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 From the Executive Director 
With INDEPENDENT LENS, we are realizing a dream ITVS has had since its founding: to have a consistent home. While there are still many more programs than real estate, INDEPENDENT LENS is an important addition to ITVS's bag of tricks as we work to bring as much independent programming as possible to public television. We will continue to caravan far and wide to make sure as many independent programs are seen on other PBS venues, P.O.V., American Experience or a station in Kentucky that is just the right fit for an ITVS program. But we are thrilled to finally be able to offer INDEPENDENT LENS as a venue for non-ITVS funded films. You can read more about the series in the "Zoom in" article and you can tune in beginning February 4. Consider it a grand experiment. Can we find the audiences if they know where to find us? Can we serve independents better? Can we woo programmers to carry the series? Can we bring added value to P.O.V.? Can we find the money to support it over the long haul? Can we have a partnership with the PBS system that works for them and for us? We believe we can. Because of you. If we can get the platform, independent producers' stories will make a difference. Launching INDEPENDENT LENS has made ITVS think deeply about its capacity, especially as we marshal our resources to bring the first season forward. Those who believe that we in the nonprofit media sector lead uncomplicated lives are living in the same halcyon days when television executives considered their business something of a higher calling. In the words of political theorist Hannah Arendt, best known for her groundbreaking examinations of totalitarianism in the wake of World War II, "Society is a curiously hybrid realm where private interests assume public significance." Nowhere is that more true than in mainstream media, where national consciousness is shaped by what is working in the market, and where the battle between the profit margin and the public trust has long since been over. But a new battle is being waged. Armed by the generally good notion that the market should support civic life, the nonprofit sector has entered the hybrid realm of civic and market-driven values. But hybridization in its current incarnation does not mean profit-sharing with the nonprofit guardians of civil society. Rather it means undercapitalized nonprofits compete in the commercial sector to carry on their nonprofit mandates. And if they can't sustain their nonprofit mandates, which were founded on the principle that there was no profit in these activities in the first place, then government and philanthropy may just need to cut the cord. We have been gulled into thinking of the marketplace as the final arbiter: if something succeeds in the market, it must be needed. Conversely, if it fails it must be superfluous. What does this mean in the world of public television? It means doing double duty: balancing credibility, civic obligation and democratic purpose with the new competitive standard of market value. It is an immensely complicated task. It may appear less so for independents, but is it? When public television ceased to be the only alternative to three commercial networks, independents welcomed new opportunities on cable and satellite channels. They went wherever they could find the conduit, and often for better pay. Being independent is precisely that: having no institutional affiliations. The market is a win/lose game. Obligations are not part of the deal. But where do independents turn when the phone isn't ringing and they are making a program from deep beliefs or exercising their right to be heard? There ought to be a forum - promised to us by the First Amendment and leveraged in public institutions. That leverage is only possible in the public sector. It is something we cannot give away. As public institutions struggle in this hybrid world, we need to support and nurture our successes like INDEPENDENT LENS to create civic value along with market value - and stand up for public institutions where an individual has a right to make a difference. - Sally Jo Fifer |
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ITVS: NEWS | NOW SHOWING | FUNDING FOR PRODUCERS | RECENTLY FUNDED PROGRAMS Contact us at itvs@itvs.org |
