Daytime Schedule changes for PBS Fort Wayne

From our inception, PBS Fort Wayne has always been a TV station with our audience’s interests first and foremost. That is why, to better serve all our viewers, the schedule on our main channel, 39.1 changed on Monday, February 6, 2023, with the biggest change being increase in general audience programming in the afternoons replacing PBS Kids Programming beginning at 1pm.

Why is the change occurring?

Many PBS stations across the country have made similar schedule changes toward the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic to help school-age children access educational programming throughout the day. In doing so, these stations found more viewers were being served by this content than by offering children’s programming on multiple channels at the same time.

The overhaul of PBS’ weekday schedule has been under discussion between PBS and local stations for more than a year now, recognizing the ways that children are consuming media now — and that far fewer are watching linear TV.

“Many have moved to streaming platforms,” said Sara DeWitt, SVP and GM of children’s media and education for PBS, in an interview with Current magazine. “The PBS Kids 24/7 multicast channel (seen locally on 39.2) also distributed as a streaming service, is where many kids and their caregivers are turning to catch PBS children’s programs.”

As a result, our youngest viewers tend to watch programming through many platforms. Our adult viewers are more likely to watch television over broadcast channels, so increasing general audience content in our broadcast space is one way we can best serve audience needs.

Still, PBS Fort Wayne broadcasts a feed of seven solid hours of children’s programming from PBS, from 6am to 1pm. As a PBS station, we are committed to maintain our commitment to a broadcast standard of delivering seven hours of children’s programming each weekday. This will has not changed.