At the TCA Winter Press Tour, PBS passed out “I Heart PBS” buttons to attendees. Nowhere was that feeling more apparent than in a panel discussion from content creators at PBS Digital Studios, which has launched more than 70 web series since it was founded in 2012, with over 4 billion lifetime views in the past decade. “That was the channel of choice in my home in Central Iowa,” Head of PBS Digital Studios, Maribel Lopez, shared during the panel. It was Maria on Sesame Street, played by Sonia Manzano, who first allowed Maribel to feel represented on screen as a child, which inspired her career in broadcasting. “I ended up interning at Iowa PBS, and then I made my way to the Twin Cities station soon thereafter and spent 11 years there, so this is like my DNA.”
(Rahoul Ghose/PBS)
Focusing on four particular shows, the panel included the hosts of Sound Field, Weathered, Why Am I Like This?, and the newest PBS Digital Studios series, Hip-Hop and The Metaverse. “I grew up with LeVar Burton; Reading Rainbow,” Robeson “Taj” Frazier, host of Hip-Hop and The Metaverse, shared about what PBS meant to him as a child and how it has continued to resonate with him over the years. “Watching Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? as a teen, seeing the multicultural group of friends who are smart, witty, and personable, but also complex. And then one of the productions that more recently has become an essential example of the kind of work that I would hope to be able to contribute to is from before I was even born, a show called Soul in the 1970s. The show originally aired on PBS, and it was a Black variety show that showed the complexity of the Black experience through music, poetry, politics, and so learning about productions like that.” A documentary film, Mr. Soul, was recently made that documents that important series, with Hip-Hop and The Metaverse shining a more contemporary spotlight on Black artists.
“I always wanted to say ‘Viewers like you,’ and I got a chance to do that,” gushed Arthur Buckner, host of Sound Field. He grew up watching Arthur, Wishbone, and Dragonfly TV. While Sound Field isn’t directed at a middle-grade audience the way the shows that inspired him were, the hallmark of PBS’ edutainment brand has lent itself to Arthur’s classrooms. “One of the first meetings for Sound Field they were saying, ‘We want this show to cater to people ages 9 to 99.’ And I thought that was kind of dope to cast a wide net like that. But with the episodes, there’s plenty of material for the youth. I use it in my classrooms. I get emails or inboxes from teachers all the time saying how they use it in their classroom. Like that’s exactly what it’s for.”
“I feel really, really proud to say that I’m a part of this brand,” shared Maiya May, host of Weathered, which explores the impacts of climate change and natural disasters. It’s been a full-circle experience for Maiya, who was once reaching out to professionals in the field aspiring to be like them, now finding herself as a mentor to the next generation of weather science professionals. “I know that I’m supposed to do work in this space. I don’t know long-term if it’s going to be weather specifically which is why I have decided to go by science communicator instead of meteorologist; brand myself around that. But I know that I love nature. I grew up in nature. My whole upbringing is rooted in nature. I know this is what I’m supposed to do.” Half of the hosts of PBS Digital Studios shows identify as people of color, these shows reflect the diversity of audiences in a way that broadcast programming hasn’t yet caught up to. “With diversity, we’re trying to inspire the next generation of leaders. And sometimes that generation is in every race, every ethnicity. And sometimes that next leader just needs a little push. And that push may just be watching TV and seeing someone that looks like them. And so the fact that PBS is prioritizing that to this magnitude is special.”
Another recent addition to their PBS Digital Studios is Why Am I Like This?, hosted and written by Dr. Tina Lasisi. “The thing that I’ve loved most is the fact that we can cover a diversity of topics with a good amount of depth, and I think that’s so important in a climate where so much is driven by clickbait,” Dr. Lasisi said of her show, which focuses on how human bodies evolved to meet the needs of our environment. “You have this huge rift between important knowledge that isn’t being discussed and then the one piece of misinformation that people are repeating 500 times, and I feel like PBS really inhabits this space that allows people to see the beauty of deep thought, and scholarly work, and all kinds of knowledge generation, and I think it’s going to inspire so many young and old people to look for more information out there. I think in our current day and age, it’s so important to be able to get good and in-depth information from a reliable, dependable source, and PBS is that for a lot of people, and I’m really proud to be a part of that.”
It’s not often that talent from a show gets to share an interview with their boss, so Arthur Buckner took this opportunity to applaud the work Mirabel’s Lopez has been doing as head of PBS Digital Studios. “We owe Maribel a huge thank you, just the work [she’s] been doing behind the scenes,” he said. “[She’s] been holding the door open, getting this diversity really popping with Digital Studios, and [she] deserves some congrats and some thanks.”
Anyone can enjoy PBS Digital Studios shows online by visiting pbs.org/digital-studios. No subscription required, although contributions from “viewers like you” certainly help. Visit the website for your local PBS station to learn more about how you can donate to keep programs like PBS Digital Studios creating more opportunities for content creators from diverse backgrounds with unique perspectives on topics we can all learn from.