PBS Programming The #1 Choice For Teachers for Third Consecutive Year, According to New Poll

PBS Programming The #1 Choice For Teachers for Third Consecutive Year, According to New Poll

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Following a particularly competitive year marked by a rapidly evolving media landscape, the nation's educators have -- for the third year in a row -- chosen PBS as the top source of video in the classroom, for both off-air taping and purchasing. This puts PBS ahead of Discovery, the History Channel and Nickelodeon. PBS' lead over the other content providers remained steady this year.

According to the survey, conducted again this year by Grunwald Associates, PBS is educators' favorite among all major television providers, on both cable and broadcast television. The research study was based on a national survey of more than 1,200 educators.

PBS remains among the most frequently visited K-12 Web sites. Educators visit PBS sites more often than those from CNN, Disney, The New York Times Learning Network, The Library of Congress, The Smithsonian Institution and The National Archives.

"Educators are an absolutely essential audience for PBS and our local stations, so it's encouraging to see teachers make PBS their top classroom choice," said Mary Kadera, director of PBS Digital Education. "These survey findings drive home the continuing importance of PBS' and local PBS stations' efforts to help educators, and for our system to respond nimbly to the changing ways teachers are using multi-media content, both in home and school settings."

Additional findings of the survey:

* Again this year, 90 percent of teachers said they use video in the classroom, with usage levels holding steady over the past few years.

* Forty percent of teachers are using full-length programs in class, while 24 percent most often use selected segments of programs.

* Teachers say their chief reasons for using video in the classroom are to reinforce and expand on content being taught, respond to a variety of learning styles and increase student motivation to learn.

* DVD players continue to show substantial penetration gains in both school (from 42 percent in 2004 to 63 percent in 2005) and classroom (from 17 percent in 2004 to 30 percent in 2005).

* Current events are included in three-quarters of classrooms, with more than six in 10 teachers incorporating them into instruction at least once a week. Among the teachers who bring current events into the classroom, one-quarter set aside time to address those issues. Newspapers, Internet sources and TV news programs are widely used for current-events teaching and discussion, particularly among high school teachers.

* Again this year, the survey showed word-of-mouth to be the most dominant way teachers learn about relevant video and multimedia content for the classroom. Next most important: the recommendation of a school library media specialist.

About PBS

PBS is a private, nonprofit media enterprise that serves the nation's 348 public noncommercial television stations, reaching nearly 90 million people each week through on-air and online content. Bringing diverse viewpoints to television and the Internet, PBS provides high-quality documentary and dramatic entertainment, and consistently dominates the most prestigious award competitions. PBS is the leading provider of educational materials for K-12 teachers, and offers a broad array of educational services for adult learners. PBS' premier kids' TV programming and Web site, PBS KIDS Online (pbskids.org), continue to be parents' and teachers' most trusted learning environments for children. More information about PBS is available at pbs.org, one of the leading dot-org Web sites on the Internet, averaging more than 30 million unique visits and 380 million page views per month in 2004. PBS is headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia.

About Grunwald Associates

Grunwald Associates has conducted the industry's most respected surveys on educator and family technology use since 1995. Using a unique combination of Internet-based research and more traditional methodologies, Grunwald surveys have helped define the school and home technology markets, and have been called the "gold standard" in the industry. Grunwald Associates also works directly with major companies and organizations, providing competitive analysis, focus groups, online and telephone surveys, and advisory group management. More information is available at http://grunwald.com/.

Source: PBS

CONTACT: Kevin Dando, +1-703-739-5073, kdando@pbs.org or Tia Gordon, +1-703-739-5183, ttgordon@pbs.org, both of PBS

Web site: http://www.pbs.org/

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