WE ARE
REPORT TO THE COMMUNITY 2024
To Our Members, Partners, Supporters and Viewers:
On behalf of CET, ThinkTV, and our Board of Trustees, we are pleased to share this year’s annual report with the community.
This past year, CET and ThinkTV strived to be more than just a source of entertainment. We listened to our communities, celebrated our talents, and shared our history and culture. We concentrated on engagement and opportunities to get to know you better. We focused our work on what matters to you and your family and continued to create educational resources used in our schools, after-school programs, and in your home.
From educational programming that supports children’s learning to documentaries that explore our shared history and culture, CET and ThinkTV served as a conduit to connect us our neighbors, our community issues, and the world around us.
One of the most remarkable aspects of public television is our commitment to providing high-quality, local, and educational content. In an age where misinformation can spread rapidly, your local public television stations stand as a beacon of truth, offering programming that informs, educates, and inspires.
In 2024, CET and ThinkTV remained dedicated to highlighting local talent and stories. We continued our weekly series, SHOWCASE with Barbara Kellar, The Baking Journal, and The Art Show with Rodney Veal. We partnered with the Cincinnati Pops and Rick Steves to produce a music and travel special that will air nationally in 2025. We produced a local documentary, Willis “Bing” Davis:Reach High and Reach Back, that celebrated an extraordinary man who continues to use art as a method of education, teaching humanity and peace. We launched our first community affairs series, Brick by Brick: Solutions for a Thriving Community, that examines the housing crisis across the nation through a ‘solutionsbased journalism’ lens.
Through programs that highlight the achievements of our neighbors, artists, and community leaders, we are reminded of the richness in our own backyard. This not only strengthens our sense of community, but also encourages us to support one another and celebrate our unique contributions.
This year, and in years to come, we hope that CET and ThinkTV continue to be thoughtful and critical partners for you, your family, and our communities. Thank you for being a part of our journey and supporting our efforts. You make the work we do possible.
Dave Taylor Kitty Lensman Chair, Board of Trustees President & CEO
CEO
Dave Taylor Chair, Board of Trustees
Kitty Lensman President &
CONTENT COMMUNITY AFFAIRS & DOCUMENTARY
As your local PBS stations, CET and ThinkTV are committed to serving and reflecting our community through the stories we tell. This past year brought us opportunities to break into the community affairs space, showcase local artists, get into the kitchen, go on the road and even turn our eyes to look abroad. While lighting up every screen isn’t easy, it’s an opportunity to bring you programs that inspire, educate, entertain and engage. Here’s some of what we were able to bring you in 2024:
Brick by Brick: Solutions for a Thriving Community: There are no silver bullets to some of the challenges our communities face, but there are many solutions underway in our region and beyond worth considering together. Brick by Brick, our new community affairs docuseries, was launched in 2024 to highlight and investigate those solutions, with a starting focus on housing and community development. This multi-platform initiative takes the form of podcasts (19 episodes released since late March), online articles and videos, and TV presentations (three episodes released in the fall). Season 1 of this initiative will continue to inspire – and connect our neighbors to the social responses that will have an impact on housing – through March 2025.
“The
pod was interesting, engaging and educational. A great piece for me to help educate policy and decision makers and funders about the
need to support our efforts in Dayton.”
- Adam Blake, County Corp Housing
The Baking Journal: Hosted by baker and scientist Stephanie Amlung, The Baking Journal is an exploration of culinary delights! In 2024, Stephanie’s videos hit 250,000 views and a cadence of posting every Monday. This year included recipes like the perfect holiday cherry pie, rosemary mini biscuits
Public Media Connect is the regional partnership between CET, ThinkTV and SOITA. CET and ThinkTV are the PBS member stations in Cincinnati and Dayton, respectively, and SOITA is the Southwestern Ohio Instructional Technology Association. Public Media Connect serves a regional population of 3.6 million people.
and jelly donuts alongside recipes you can make without the oven, like lavender-infused lemonade, a Christmas tree cheeseball and even a sourdough starter. This show includes full-length videos, shorts and live streams on YouTube; printable recipes, guidance and videos on our website; and a dash of scientific know-how.
Willis “Bing” Davis: Reach High & Reach Back: Few people have impacted the arts in southwest Ohio quite like Willis “Bing” Davis. An African American artist, educator and community activist from Dayton, Davis works in a variety of media, including painting, sculpture, ceramics, clay and found object art. His art often explores the intersection of race, identity, and history, as well as the power of community and collective action. Today, in his mid-80s, Davis continues to create art, educate others and promote social justice causes in a variety of ways. We premiered this film in October and it’s available to stream on YouTube and the PBS App. There are also educational support materials and a screening guide available on our websites.
SHOWCASE with Barbara Kellar: This series, now in its 16th season, profiles the artists, leaders and organizations making a difference in our community. In Season 16, Barbara has interviewed everyone from Northern Kentucky University President Cady Short-Thompson and Vera Bradley CEO
CONTENT ARTS, CULTURE & LIFESTYLE
Jackie Ardrey to Clifton Cultural Arts Center Director Leslie Mooney and Cincinnati Ballet’s Interim Artistic Director Cervilio Amador. With a 30-minute format, this show gives guests time to talk about their careers, their aspirations, their art and their impact on the community.
The Art Show: Our magazine-style program that highlights local, regional, statewide and national artists and art organizations, returned in full force in the fall of 2024. This weekly broadcast, hosted by Rodney Veal, includes a new local segment each month, which is available to stream on YouTube and on the PBS App. So far in Season 14, we’ve previewed BLINK, a major light and art event in Cincinnati; we met human rights advocate and photographer Eleanor Moseman; we explored the Seeds of Life Memorial in Dayton and more. We look forward to telling even more amazing stories this year.
We also continued our work highlighting the state’s Heritage Fellows thanks to a grant from the Ohio Arts Council. In addition to sharing these videos with the American Archive of Public Broadcasting, we post them on the PBS App, share them on YouTube and broadcast them as part of The Art Show
Rodney Veal’s Inspired By: Our regional arts and cultural scene is vibrant and full of surprises. In this podcast, Rodney Veal, host of The Art Show, guides you on a journey of exploration as he interviews artists and other creatives about what inspires them. Each episode is a down-to-earth honest conversation with
a real-life working art maker, risk taker and world shaper. In 2024, those conversations featured guests like photographer Shon Curtis, Levitt Pavilion Dayton’s Lisa Wagner, gallery owner Dana Wiley, WYSO Music Director Juliet Fromholt and many more. We are excited to continue live gallery recordings and add a video element to this project in 2025.
Social Media Videos: In 2024, we dramatically increased our production of vertical videos for social media, namely Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. We featured our program director highlighting local and national programming. We engaged our staff to identify PBS KIDS shows by their intro songs. We had fun making fairy gardens, driving the Cincinnati St. Patrick’s Day Parade route, highlighting activities for the holidays and much more.
Rick Steves’ Europe: A Symphonic Journey: We partnered with Rick Steves, America’s leading authority on European travel, and the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra to produce an inspirational musical journey that lets you travel Europe without leaving your home. Creating this special program required six months of pre-production working directly with the Pops and Steves. During the four days of shooting, we did rehearsals, shot the open on the streetcar and recorded three performances with more than a dozen cameras. The program toggles between Rick Steves as a musical tour guide, striking visuals from seven featured countries and sweeping 19th-century anthems by Romanticera composers, including Grieg, Smetana, Strauss, Elgar, Wagner,and Verdi. Each selection honors a particular nationality, while the finale, Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” (Europe’s official anthem), pays homage to the continent’s motto of United in Diversity. The resulting program will premiere in the spring of 2025 and made available to PBS stations across the country.
Jeffrey’s Journey: We take the simplest things for granted, but imagine, one day, you couldn’t open a jar… you couldn’t type on a keyboard… it was hard to hold a toothbrush… Jeffrey McElfresh has Charcot-Marie-Tooth disease Type 1A, a type of neurological disorder that affects the peripheral nerves. It’s progressive, which means every day gets more incrementally difficult. This new documentary, coming in the spring of 2025, follows Jeffrey’s journey, both with his disease and along his route as he embarks on an adventure cyclist ride across the southern portion of Ohio, following the Ohio River from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati. Join us on this challenging ride and experience the freedom of the roadand the freedom of the bike- through Jeffrey’s eyes.
EDUCATION RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS & STUDENTS
Being a PBS station is about much more than bringing you quality video and audio content, it’s also about being our region’s largest classroom. As the first licensed noncommercial educational television station, we have a long history of supporting educators, child-care providers and parents with the resources they need to help our region’s children. Here are some of the projects we launched and continued this year:
Ohio Learns 360: Ohio’s PBS stations and the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce are proud to have brought Ohio Learns 360 (OL360) to out-of-schooltime programs (OST) and families statewide. Designed for educators and families of kids in grades K-5, OL360 provided Camps-in-a-Box full of learning activities, training for OST providers on how to use the materials, virtual field trips, After School 360 on-demand virtual learning experiences, family webinars and community events.
Ohio Learns 360 Key Activities
5,583 OST Providers trained across 961 Camp-in-Box trainings provided by local PBS stations.
5,540 Camps-in-a-Box distributed to rural (34%), urban (32%), and suburban (34%) OST programs in Ohio.
8 Virtual Field Trips with 12,173 streams online.
18 After School 360 Programs with 824 streams online.
18 Family Webinars presented live via Zoom and recordings made accessible online (total of 7,844 streams).
192 Community Events hosted/attended by local PBS stations.
“In the winter box, there was a Vaseline and gloves activity to see how blubber keeps animals warm. The kids were really engaged in that and learning about how animals hibernate or live in the winter. It helped them understand and learn a lot.”
- Educator Feedback
Reading Is Lit!: We partnered with Learn to Earn Dayton to create Reading is Lit! boxes to provide families with handson activities for practicing literacy skills with their children at home. Reading is Lit! kits are designed in collaboration with
local teachers and reading specialists. Each kit includes a grade- and curriculum-aligned book, hands-on learning materials, and PBS digital resources — everything needed to engage families with at-home reading practice. The kits are proudly assembled by adults with disabilities through our partner, TAC Industries of Springfield. To date, more than 1,000 Reading is Lit! boxes have been distributed at no cost to local families. Parents surveyed overwhelmingly approve Reading Is Lit!
Podcasts: We continued to produce two educational podcasts in 2024 — For the Love of EdTech and Minds Over Media These podcasts are produced by the SOITA team and available wherever you get your podcasts and on our websites. For the Love of EdTech includes interviews with educational professionals who are making use of technology to better educational opportunities for students. Minds Over Media focuses on providing educators with resources and tools to guide their students toward understanding and using media effectively.
Workshops and Resources: In addition to the work we’re doing developing content for teachers and learners, we’re also committed to serving as a resource for the education community. The SOITA and CET EdTech team provide full-day, half-day, virtual and even Saturday workshops for educators looking for professional development.
Talking Jobs: We created new videos for the Broadcast Educational Media Commission (BEMC) as part of the Emmy Award-winning Talking Jobs series - five about technology careers and four about healthcare careers. These videos, which are available to stream on the BEMC YouTube channel, are developed in partnership with both BEMC and the Ohio Department of Education and Workforce, to help address gaps in the workforce and expand the understanding of the kinds of careers that are available in our world today.
Wild for Ohio: Another Broadcast Educational Media Commission (BEMC) project, Wild for Ohio explores the wonders of the animal and plant world right in our own backyards and neighborhoods. Produced for grades 3-5, this series was envisioned to help children build their observational skills by creating fun and engaging learning experiences for students. Wild for Ohio builds off a successful educational camp and project kit series with the same name and can be streamed on BEMC’s YouTube channel.
Public Media Connect IN THE COMMUNITY
In addition to the work we’re doing on air and online, as well as the resources we provide to educators and learners, Public Media Connect is involved in our communities. We understand the importance of lifting up our neighborhoods and the value that, as local PBS stations, we can bring to our region.
With Our Programs: Grant funding from Washington Educational Telecommunications Association (WETA) made it possible for us to deliver a community engagement program around GOSPEL, a docuseries from Henry Louis Gates, Jr., in partnership with Tracey Artis of I Hear Music, Inc and Word of Deliverance Ministries for the World, Inc.in early 2024.
We continued our Free Family PBS KIDS Summer Films, each of which included a Read Along and hands-on activities. These were held at the Neon Theatre on six consecutive Saturdays in June and July in collaboration with the Dayton Metro Library. More than 600 families participated throughout the series.
In October, we partnered with the University of Dayton to present a screening and panel discussion around our film about Bing Davis. Additional community screenings are ongoing.
Finally, in November, we hosted four events with Chefs Julia and Bridgett from America’s Test Kitchen. We laughed and learned alongside almost a thousand guests throughout those two days.
At Our Studios: We are thrilled to be able to welcome students into our studios. We had almost 250 children come to our buildings in 2024 for field trips that include an explanation of how television works, a green screen demonstration and an exploration of the many career possibilities media and public television have to offer.
In the Community: We participated in 50 neighborhood programs and had more than 7,100 face-to-face interactions with community members. Events varied in nature and included activities like screening new PBS KIDS shows, family literacy nights, pop-up-and-play events in local neighborhoods, connecting with mentor groups, resource fairs, back-to-school events and more. Our staff also continues to work with the Adopt a Class program by making monthly visits to kindergarten and first grade classrooms at Hays-Porter Elementary.
We also participated in the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Brady Block Parties, local Hispanic heritage festivals, the OTR Second Sunday on Main events, Family Science Night at Dayton Early College Academy, Women in Aviation Day at the NAHF Innovation Lab and Truck or Treat with We Care Arts while also hosting virtual summer (and winter) camps and offering Camp-in-a-Box programs around Cyberchase and Nature Cat with the Dayton Metro Library.
FUNDING
What we do is only possible because of support from “Viewers Like You”, either through individual memberships, planned gifts, corporate support or in-kind donations. While CET and ThinkTV do receive limited government support, which provides “seed funding” for the stations, voluntary community support remains the most important contributor to Public Media Connect’s budget. Viewers Like You make Public Media Connect possible. Thank you!
Total 2024 Revenue: $16,147,195
Community Funding 39.68% - $6,407,563
Earned 27.80% - $4,488,420
Corporation for Public Broadcasting Funding 15.69% - $2,533,195
In-Kind Donations 10.65% - $1,720,165
State and County Funding 6.18% - $997,852
Total 2024 Expense: $15,558,048
Local Content, Programming, Distribution and Education Services 60.46% - $9,406,031
Promotion and Marketing 16.26% - $2,530,514
General and Administrative 15.56% - $2,420,630
Depreciation 6.36% - $989,844
Fundraising 1.36% - $211,029
Public Media Connect Board of Trustees Community Advisory Councils
Officers
Dave Taylor, Chair
Stephanie Amlung, Vice Chair
Brian Silverberg, Treasurer
Beth Hartman, Secretary
Dorothy (Kitty) Lensman Ex-Officio, President & CEO
Trustees
Brian Bolam
Shannon Cox
Jennifer Damiano
Dr. Roshni Dasgupta
Dawn Gilmore
Jack Greiner
Jason Hightower
Stephanie Hogue
Brian Hylander
Jeff Ireland
Chara Fisher
Jackson
Dr. Alvin Jones
Barbara Kellar
Kellie Kulka
Kelly MacDonald
Eric Meilstrup
Christopher Owens
Karen Spina
Barbara Weyand
Barney Wright
CET
Carol N. Aquino
Paula Brehm-Heeger
Kimber L. Fender
Fred Heldman
Rabbi Abie Ingber
Don Jones
Dr. John Owens
Jorge Perez
Judge Tyrone Yates
ThinkTV
Cassie Barlow
Michael Carter
Sean Creighton
Harry Delaney
Kim Duncan
Diane Farrell
Lynda Hoffman
Lindsay Maxam
Jennifer Shelhouse
Chris Welter
Georgie Woessner
