About the Conference

The 2004 Arts and Humanities in Public Life Conference:
The Future of Public Television
Produced by the Cultural Policy Center at The University of Chicago
December 2 & 3, 2004
Chicago's Museum of Conteporary Art (MCA), 220 East Chicago

As it enters its 36th year, public television, a widely respected and controversial American cultural, educational, and journalistic public institution, is at a crossroads. With the development of new communications technologies and the ceaseless creation of new programming outlets, as well as its ever-contested reliance on everything from pledge nights to public financing, public broadcasting finds itself faced with a series of questions:

• In its quest for audiences large enough to attract financial support, to what extent has public broadcasting had to abandon its historic mission of serving “the underserved”, ie, children and minorities?
• Do new technologies afford public broadcasting an opportunity to return to its original broadcast mission?
• What workable alternatives are there to the current financial structures of public broadcasting? How dependent should public broadcasting be on government funding? On pledge drives? On corporate support?
• Why is there such a lack of local programming on so many public broadcasting stations and what will it take to increase such programming?
• What can public television learn from public and other forms of radio?
• Has PBS outgrown its organizational framework, in place for almost 40 years?

Each of these questions, though requiring discrete answers, ultimately address a larger concern: how can PBS meet its original mission of providing an alternative to commercial television and serving “the underserved” while achieving large enough audiences to generate financial support?

The Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago is pleased to announce "The Future of Public Television," a national conference which wlil asist in the formulation of answers for these questions. This conference, which will be held on December 2 & 3, 2004 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown Chicago, will unite a nationally renowned selection of public television executives, program producers, media critics, and academics for a unique and candid discussion about the current state of America's public broadcasting institutions. For a list of panelists and panel topics, please see the Agenda.

Registration is required and space is limited. The Future of Public Television is free to the faculty and students of The University of Chicago. Advance paid registration--before November 25--is $45. The conference will cost $65 at the door. Students will be admitted for $20 and scholarships are available.

For more information or to register, please contact the Cultural Policy Center at (773) 702-4407 or email culturalpolicy@listhost.uchicago.edu