World Channel
| World | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Launched | New York City & Boston: 2005 Nationwide: 2007 |
| Owned by |
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| Slogan | Brave. New. Real. |
| Country | United States |
| Broadcast area | United States: available in 61.58% of homes |
| Sister channel(s) | Create |
| Website | Official website |
|
Availability
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| Terrestrial | |
| Available as a digital subchannel on PBS stations in some areas | Check local listings for availability |
| Cable | |
| Available on selected cable systems | Check local listings for availability |
World (previously PBS World) is a United States over-the-air digital subchannel showing public TV non-fiction, science, nature, news, public affairs and documentaries. It is contributed to by the Public Broadcasting Service, WGBH-TV, WNET, and National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) and distributed by American Public Television.
In 2004, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation granted PBS funds to develop a public affairs network, Public Square, given the change in broadcasting to digital thus allowing stations to broadcast multiple channels. (Public Square was also a name previous given to a proposed civic series in early 2000s.) The Knight Foundation announced a challenge grant to PBS to launch this network on December 14, 2004 at the Digital Futures Initiative Summit. PBS would have to raise double the grant amount to get the foundation's grant. Additional, the foundation made a grant to PBS for the first program's pilot slated for the network. The program, Global Watch, was to be co-produced by KCET and KQED. The pilot aired on PBS' National Program Service, while the series would only continue on Public Square. PBS was also discussing with WGBH and WNET to fold Public Square and World together.
WGBH and WNET were developing World in 2004. By December 2005, Boston’s WGBH and WNET were already broadcasting World on a subchannel and added by April 2006, Washington’s WETA. San Francisco’s KQED were already broadcasting its own nonfiction encore channel before April 2005, too. Then, WGBH and WNET team up with PBS to roll out a national version of the local channels as World with KQED continuing on its own. The stations are supposed to program and PBS distributing the network. Public Square was expected to exist as a two to three hours long hosted weeknight programming block on the channel. The network was launched nationally on August 15, 2007. For the first year, the Ford Foundation granted some funds to cover cost while PBS was contributing some funding from it revenue-generating activities. As of March 2009, there was no national underwriter for the network as one had not been pursued as the network lacked enough coverage to land one. On July 1, 2009, PBS withdrew from the channel. By September 2009, ITVS’s Global Voices was the only original program for the network.
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