American Public Television
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| Non-profit | |
| Industry | Public television |
| Founded | 1961 |
| Headquarters | Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
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Area served
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Worldwide |
| Website | APTonline.org |
American Public Television (APT) is the largest syndicator of programming for public television stations in the United States. APT continues to distribute a wide variety of public television programs nationally, as well as administering the Create and World channels on public TV.
APT began in 1961 when it was incorporated as the Eastern Educational Television Network (EEN). At first EEN was a regional cooperative that began to exchange programs between a couple of its member stations. EEN was one of the first distributors of shows such as The French Chef (with Julia Child) in 1963,Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, and Washington Week in Review on a national basis.
Another first from EEN was the distribution starting in 1970 of Newsfront, America's first live and non-commercial daily news program. EEN introduced Wall Street Week in November 1970 before PBS began distributing it nationwide in January 1972. EEN began the import to America of BBC and CBC productions in 1974 with Monty Python's Flying Circus being one of them. In 1978, the EEN started the Free Library.
In 1980, Eastern Educational started the Syndication Service and was renamed Interregional Program Service (IPS). IPS started the Premium Service in 1989. The organization became American Program Service in 1992.
American Program Service was renamed American Public Television (APT) in 1999. Also, with many fax requests from international outlets, an international division called APT Worldwide was started.
With the digital roll out, APT became the distributor of a couple of multicast networks. In January 2006, APT started distributing Create. The nonprofit started distributing World in 2010.
APT also owns two digital subchannel networks together with WGBH and WNET.ORG:
APT distributes more than 300 new program titles per year, including documentaries, talk shows, dramatic and comedic series, how-to programs, children's series and classic movies. Shows currently or previously distributed by APT include, but are not limited to, The Open Mind, Rick Steves' Europe, Painting the Town with Eric Dowdle, Simply Ming, America's Test Kitchen From Cook's Illustrated and its sister series Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen, Yan Can Cook, The Big Comfy Couch, Net Cafe, Computer Chronicles, Richard Bangs' Adventures with Purpose, Globe Trekker (aka Pilot Guides in other countries), Doc Martin, Rudy Maxa's World, Sara's Weeknight Meals and Scully: The World Show. Stuffed Animal Adventures APT distributes weeknight international news series BBC World News (programme) and Newsline from NHK, as well as the business news program Nightly Business Report.
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Wikipedia