, if you don't like change, just try irrelevance. And I think that's really where we, what we're motivated by is being relevant and knowing what our community needs and wants and paying attention to technology. How do we do that in a way that doesn't leave anybody out but also pulls a lot of people in, based on how they use technology and content today?

Dave Hartley:

So Missy and I are visiting today with Amy Shaw, who's the president and CEO of 9PBS. So, Amy, thanks again for taking time to be with us today. I wanted to ask about. One of the things in doing research for this episode was 9PBS's online presence, and so I was actually really impressed because I went on. I'm going to refer to my notes because I don't want to get this wrong, but on Facebook you have 38,000 Facebook followers, 28,000 YouTube subscribers, with over 5,000 videos posted on YouTube and almost 10,000 followers on Instagram. So I look at that presence and how active you are and I'm like okay, this must be a key part of the strategy. So we just talked about how the world is changing, the advent of streaming and those types of things. I guess how do you view social media? Because a lot of our clients are looking at this and trying to figure out how much do I invest in it? Is it really that strategic for me? So I guess what's your point of view on how 9PBS approaches social media?

Amy Shaw:

It's very strategic and essential, and so I think the important thing is that you don't want to be on every platform. Not every platform is for you or for your audience. So for us, Twitter has never been a huge platform. We've used it.

Amy Shaw:

We just never really had as many followers as we really wanted and it wasn't the right platform, especially from a video perspective. But Instagram, facebook and TikTok in particular and we do have a TikTok influencer on staff and she helps teach people at PBS about TikTok. She's brilliant and so sharp and started with us as an intern and kept growing into her role and now she's a full producer at Nine PBS. But those platforms are really important because what people often want is the short segments. They want to learn about something without a huge investment of time and energy. They want to be entertained. They want to be educated. We know this about our audience and the more local content that we can create for those platforms really fills an appetite and a gap that people have.

Amy Shaw:

The other thing that we get to do that I think it's harder for other media companies in the local community is we get to go a little deeper. So, while you may hear headlines on the news, we often get to go to. Well, how did we get to here? Why is this situation happening? So more depth, more context. We can do that over multiple parts, which we have done. We can do it in short segments. One of the segments on. Tiktok is famous duels in St Louis who knew.

Amy Shaw:

Another how did St Louis streets get their names and so like Doherty Ferry and all these interesting how did these things come about? And so you know, we want people to be proud of our community and be a part of our region and be advocates for our region, and so the content we create, especially for those platforms, is important. We tend, now we're moving to this place, of not just thinking about broadcast first and then deriving content from those broadcast platforms for social. Now we're really thinking about the content first and then thinking where that content would be best placed, because what TikTok likes and the algorithms is different than what Facebook likes, is what's different than Instagram likes versus our broadcast audience. And so all of that, really we have to be very thoughtful, which is also, I think, the big innovation is the diversity of our staff, both in age, sex, ethnicity. We need to have people who are not all the same, and especially having younger staff has been critically important to really be thoughtful about those platforms, because they're the consumers of that content.

Amy Shaw:

I'm a consumer of content on TikTok. I don't know. I know if TikTok gets banned, we'll just put all that stuff on Facebook, it'll be okay. I like to consume all that stuff. Not everybody does, but it's important. I want to know what our local stories are. I don't see them before they're published, but we need to be in different places for different people, which is also a different thing. I think it used to be like appointment viewing and you would watch a show at seven o'clock, but even when you were appointment viewing, you didn't hit the full audience at 7pm, so you have the opportunity to use that content in different ways in different places. So it's pretty great. Actually, I like the plethora of opportunities for local content creation, partly because social media content is a lot less expensive than full broadcast content like a documentary or a regular series, and so we get to touch more people and connect with more people using a different economy of scale.

Missy Kelley:

And so on the local content front, and also just the engagement with the community. I was looking at the awards that you've received over time and in 2023, I believe you got three Emmys for three different programs, one of those being a partnership with Lion Forge Entertainment, which is a local. Dave Stewart Jr for Drawn In Brave Hero, part 2. So tell us, how did that partnership come?

Amy Shaw:

about Such a great story. So I think it goes back to the service to community. So we've been, we're very connected to Dave Stewart too and we really, you know, with the work that he has done in animation and is doing in animation is extraordinary. He won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short for Hair Love, which is extraordinary. So we kept talking about and this was years in the making of talking about what to do together and because of the pandemic and because we know that kids have fallen further behind in their literacy, and in particular black and brown children, all kids have suffered and our content is good for all kids. But in particular, we knew it was important that we had content that really represented the needs of our black and brown kids, that kids could see themselves as the heroes of those stories and as the agents of change. And so we came up with the idea of Drawn In and a very long journey to get there, but this idea of a comic book universe with these four fearless, adorable, sweet, funny, challenging kids who ask great questions and they use language and vocabulary to solve these epic challenges. It has been very successful.

Amy Shaw:

We're exporting it across the country now to public television stations and it's been a really great opportunity.

Amy Shaw:

We also publish comic books, in addition to the animated shorts, which could be used on social media and distributed independently, which is good because we want kids to be able to see it.

Amy Shaw:

If mom has a cell phone and that's how they're getting their content they can get it there.

Amy Shaw:

If they have a cell phone, they can get it via Facebook, they can get it via Instagram, they can get it on the website, they can get it on the app, they can get it on the app, and then we put those shows together and created a broadcast opportunity, because we also like the library system and parents as teachers and 24-1 and partners who really understand community and have relationships with school systems, community partners, kids, families, et cetera, so that kids had the printed material, because we know that kids in low income communities have a real deficit when it comes to printed material, which very much handicaps their ability to acquire language, which means they don't read, which means they don't learn. So up until third grade, you're really you're using language to learn to read and after third grade, you're using reading to learn, to learn to read, and after third grade, you're using reading to learn. So, if you've not mastered reading by third grade, you're at a distinct disadvantage that will follow you really through high school and impact your ability to graduate, be successful, be a gainfully employed community member.

Amy Shaw:

So, it really is paramount this connection to early childhood and using content that represents kids and helps them learn the way that they learn. So it's been a really extraordinary opportunity. We learned a lot and I think that won't be the last one.

Missy Kelley:

Oh, I'm excited about that. It really is. It really is really a cool program. So, dave, should we move on to our make it count section?

Dave Hartley:

Actually, I want to do one more question, though, and so, amy, I want to go a little bit retro and I want to talk. You talked a little bit about sort of the connection with kids. So when I think back, you know, when I was a kid I was influenced by PBS shows. So when I think about Sesame Street, zoom, mr Rogers' Neighborhood, kind of all of those things and I was in a decently rural community where I grew up, didn't have access to a lot of resources, so I'm sure that had a very positive impact on me. And then, when my kids were little, when I think about all the shows that they were into, when I think about Arthur and Teletubbies and go through that list and so and I know that's a part of your message so when you think about connecting and really powering the next generation of kids in the St Louis community, I guess what does that mean, you know, and where is that on the radar with 9PBS? And kind of, how do you affect the outcomes for those kids?

Amy Shaw:

It's a huge priority. So early childhood education is so important and really does, you know, figures prominently into our founding in 1954 and into PBS's founding in 1970, when they first go on the air, and even in the mandates of Congress with the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, which is thinking about using the airwaves to help kids learn and to help people learn, and so kids really matter. So obviously we have this great equity, as you mentioned, dave, in terms of the history of kids' content. So I also grew up on Zoom. I can do the arm thing. There were actually two versions of Zoom. There was the old one and then it came back about 10 years ago as a new version. It was very successful. Electric Company came back. Morgan Freeman, rita Moreno were on the original. These were so clever in how they were helping kids learn.

Amy Shaw:

I think the other thing about those shows that was so powerful is that they were great for parents too, you know, because there was, they were funny and they were clever and it was not just about sort of the sugary content going to kids. And so PBS Kids and the kids programs are critically important because they're education-based, they're rigorously researched, they're focused on educational outcomes like social and emotional well-being, literacy, math, stem so important. So the innovations abound there in terms of educational content. The other thing I would mention is that for a while there, some of the other streaming companies started to go all in on kids, and when they realized they couldn't turn a hefty profit from it, they've abandoned it. So PBS Kids really is still the gold standard. And there's a data point more recently, for the 21st year in a row, pbs is the most trusted media institution by like 70 some odd percent believe it's super trusted. The next one down is in the thirties, and so these other, these, and there's a lot of great kids content out there.

Amy Shaw:

But I think if you're being entertained that's one thing, if you're being educated that's another thing. So the innovations through kids content has been extraordinary all through the last 50 years. So Mr Rogers is a very early innovator, not just about keeping kids safe and healthy, but this idea that kids really are their agents of learning and their own agents of change, which then leads the way to Sesame Street and all these great programs, and today there are so many great programs. You may not know that Mr Rogers, which is now called Fred Rogers Productions, has six other shows that are active on PBS Kids Odd Squad, which is a little bit older, those eight to 10 year olds, super clever live action, some animation with these like kids that are kind of spy agents and they solve all these wacky problems with math and critical thinking. And there's also a show called Daniel Tiger, which is from the original Daniel Striped Tiger from Mr Rogers' Neighborhood and now it's animated. And so Daniel, the conceit is that Daniel Striped Tiger had a little boy and his name is Daniel Tiger and all the kids in the neighborhood are the kids of the original characters of Mr Rogers. It's darling, it's going strong. There's a couple of other shows that are just so fantastic. So PBS Kids, so kids content itself is critically important, and then what we do with it is critically important.

Amy Shaw:

So we work with networks of trusted partners the library systems, parents as teachers, childcare centers, school districts, educators to really understand what kids need and where can we fill gaps that those organizations are unable to fill. The demand is extraordinary. We cannot meet the demand for our kind of early childhood education services at this time and we're growing this area exponentially. It has grown from one and a half people back six years ago to now it's 14 people and continuing to grow. We also have early education fellows who are sort of the folks in training to help us fill that capacity which is founded by one of our founders families, which is so great. And those people are working in the community, taking these resources out, creating learning opportunities around the kids' content, family engagement, really like a holistic learning approach, and so we're doing more and more and more of that and working hand in hand with these trusted education partners and families and so many community organizations who really want this kind of support. And so it isn't just what people see on TV, it's what we're doing in the community and our focus primarily is really low income communities, because we know that those kids have it more challenging. We love every kid, we want every kid to be successful, but some kids are going to be just fine because they do have the resources at home. We want to make sure we're using those resources to uplift the kids that are a little more challenged and don't have those resources.

Amy Shaw:

And I do want to tell you about a new show coming up, because it's so great. It's coming out in the fall and it's called Carl the Collector and I love the show so much We've just seen a couple of previews of it and it's a kid who is he's the lead character and he's on the autism spectrum and it's a very soft show so it's not loud, it's very calming, so it's, you know, really thinking about sensory overload. So Carl is the main character. There's also a little girl character who is a fox and she is on and Carl is a raccoon a fox, and she is on and Carl is a raccoon. And the girl character represents girls on the autism spectrum who are often overlooked, often very late diagnosed, and so it's beautiful, it's clever, it's funny.

Amy Shaw:

It gives me goosebumps to look at it and to even talk about it and I think it's going to be such a hit with adults and with kids and it's lovely and it's a supportive friend group who really support Carl. And the whole thing is that kids on the autism spectrum often collect things. So he collects all these incredible things from sort of the obvious to the sublime, and I can't wait for it to come out and I can't wait for families to see it, because I think it really speaks to representing kids on the spectrum, but it's also going to be great for all kids, so it's not just for kids on the spectrum. So I'm thrilled about that and the innovation of PBS Kids to think about this and to ensure that we're really bringing content to families across the community who can see themselves represented in the content and can learn from it.

Missy Kelley:

That is such an that's an example of innovation, in my opinion, when I think about, especially what you said at the beginning of the description for that show, that that it's very soft, that for kids with sensory overload, which is typically people on the autism spectrum, I mean there are shows that they can't watch or that they won't watch or that are too overstimulating for them, and so to direct content to that group. Not only does it speak to the commitment to community that 9PBS has, but to, you know, the diversity of our community, which we don't often think about. When we think about diversity, we don't often think about people that are differently abled, and so I truly appreciate that. I'm I'm super excited about that, and that's another one that I'm going to catch because I want to see it.

Amy Shaw:

It's great. Also, the way that it's done is so clever and it's based um, it's with Fuzzy Town Productions and Fuzzy Town Productions also has done all these books, um, and they're so clever and so creative and I think it's just going to be, I think it's going to be gangbusters, it's going to be great.

Missy Kelley:

When does that one come out it?

Amy Shaw:

comes out in the fall. There's not an air date yet. It will likely be September, october, okay.

Missy Kelley:

Yeah, all right, great. Well, I can't. I can't wait for that. Okay, so now we're going to move to our make it count section. In this segment, we like to give our listeners an actionable takeaway that they can count on related to innovation. So if you had one piece of advice on how to innovate, what would it be?

Amy Shaw:

Oh, you know, I would think about the last five years as, as I've talked about, have been really, really bumpy, personally and professionally.

Amy Shaw:

I've lost some people very, very close to me, I have battled a pretty major illness and professionally, just you know, every day was something new during the pandemic and so many new things, and then overlay that, the changes in the media industry and changes in nonprofits and changes in communities and division and vitriol and the state of affairs in our world. It's a lot. And I think what I think about a lot as it relates to innovation is I think sometimes we think about innovation as like these big, bright, shiny objects, and I think it's more incremental than that. And so my thing is about thinking incrementally and not trying to, you know, metaphorically, bite the whole elephant at once but break it into pieces Like how do we? How do we move this a little more slowly, and I have to remember that as a leader, because, while I may want to go full force, our staff may not be ready for that, and so being thoughtful about the incremental nature of innovation is important.

Amy Shaw:

And the other I'll do two is take your ego out things, because everything is, it's almost unknowable, you know, when we're trying out new ideas, I think oftentimes you know your, your ego gets in the way because you want something to succeed so badly, or your reputation is on the line, or your ego. And I think taking ego out of it is so much easier and lowers the temperature for everybody and the degree of difficulty for everybody. So those are the two things I would say when it comes to innovation, especially in context of this time that we're living in which is really quite extraordinary.

Missy Kelley:

Yes, so thank you, amy Shaw, president and CEO of 9PBS. We enjoyed our time today, thank you.

Amy Shaw:

Thank you so much. What a pleasure. Thank you.

Dave Hartley:

Thank you for joining the but who's Counting podcast. Make sure to never miss an episode by subscribing on Spotify or Apple Podcasts and let us know what you think by rating and reviewing. Keep up with more Andrew CPAs and advisors insights by following us on social media through the handles in the show notes. We'll see you next time.

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David Hartley

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Missy Kelley

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