A public fundraising campaign has been launched by Ontario provincial educational broadcaster TVO, and it’s looking to the private sector as a source of increased financing.

 

Addressing a group of business leaders in the province, TVO's Chief Executive Officer Lise de Wilde made her case for why Ontarians should invest in public educational television.

"TVO today is the thinking man's, woman's and children's network - one of the few anywhere," de Wilde told the audience at the Economic Club of Toronto. "We're offering an alternative to the world of instant news, information deluge and content lacking rigour."

TVO wants to be known as a trusted source of interactive educational content that informs, inspires and stimulates curiosity and thought, while its programming strategy seeks to empower people to be engaged citizens of Ontario through the use of new digital and educational media platforms.  Eighty percent of TVO's funding comes from the province - the operating grant amounts to only about three dollars per person in Ontario per year.

De Wilde described the need for significantly more donor support in TVO's funding model. "It's clear to me that we have to adopt a new model, more along the lines of the province's universities and hospitals, where the bulk of funding may come from the government, but more and more comes from the private sector, including individual donors."

To complement its generous funding from the Ontario Government and to continue its media innovation, TVO says it needs to raise $10 million per year through donations.

To that end, the broadcaster has launched a new campaign,  urging Ontarians to "Go Public" in support of TVO's future excellence. Elements can be seen TVO's airwaves and website, with TVO staff and donors as ambassadors

The multi-platform strategy is a reflection of that fact that TVO doesn’t not consider itself just a TV channel anymore "Our footprint is growing: across multiple platforms, across the province, across cultures and across traditional programming boundaries," de Wilde described.

TVO has five distinct channels or platforms: the main TV network and its  website, tvo.org; the children’s channel TVOKids and its website, tvokids.org, as well as and tvoparents.com.

TVO also distributes its more than 400 hours of in-house TV programming per year  via partnerships with YouTube, Yahoo! Canada, iTunes and Rogers-on-demand-online, plus other microsites and online blogs.

Last season, TVO reports, there were 5.2 million podcast downloads of TVO current affairs programs, and its YouTube channel has had 220,000 video streams since its Spring 2009 launch.  A registered charity, TVO is Ontario's public educational media organization.