History and Mission
PBS 45 & 49 is two separately licensed public television stations (WNEO and WEAO) operating under one 501(c)(3) corporation, Northeastern Educational Television of Ohio, Inc. (NETO). WNEO/PBS 45 was established in 1971, is licensed to the city of Alliance and serves the Youngstown designated television market. WEAO/PBS 49 went on the air in 1975, is licensed to the city of Akron and serves the Cleveland-Akron (Canton) designated television market. All programming is simulcast.

The corporation, NETO, is owned and operated by a consortium of The University of Akron, Kent State University and Youngstown State University. The consortium provides no financial support to the organization. The Board of Directors consists of 15 members, including the presidents of the three universities.

It is the mission and purpose of NETO, Inc. and PBS 45 & 49 to see that the powerful medium of television is used to teach, illuminate and inspire. We do this through the presentation of consistently outstanding programs and lifelong educational services that are responsive to the varied interests and needs of northeast Ohioans. The station continually strives to bring to our viewers a) cultural and artistic enlightenment and enjoyment; b) exposure to local, state and national public affairs of importance; and c) a process of lifelong learning through formal instruction and general educational programming for viewers from preschool through retirement ages.

Coverage Area & Viewership
PBS 45 & 49 serves viewers in northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania. The organization not only embraces regionalism, it is regionalism. PBS 45 & 49 is the only television service in the area that spans the entire northeast Ohio region: north to Cuyahoga, Lake, Geauga and Ashtabula counties; south to Holmes, Tuscarawas and Harrison counties; west to Erie, Huron, Ashland and Richland counties; and east to Trumbull, Mahoning and Columbiana counties. See our coverage map.

The 2007 households and head counts from A.C. Nielsen show that the Cleveland designated market area (DMA) is the 17th largest market in the country, with 1,533,710 households and 3,699,000 people 2+. The Youngstown DMA is the 106th market, with 273,480 households and 651,000 people 2+. Overall, PBS 45 & 49’s total service area reaches over 1.8 million households and 4.4 million people.

In an average week, 500,000 households and 700,000 viewers watch PBS 45 & 49, according to A.C. Nielsen ratings.


Operating Budget & Funding Sources
PBS 45 & 49’s FY08 operating budget is $5.1 million. Revenue is generated from the following sources:

Private Support (63%) Private funding includes revenue from 16,500 members, corporate and foundation underwriting grants, and entrepreneurial activities such as tower rental income.

State Funding (20%) Almost all of this funding supports our Department of Educational Services and its outreach to K-12 educators. Additionally, Ohio Educational Telecommunications provides partial support for nighttime and weekend operations.

Federal Funding (17%) Federal funding comes to PBS 45 & 49 through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Over 20 years ago, it accounted for over half our budget; today less than one-fifth of our funding comes from federal tax-based support.

Governance
PBS 45 & 49 is two separate stations operating under one 501(c)(3) corporation, Northeastern Educational Television of Ohio, Inc. The corporation is owned and operated by a consortium of The University of Akron, Kent State University and Youngstown State University. Its Board of Directors has 15 members, including the presidents of the three universities.

Licensee & Affiliations
WNEO/PBS 45 is licensed to the city of Alliance and serves the Youngstown designated market area (DMA). WEAO/PBS 49 is licensed to the city of Akron and serves the Cleveland-Akron (Canton) DMA. All programming services are simulcast on PBS 45 & 49.

PBS 45 & 49 is affiliated with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) and Ohio Educational Television Stations (OETS).


Facilities & Operations
The operations center, administrative offices, main studio and location of public files are housed at 1750 Campus Center Drive, Kent, Ohio, 44240. Production facilities are located on the campuses of The University of Akron and Kent State University.

The organization operates five transmitters:

• WNEO/PBS 45 and WNEO-DT/PBS 45’s transmitters, located in Salem, serve greater Youngstown and western Pennsylvania
• WEAO/PBS 49 and WEAO-DT/PBS 49’s transmitters, located in Copley, serve the greater Cleveland/Akron/Canton area
• W58AM/PBS 58, is located in and serves low-lying areas of the Mahoning Valley
  
  

PBS 45 & 49’s Core Programs and Services

Analog and Digital Broadcast Services
In 2005, PBS 45 & 49 achieved a significant milestone with the completion of the federally mandated conversion to digital broadcast. While the station must continue to broadcast its analog signal until February 2009, we launched our digital multicasting service in 2006 and our high definition channel (HDTV) in June 2007. Combined, our analog and digital services provide a total of 17,520 hours of commercial-free television each year.

We offer a wide range of programs on subjects including science and nature; drama, art and music; how-tos, travel and adventure; history and biography; and news and public affairs. Additionally, PBS 45 & 49 airs over 60 hours of children’s programming each week, including series such as Curious George, Arthur, Clifford the Big Red Dog, Dragon Tales and Sesame Street. The station also has a commitment to local productions including Northeast Ohio Times, Youngstown 2010 Moving Ahead: A Forum for Reporting Progress, NewsNight Akron and Read It!

Department of Educational Services
Funded in large part by the state of Ohio through eTech Ohio, PBS 45 & 49’s Department of Educational Services and its staff serve students and educators in eight Ohio counties (Carroll, Columbiana, Mahoning, Portage, Stark, Summit, Trumbull and Wayne), including:

• 92 public school districts
• 111 nonpublic schools
• 45 community schools
• 5 joint vocational schools
• 256,700 students
• 21,500 educators

Educational Services provides these state-of-the-art services to educators and students:

• Professional Development opportunities with an educational technology emphasis
• Multimedia instructional content connected to State Content Standards
• Web-based projects on a wide range of academic subjects
• Distance learning projects
• Award-winning local instructional television programming Instructional Television (ITV) programming

Educational services delivered in FY07
Our Department of Educational Services provided the following outreach during the 2006-07 school year:

• 171 technology workshops were held for 812 K-12 teachers
• 66 technology consultations were completed for 521 teachers
• 46 ITV workshops were held for 817 teachers and administrators
• 70 ITV consultations were completed for 88 teachers
• A total of 2,238 teachers and administrators attended our workshops, totaling 6,543 hours of workshop time
• Each month, 18,738 issues of our monthly TechKnowledgy Newsletter were distributed to 92 school districts, 5 joint vocational schools and 156 nonpublic schools
• 20,012 ITV Handbooks were distributed
• 509 hours of instructional television were broadcast over the year, including 45 series and nine individual programs
• 340 hours of block feed programming were broadcast, including 67 series and 24 individual programs

Educational Technology Training
For more than 30 years, PBS 45 & 49 has been training teachers and administrators to use the latest educational technologies in their classrooms (computers, the Internet, distance learning and more). Every year, our staff trains over 2,200 educators to use these tools and to share them with their students. Learn more about our workshops.

Instructional Television for Proficiency Test Preparation
Educators use PBS 45 & 49’s locally produced multimedia projects to help their students prepare for and pass Ohio’s proficiency tests. Overall, 5,800 teachers with 76,000 students use our ITV services regularly. Learn more about our multimedia projects.

Ready To Learn and Ohio Ready To Learn Services
PBS 45 & 49’s Ready To Learn (RTL) service is a parent/childcare provider education and outreach effort that supplements PBS children’s programs. The RTL staff delivers workshops and provides print materials to help adults extend the learning from our children’s shows into reading and hands-on activities. Since 1998, the organization’s RTL staff has presented over 1,100 free workshops, reaching 13,000 childcare providers and parents and serving more than 70,000 children. These numbers grow each month.

Ready To Learn services delivered in FY07 include the following:

• 80 workshops – 15 Ready To Learn Early and 65 Ready To Learn
• 889 childcare providers attended these two-hour sessions totaling 1,778 hours

Partners using our Lending Library kits include Akron Children’s Hospital’s Family Resource Center, Child Care Connection, Summit County Even Start, Stark County Early Childhood Resource Center, JumpStart Akron (in partnership with The University of Akron and Akron Head Start), Provider House (Trumbull/Mahoning Family Childcare Providers Association) and Portage County Even Start.

Ohio Ready To Work Service
In FY07, PBS 45 & 49 launched the local Ohio Ready To Work Service to provide support to area One-Stop Employment and Training Centers and Adult Basic and Literacy Education (ABLE) sites. These sites provide workplace and literacy resources to the area’s unemployed and underemployed. Our support includes the broadcast of GED Connection and Workplace Essential Skills Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. and the distribution of related print materials. The two television series offer viewers the opportunity to review the basics in math, science, reading, writing and social studies that they need to take and pass the GED exam.

Community Outreach
PBS 45 & 49 extends the value of programming beyond the television set through community events and partnerships with local organizations and agencies. In FY07, station community events touched more than 100,000 northeast Ohioans, and our regularly published outreach newsletters reached over 70,000 readers.

In FY08, PBS 45 & 49’s outreach is focusing on four themes: literacy, aging, war and peace, and digital transition education.

• Literacy outreach includes our partnership with AmeriCorps volunteers in Youngstown to distribute free First Books to more than 350 at-risk children every month, and our free Lending Library, with over 100 kits currently in circulation in local libraries, hospitals, Head Starts and childcare sites. The station also takes part in four major children’s educational events each year, including KidsFair Akron and Youngstown’s Family Fun Fair.

• Aging Smart is a new project that focuses on the needs and interests of our older adult viewers; its programs and services address the physical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual and socioeconomic dimensions of aging, with an emphasis on how to approach growing older positively, healthfully and wisely. Find out more about Aging Smart.

• The History Circle, one of our affinity clubs, will focus on the theme of war and peace. One PBS series will serve as anchor point for the year: Ken Burns’ new film series on World War II, The War, scheduled to air in September 2007. The project includes a local outreach effort in coordination with the national Library of Congress’ Video History Project to train people to collect video oral histories. Find out more our project.

• Finally, with the national broadcast television analog shut-off date now firmly scheduled for Feb. 17, 2009, PBS 45 & 49 will launch a public education campaign to prepare northeast Ohioans for the final stage of digital transition.
  
  

Internet Services
PBS 45 & 49’s Web site at www.pbs4549.org is home to thousands of pages of station-created materials, including the daily program schedule and station e-newsletters; Ready To Learn and parenting resources; and our locally developed multimedia curriculum kits for K-12 classrooms, featuring online teacher guides, interactive lesson plans and video on demand. In July 2006, PBS 45 & 49 redesigned the Web site to showcase our video on-demand service and in August 2007 the site will again expand to include a multitude of new interactive features. The site now features over 100 hours of local programming along with nearly daily updated promos for our general-audience series and specials. In October 2006, PBS 45 & 49 introduced its first Web-only production, Local Focus, a series of “webisodes” that profiles the places, people and events that make northeast Ohio a great place to live. The Web site averages over 450,000 total hits per month, with an average of more than 15,000 hits each day.