The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 led to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; they in turn founded the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) in 1969 and had their first live broadcast one year later.  There were no commercials because funding was through public and private charitable foundations and “donations from viewers like you.” The reason for this was so that advertisers couldn’t adversely influence programing and content. Eventually the Children’s Television Workshop was formed, leading to the formation of six educational programs designed specifically for young children.

The first and most popular of these programs was Sesame Street, a show aimed at preschoolers.  The name was chosen for its magical implications – “open sesame.”  Though there were random complaints about how short the segments were, they were in fact perfect for the target audience – preschoolers who had short attention spans.

Another popular children’s show on PBS was Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood which was quite soothing after the quick-paced Sesame Street. Every day a new factory was visited via a brief film taken at said factory. Next, a model train came around and “brought” the children to the Neighborhood of Make Believe ruled by King Friday. Then there was 3-2-1 Contact, a young children’s science show (1980-88), as well as Bill Nye the Science Guy (1980-88), science for older children.

In June of 1983 PBS first aired Reading Rainbow, hosted by and created by LeVar Burton, from July 1983 through November 2006.  Burton was also starring in Star Trek: The Next Generation as Geordi LaForge, chief engineer of the starship Enterprise.

At one time PBS was considered the equivalent of being in the classroom. In fact, both of my children learned to read while watching Sesame Street. Phonics was emphasized (“how does a letter sound?”) and the concept of sounding out syllables and then literally pushing them together to make a word. This was done by the two-headed monster, of course. Children who learn how to read by using phonics become better readers as those skills are almost always combined with learning root words, prefixes, and suffixes. These skills produce a reader who hardly ever needs a dictionary.

Of course, that was when Sesame Street was an hour, sufficient time to develop these skills and still be able to demonstrate friendship and acceptance. Bert and Ernie were best friends throughout the series, and everyone loved Big Bird along with his best friend Snuffy (Mr. Snuffleupagus).

Then there was Mr. Hooper, the man who owned Mr. Hooper’s Store. From 1969 until March 1983, Mr. Hooper (not the actor’s name) was a regular who freely interacted with all of the characters, both Muppet and human. When the actor died, the writers decided to have the character die, too. Thus, young children learned about pain, death, grief, and recovery in a way that was constructive and helpful to them.

In early 2025, the U.S. budget cut funding from NPR – National Public Radio – and PBS. At one time, asking for donations to help keep these networks on the air were quarterly and generally run once during a show. Since the budget cuts of 2025, the requests for money/donations border on incessant; in fact, a 60-minute program will now list on the Guide as 90 minutes and “commercial” breaks are every 15 minutes, lasting about seven to eight minutes. Usually, though, the 30-minute shows on PBS are run commercial free, though they are actually only 23-25 minutes long, the balance of the 30 minutes given over to advertising. In fact, at the end of these shows there’s usually a “PBS” commercial: “Funding for this program was made possible by charitable corporations both public and private and by donations from viewers like you.” The corporations are usually listed with the obvious hope that viewers will support these corporations and indirectly benefit programing.

There are many programs now offered on PBS stations and their content varies from cooking and baking to both domestic and international travel. There are also shows that are educational in content that are not on PBS, networks such as The National Geographic Channel, The Science Channel, and The Smithsonian Channel all have commercials and are all available through your cable television system. So, try something different on television once in a while. You never know – you might just like it.