The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educational programs to public television stations in the United States, distributing shows such as Nature, Nova, Frontline, PBS News Hour, Washington Week, Masterpiece, American Experience, and children's programs such as Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Sesame Street, Barney & Friends, Arthur, Curious George, The Magic School Bus, and others. Certain stations also provide spillover service to Canada.
PBS is funded by a combination of member station dues, pledge drives, corporate sponsorships, and donations from both private foundations and individual citizens. From its founding in 1969 up until 2025, it also received funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. All proposed funding for programming is subject to a set of standards to ensure the program is free of influence from the funding source. PBS has over 350 member television stations, many owned by educational institutions, nonprofit groups both independent or affiliated with one particular local public school district or collegiate educational institution, or entities owned by or related to state government.
PBS was established on November 3, 1969, by Hartford N. Gunn Jr. (president of WGBH), John Macy (president of CPB), James Day (last president of National Educational Television), and Kenneth A. Christiansen (chairman of the department of broadcasting at the University of Florida). Fred Friendly was an integral figure in negotiations about the interconnection that would lead to the 1969 creation of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).
It began operations on October 5, 1970, taking over many of the functions of its predecessor, National Educational Television (NET), which later merged with Newark, New Jersey station WNDT to form WNET. In 1973, it merged with Educational Television Stations. Around the same time, the groups started out the National Public Affairs Broadcast Center (later National Public Affairs Center for Television), which offered news and national affairs to the service. The group was later merged into member station WETA-TV in 1972.
Immediately after public disclosure of the Watergate scandal, on May 17, 1973, the United States Senate Watergate Committee commenced proceedings; PBS broadcast the proceedings nationwide, with Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer as commentators. Although all of the Big Three TV Networks ran coverage of the hearings, PBS rebroadcast them on prime time. For seven months, nightly "gavel-to-gavel" broadcasts drew great public interest, and raised the profile of the fledgling PBS network.
In 1974, PBS launched the National Station Program Cooperative, a joint venture used to fund programs for public television stations, with Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Ford Foundation holding minority stakes in the venture. In 1976, it was amended with public television stations taking most control and CPB and Ford holding reduced stakes and cash (called unrestricted general program grants). In 1977, public television stations took full control of the Station Program Cooperative, allowing to fund programs fully.
In 1981, the Federal Communications Commission began allowing PBS to permit and accept corporate logos used for underwriting spots, mainly for sponsors, foundations and organizations. The logos used for underwriting had later evolved in 1982 to run commercials, mainly for sponsorship.
In 1988, a proposal to PBS was ratified in July 1989, as the original term used for underwriting spots, "public television stations" was too generic for audiences, so it was changed to "viewers like you". Two years later, a proposal for 1990 allowed major shows for 1991, like the Mark Russell comedy specials, Sesame Street, Washington Week in Review, Wall Street Week, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, Austin City Limits, Nova and Nature automatically credit Corporation for Public Broadcasting in its underwriting credits, although most dropped it by the late 1990s.
In 1994, The Chronicle of Philanthropy released the results of the largest study on the popularity and credibility of charitable and non-profit organizations. PBS ranked as the 11th "most popular charity/non-profit in America" from over 100 charities researched in the study conducted by the industry publication, with 38.2% of Americans over the age of 12 choosing "love" and "like a lot" for PBS.
Since the mid-2000s, Roper Opinion Research polls commissioned by PBS have consistently placed the service as the most-trusted national institution in the United States. A 2016–2017 study by Nielsen Media Research found 80% of all US television households view the network's programs over the course of a year. However, PBS is not responsible for all programming carried on public television stations, a large proportion of which may come from its member stations—including WGBH-TV, WETA-TV, WNET, WTTW, WQED, WHYY-TV, Twin Cities PBS—American Public Television, and independent producers. This distinction regarding the origin of different programs on the service presents a frequent source of viewer confusion.
In December 2009, PBS signed up for the Nielsen ratings audience measurement reports, and began to be included in its primetime and daily "Television Index" reports, alongside the major commercial broadcast networks.
In May 2011, PBS announced that it would incorporate breaks containing underwriter spots for corporate and foundation sponsors, program promotions and identification spots within four breaks placed within episodes of Nature and NOVA, airing episodes broken up into segments of up to 15 minutes, rather than airing them as straight 50- to 55-minute episodes. The strategy began that fall, with the intent to expand the in-program breaks to the remainder of the schedule if successful.
In 2011, PBS released apps for iOS and Android to allow viewing of full-length videos on mobile devices.
"PBS UK" was launched as a paid subscription channel in the United Kingdom on November 1, 2011, featuring American documentary programming sourced from PBS. Better identifying its subject matter, this channel was renamed "PBS America" on July 4, 2012. The channel has subsequently become available in other parts of Europe and Australia.
On February 28, 2012, PBS partnered with AOL to launch Makers: Women Who Make America, a digital documentary series focusing on high-achieving women in male-dominated industries such as war, comedy, space, business, Hollywood and politics.
PBS initially struggled to compete with online media such as YouTube for market share. In a 2012 speech to 850 top executives from PBS stations, Senior Vice President of Digital Jason Seiken warned that PBS was in danger of being disrupted by YouTube studios such as Maker Studios. In the speech, later described as a "seminal moment" for public television, he laid out his vision for a new style of PBS digital video production. Station leadership rallied around his vision and Seiken formed PBS Digital Studios, which began producing educational but edgy videos, something Seiken called "PBS-quality with a YouTube sensibility". The studio's first hit, an auto-tuned version of the theme from one of their most famous television programs, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, was one of YouTube's 10 most viral videos of 2012. By 2013, monthly video views on PBS.org had risen from 2 million to a quarter-billion, PBS.org traffic had surpassed that of the CBS, NBC, and ABC web sites, PBSKids.org had become the dominant US children's site for video, and PBS had won more 2013 Webby Awards than any other media company in the world.
On May 8, 2013, full-length episodes of PBS' prime time, news and children's programs were made available through the Roku streaming player; programming is available on Roku as separate streaming channels for "PBS" and "PBS Kids" content. Some content is only available with a PBS Passport member benefit subscription.