00:00:26.800In fact, PBS Kids has helped me teach my children a lot of things. A lot.
00:00:33.120The channel that helped raise us with Sesame Street is now helping us raise our kids with
00:00:38.280Daniel Tiger and Molly of Denali and shows that actually teach executive functioning
00:00:43.920and empathy instead of how to become a YouTube unboxing monster.
00:00:48.500But here's the thing we need to be talking about.
00:00:50.580The very things that make PBS Kids so incredible are now under attack.
00:00:56.800The Trump administration has slashed a third of its funding, gutting the essential grants that help serve low-income communities, canceling summer camps, and forcing them to halt production on new shows.
00:01:08.480This is not just a budget cut. This is a gut punch to every parent out there.
00:01:15.620My guest today is Sarah DeWitt. She's the head of PBS Kids and a woman who has been living and breathing public media for decades.
00:01:23.840Starting out with helping to build Mr. Rogers' very first website.
00:03:23.880So having already established that everything PBS Kids puts out is pure gold, let's talk about the current situation and what is happening with the funding.
00:03:34.560Where are we at right now with regards to the Trump administration and funding for PBS Kids?
00:03:43.240There's a lot that's been going on. So the things that affected PBS Kids most directly started May 1st with the executive order calling to defund or calling for no agencies to deliver any funding to PBS or NPR.
00:04:02.760And then on May 2nd, the Department of Education terminated a grant called Ready to Learn. It's been around for 30 years. Congress had put into place in 1995 that effectively cut a third of PBS Kids funding.
00:04:23.820So this is a grant that specifically was designed to help create high quality media for kids in lower income areas. So really thinking about kids who live in Title I areas, you know, areas where there's majority free or reduced lunch.
00:04:42.980and really thinking about what is the media itself,
00:04:47.160how can it help move the needle for kids
00:06:33.660So now we really are, you know, we are still on television.
00:06:38.680There's still lots of kids who don't have broadband
00:06:40.560who watch us on over-the-air television from their local station,
00:06:43.780but also streaming video, the PBS Kids video apps.
00:06:46.540We also have the PBS Kids games app and pbskids.org.
00:06:51.220And we really think about how do we make sure
00:06:53.880that we are distributing content in a way
00:06:57.060that kids who don't have the latest devices can access it.
00:07:00.800So we are looking at, you know, a lot of the devices that kids have are hand-me-downs to begin with.
00:07:07.140Even if it's a wealthier family, they've got like an old iPad that was handed down to them.
00:07:11.940But kids tend to be on older operating systems.
00:07:15.020So how do we make sure that everything we build can degrade gracefully on those platforms so kids can still access it?
00:07:20.760And if a kid doesn't have access to Wi-Fi, doesn't have broadband at home, excuse me, how can they download content when they have it and then be able to play when they're at home and go back and forth?
00:07:31.380So our video app and our games app allow kids to download content so they can use it when they don't have access to Wi-Fi.
00:07:37.580Which is so smart because my kids have hand-me-downs, hand-me-down screens because they're terrible with screens.
00:07:44.240We made the mistake once, as we do with our first child every single time, of giving them a nice screen, and that was destroyed.
00:07:52.140But a lot of things do not run on the older operating systems, or it's hard to figure out how to download.
00:07:59.500So it is so smart to think about who will be using what, when, and how.
00:08:05.900And I don't necessarily think any other media company today is thinking that way because they don't have the same kind of mission as PBS Kids.
00:08:12.600Right. And they aren't focused on this side of accessibility. We hear it all the time from tech partners who say, we don't even support that operating system anymore. And we're like, well, but can you help us just figure out how we could make it work? Because we know that we've got kids on devices that they aren't going to be able to upgrade. And so how can we make sure that this is going to make sense?
00:08:35.900I think my favorite story about this is if you think back to like 2018, most media companies were really downsizing their websites because everybody, especially for kids, everything was happening through touchscreens and tablets.
00:08:53.280We still had websites because we knew there were so many kids who were accessing us from kiosks in libraries and community centers.
00:08:59.860And we wanted to make sure that that was still a really powerful, strong experience for them.
00:09:04.760And then all of a sudden, every first grader in America was issued a laptop, and the web was huge again. So it just worked out for us. But it was because we were thinking about that accessibility piece.
00:09:16.100And what other pieces of what you all do will be impacted by these budget cuts, both now and in the possible future budget cuts?
00:09:24.740Sure. There's so many things. So first of all, it definitely takes a hit to some of our content.
00:09:31.080We have a show that was in production that just had to stop completely. We're about to start on
00:09:36.720a second season of a show that we had to end. And so just thinking about the content pipeline
00:09:41.880for us, as I said, this was a third of our funding. It means we had furloughed 20 PBS
00:09:49.060Kids staff members. So we're right now in the process of trying to figure out what does that
00:09:53.400me moving forward. A lot of those folks were people who worked on back-end systems like,
00:09:58.180you know, the games platform. Research. So you mentioned Annenberg and these amazing studies.
00:10:05.860The primary research dollars we had was through this Ready to Learn grant. And that's how we were
00:10:10.920able to really show that watching Super Y can help kids really gain literacy skills. That playing
00:10:21.280games with Odd Squad can move the needle. And so we're trying to think about who are the partners,
00:10:27.480who are the potential funders who might help us with studies, because these aren't studies that
00:10:32.760just help PBS kids. They help the field. Grad students study them. And I studied them in
00:10:39.640undergrad. I mean, we had an entire course dedicated to this. And I think this is a question
00:10:46.140every parent has right now is what is the impact media is having on my kids?
00:10:50.480You really need to understand how this works.
00:10:53.260And these kinds of studies really help everybody understand.
00:10:57.900But another thing that I just want to make sure is really clear is this funding hurts
00:11:02.060what's happening in local communities.
00:11:03.920So a big portion of this grant went out to member stations across the country because
00:11:08.920PBS was made up of a network of stations.
00:11:12.360And 44 of those stations had grants to then take our content and identify populations who could benefit the most from it.
00:11:20.800In some cases, it was partnerships with Boys and Girls Clubs, in some places, libraries, other places, Housing Authority.
00:11:26.660They would go into communities and do camps and workshops and events with families to help them understand how this free media resource could help their kids get ready for school.
00:11:38.040And we've had stations who have just had to cancel all of their camps for the summer.
00:11:42.200We know that the folks on the ground who were funded by this grant, many of them have also been furloughed.
00:11:49.880And those are camps for a lot of kids that would not otherwise have the opportunity to go to camps or to learn these skills at all over the summer, right?
00:11:59.180We really were trying to identify the neighborhoods that don't have great things that they can access to support kids.
00:12:07.620So let's take a quick break. And when we get back, I want to talk a little bit about what is happening to Sesame Street right now and why it may not be the panacea that we've seen reported in a lot of the news stories about it.
00:12:19.140okay we are back i want to talk about sesame street there's been a lot of talk about sesame
00:12:31.420street moving to netflix and people are like oh okay it's fine it's fine we don't have to worry
00:12:35.840about this anymore but that's not necessarily the case because netflix is still a gated streaming
00:12:42.200company, right? So the Sesame Street deal, I think, is it's a really great example of a public
00:12:48.860private partnership here because Sesame Street will continue to be on PBS. So Netflix has the
00:12:55.960worldwide rights now, and so it will be there. But the investment from the Corporation for Public
00:13:02.100Broadcasting and PBS means that it also will be available for free, same day and date, on PBS
00:13:08.380Kids and all of our PBS streaming platforms. Oh, great. Great. Because that's something I was
00:13:12.700confused about. That wasn't that wasn't totally clear in all the stories. It's true because it's
00:13:17.200complicated. It's complicated. Yes. But yeah, Sesame Street. I mean, we're so, so pleased that
00:13:24.620Sesame Street will continue to have this 50 plus year running relationship with PBS and that we're
00:13:31.300able to have it on all of our platforms. So Sesame Street will continue to be on streaming on our
00:13:36.220stations, uh, and on our games platforms as well. Excellent. Excellent. This is, this is very good
00:13:41.840news for me. Um, fun fact for me, I grew up literally right down the street from Sesame
00:13:47.360Place. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, it was. I have yet to take my children there, to be honest,
00:13:52.640because I also worked at the Sesame Place water park when I was a teenager, which, you know,
00:14:00.080just vague a vaguely vaguely scarring first job experience as all are as a lifeguard for small
00:14:06.440children in the wave pool but uh i gotta say that place is just a beacon of joy a beacon of joy in
00:14:14.920the pennsylvania suburbs and it's so much it's so much fun i'm this is this is the kind of impact
00:14:20.040that i just love to see when it when we do events when our stations do events and you've got those
00:14:24.740characters that walk in and you just see the joy on kids' faces to be like, wait, there's Daniel
00:14:30.620Tiger. There's Lila from Lila in the Loop. At the White House Easter egg roll last year, we had Stu
00:14:37.660from Lila in the Loop and all these kids were running over. The parents didn't even know who
00:14:41.140it was yet because the show was brand new. But the kids just... Oh, but the kids knew. The kids
00:14:45.380totally knew. Exactly. Exactly. So what can people do? I mean, we have so many moms and also young
00:14:52.900people who grew up on these shows that listen to this show. And I know a lot of us feel very
00:14:58.560helpless when it comes to politics these days. How can we help right now? So protectmypublicmedia.org
00:15:05.880is the website that can really give you the information that you need. What it's asking
00:15:12.080folks to do, the best thing to do right now is to call members of Congress. I mean, there is a
00:15:16.860rescission package right now in front of Congress that they're taking up. We think there'll be a
00:15:23.400vote later this week that's calling to defund public media. And so calling is the most effective
00:15:30.980way. Sending an email, also great. We know that over 1.5 million calls and messages have gone
00:15:37.840into Congress since these attacks started a few months ago. So this is definitely making a
00:15:43.540difference, but also telling these stories. So talking about the impact that PBS has had on your
00:15:50.860life and sharing that not only with a member of Congress, but also with your member station. So
00:15:56.400if you are not a member of your local station and can send a donation, great. But even just telling
00:16:01.680the story, sharing how PBS has made a difference in your life can be really important right now
00:16:07.540Because those are the stories that are helping us make our case.
00:16:11.120Just this week, we received a bunch of graduation announcements in the mail here at PBS, like
00:16:17.020hard copy invitations to graduation alongside handwritten notes with things like, I have
00:16:23.720decided to become an elementary school teacher because of PDF Kids, and I wanted you to know.
00:16:29.340Or I am the first kid in my family to graduate, and it's because Arthur was my best friend.
00:16:35.080I mean, it really like these stories are incredible and just prove again, like the lasting impact that these shows have on people's lives.
00:16:45.100And those are the stories that are so important right now.
00:16:47.740They truly do. And it's not or it shouldn't be a partisan issue.
00:17:33.600productive conversation when there's conflict. There was a study that UCLA, the Center for
00:17:40.540Scholars and Storytellers did just a few months ago where they surveyed teenagers. So like the
00:17:46.200first class of kids who grew up watching Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and asked them what they
00:17:50.980remembered. And it was astonishing. Oh my gosh, I want to know everything they said. When was the
00:17:55.880first class of them? So the show launched in 2012. Okay. Okay. Not too soon before I had my
00:18:02.680first kid because my son was watching it starting around 26 or no like 2017 2018 yeah yeah so what
00:18:11.320people remembered they uh like over 70 percent of kids like were able to talk about how the show
00:18:18.760made them feel that they felt safe when they watched it um the number of kids who could still
00:18:24.700sing a strategy song was amazing and then I was like well actually I've got that focus group in
00:18:29.040my house both of my kids will sing the strategy songs and not necessarily know they were Daniel
00:18:32.840songs but they know the songs they know the songs yeah and um and then also that kids would say
00:18:38.320their strategies they learned from that show that they still use today if they are having like a
00:18:43.920problem with a friend or if they're upset and they know to take a deep breath they learned that from
00:18:48.020Daniel Tiger and that's huge that's huge that's huge yeah the deep breath I you know I have a very
00:18:55.480emotional five-year-old. And the Daniel Tiger calming methods and deep breath work is really
00:19:03.220what has saved me through the three to five years, which are really hard to find ways to reach a kid
00:19:09.880who is very much in their heads. Right. Okay. Right. And I think about Daniel also talks about
00:19:17.960things like empathy. Think about what someone else is feeling. That was a huge one for my kids
00:19:23.820is like, well, think about their perspective. And Daniel was able to get them out of their
00:19:28.780own heads to think about how does this affect somebody else? It's really powerful and is done
00:19:34.940in a very thoughtful way with experts, with parents, with educators, really thinking about
00:19:42.640how do we meet kids where they are and really deliver something that is going to be developmentally
00:19:47.960appropriate that they can understand and use. I also think that PBS Kids has some of the most
00:19:56.080diverse programming for kids out there. I mean, I just, I am always so amazed because most
00:20:04.440programming is not very diverse at all in the wide world of media at how well there's different
00:20:10.780socioeconomic groups represented, which we really don't see, different races represented, and then
00:20:17.280different parts of the country and the world as well. You guys have really invested and focused
00:20:23.560on that, I think especially recently. What are some of the newer shows you've been developing
00:20:27.940to try to focus on that? I'm so glad you've noticed, first of all, because we know from
00:20:33.860years of studies that if kids see positive representation of kids who look like them or
00:20:40.180who live in a house like that or something like that, their self-esteem is greater and their
00:20:45.620success in school and life is greater and so it's it's there's a reason you know that we are thinking
00:20:52.000about this when presenting um one of the shows we just launched last year was called carl the
00:20:56.840collector and it's our first show to have a lead character on the autism spectrum and that has
00:21:04.040really it's a really fun funny show carl is a raccoon uh who likes to collect things it's very
00:21:11.040relatable to a lot of kids. And he's surrounded by a group of friends who some are neurotypical
00:21:16.540and some are, you know, it's neurodiverse and neurotypical kids together, really showcasing
00:21:22.120how even if you approach things differently or think differently than your friends, you can still
00:21:27.080be friends. There's still ways that you can understand and enjoy things together. And this
00:21:32.900is one where like the outpouring from families has been really tremendous of people writing to say,
00:21:38.260we knew that our uh we had our son's diagnosis but we hadn't found a way to tell him yet that
00:21:44.600he was on the autism spectrum and he watched your show and then said am i autistic because
00:21:51.160sometimes i feel like carl um that this is giving parents a vocabulary and um and an example you
00:22:01.800know someone to see on television who represents who they are so that is one that we're really
00:22:07.480excited about and really proud of. And then Lila in the Loop is also a new show that is
00:22:13.960focused on computational thinking, the building blocks of computer science. And one of the things
00:22:22.260we keep hearing is how much people love the family. Lila and her family live in an apartment
00:22:26.900over the diner that her parents run. And the stories that happen are so relatable.
00:22:33.400There are, you know, these four kids and they keep missing the bus.
00:22:36.760So they've got to figure out together how to come up with a routine, a process, which is, again, that building block of computer science, like first, second, third steps, so that they can all catch the bus on time.
00:22:49.080And the kids have to figure it out on their own.
00:22:50.500And it's funny and just really relatable.
00:22:53.240Super relatable because we see so many television shows, the majority of television shows, where people live in a house in a very specific kind of neighborhood.
00:23:01.820And we don't see families in an apartment, which probably the majority of families in America are living in something much smaller than the sprawl that we see on most television shows.
00:23:13.920Exactly. So this is really, this is representing kids' lives.
00:23:45.140Alaska is very different from Arkansas, but kids being in schools that are multi-grade, you know, classrooms because it's so small, the idea of rural schools, you know, like how kids all gather at the playground, things like that, that's representing a life that also is very represented across America, but not seen a whole lot on television.
00:25:34.300Like, I think that is something we just have to have to acknowledge.
00:25:37.900And I talk about that on this show all the time because we talk about social media with the way that YouTube content is created for kids to be addicting and drive them back.
00:25:47.520And with the algorithm, it drives me insane.
00:25:50.480And it's really hard for parents to navigate.
00:25:53.360I mean, this is really the first time since television was invented that you have an experience where content for kids is being created by folks who don't have a background in child development, who haven't convinced a network or a producer to pick up their show.
00:26:12.400that the content's being delivered on platforms that aren't being regulated by a body like the
00:26:19.580FCC or the FTC about what really is best for kids in this environment. It really, we're in
00:26:27.000kind of this full Wild West moment. And PBS is still focused specifically not on what drives
00:26:35.020an algorithm, but what is going to be best for the kid and how we can really make sure that this can
00:26:41.640be meaningful for that child's life. And I think we need those examples to continue to be there.
00:26:47.900We know that that raises the bar across the board in terms of what quality content can be. And so
00:26:53.820having that ability to create content without the, you know, without the influence of the commercial
00:27:00.940space, without political influence, to be able to really think about what's best for kids, I think
00:27:05.040is very important. And it doesn't cost Americans that much. In fact, it costs them insanely
00:27:11.420little when you break down the numbers, right? I mean, something I read close to $1.60 for
00:27:18.320taxpayers per year. $1.60 for taxpayer per year. Which really feels, I mean, I can't even get a
00:27:24.720coffee for $1.60 at this point from like the bodega coffee. It really, it's a tiny investment
00:27:31.480that then is leveraged and amplified by grants, by viewers like you, people giving donations to
00:27:41.860their local member stations. We really do a lot with that small federal investment to be able to
00:27:48.360leverage other means of support. Yeah, it is incredible. I want to close out by hearing
00:27:56.280your pbs story what shows inspired you to do this job when you were a kid
00:28:03.360definitely mr rogers neighborhood oh my god i know my my husband still cries when we talk about
00:28:09.280mr rogers by the way still weeps weeps i um i definitely was the kid who wanted like who asked
00:28:19.240for mr rogers every day and then we were a family who sang the songs and it wasn't until i was in
00:28:25.160school and discovered and started researching media that I discovered what an incredible