WASHINGTON, D.C. – November 1, 2023 – Patrick Butler, president and chief executive officer of America’s Public Television Stations, today announced he will retire in 2024.
Having served since January 2011, Butler will stay on through the selection of his successor but no later than the end of next year.
During Butler’s tenure, federal and state funding for public broadcasting has reached record levels.
Forty of the 50 state governments now provide funding to support the work of public television stations.
And Congress has enacted a new Next Generation Warning System infrastructure program for public broadcasters to assure their reliability as essential components of federal, state and local public safety communications.
Under Butler’s direction, APTS has pursued a strategy to help stations achieve “greater success through greater service,” concentrating on three pillars of local public service: education, public safety and civic leadership.
These services encompass lifelong learning, multi-hazard emergency communications, and chronicling heartland America’s culture, history and public affairs.
The strategy has won growing bipartisan support. In recent years, APTS has presented its Champion of Public Broadcasting award to U. S. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-NY), Governor Henry McMaster (R-SC) and other political leaders spanning the ideological spectrum.
Among other milestones during Butler’s service:
- APTS encouraged stations in all 50 states to launch remote learning platforms to help students continue their education when the nation’s schools suspended classroom instruction during the COVID pandemic. And working closely with Senator Schumer, APTS secured $250 million in emergency financial assistance for public media stations suffering from the economic collapse that accompanied the national health emergency.
- APTS guided the public television system through the first-ever auction of television spectrum by the Federal Communications Commission. Participating public television licensees invested proceeds from the auction in local programming and educational services. APTS secured additional funds from Congress to help finance the involuntary “repacking” of stations to a narrower band of spectrum, enabling more wireless services for consumers.
- APTS is now helping its member stations through a transition to the NEXTGEN TV broadcast standard, which will enable stations to enhance their public services with increased mobile capacity, interactivity, addressability, signal strength and spectrum efficiency, in addition to much-improved television picture and sound quality.
- APTS negotiated multi-year carriage agreements with NCTA – The Internet and Television Association, ACA Connects (formerly American Cable Association) and Verizon FIOS, assuring public television stations of carriage of their multicast channels as well as their primary signals.
- APTS has encouraged stations to embrace datacasting, using a portion of their FCC-licensed spectrum to transmit to targeted receivers specialized information including educational content, public safety communications and other vital data. APTS has established strategic partnerships in this work with the U. S. Department of Homeland Security, the California Office of Emergency Services, and other federal, state and local agencies.
- APTS launched a system-wide Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiative to help stations pursue hiring, promotion and staff engagement policies to “make public television reflect the society we serve,” in Butler’s words. APTS has become a repository and publisher of DEI best practices. Among stations hiring new general managers since the initiative began in 2020, 24 percent have named women and persons of color to those positions.
- APTS reached record membership of 85 percent of all public television stations and increased its net assets by more than 250 percent, enabling strategic investments in advocacy and technological expertise to enhance the financial strength of its member stations.
- APTS and its public broadcasting partners rebranded and relaunched its 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting campaign as Protect My Public Media, a multiplatform national grassroots advocacy network mobilized to persuade Congress to support federal funding for public media.
- APTS and its partners expanded the Grant Center for Public Media, which helps stations secure grants from private philanthropies and federal arts, humanities and education programs.
- APTS created What Works, an online resource for member stations featuring how-to guides for adopting best practices in education, public safety and civic leadership, as well as securing state funding.
- APTS re-invented its traditional Capitol Hill Day advocacy conference as the Public Media Summit, an annual gathering of public media managers, community partners, national leaders and technology advisors addressing strategic issues facing the industry.
- APTS changed its name from Association of Public Television Stations to America’s Public Television Stations to emphasize its public service mission.
- APTS recruited to its board of trustees former U. S. Military Academy Commandant Leo Brooks, Jr. (Brigadier General, retired), former FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate, former September 11 Fund Chief Executive Carol Kellermann, former U.S. Senator and Nebraska Governor Bob Kerrey, Paul Hastings Global Managing Partner Sherrese Smith, former U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Dr. Louis J. Sullivan, former Peace Corps Director and U.S. Ambassador Gaddi Vasquez, and former AT&T Wireless Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John D. Zeglis.
“It has been my great honor to advance the cause of America’s public television stations during a period of extraordinary challenge and opportunity,” Butler said. “I am grateful for the support of a visionary board of trustees, a station community profoundly dedicated to public service, and the wonderful people with whom I am privileged to serve at APTS Global Headquarters.”
“Pat Butler has been an innovator, a builder and a committed public servant throughout his career, and it is precisely these talents and instincts that America’s public television stations have needed most during his transformative years with us,” said APTS board chair Franz Joachim, general manager and chief executive officer of New Mexico PBS.
“Pat created scalable solutions that stations of every size could use to serve their communities,” Joachim said. “And weaving those successes together allowed the APTS team to make a compelling case before Congress and state capitols that appeals to the entire political spectrum.
“From the three pillars of public service to the convergence of broadcast and broadband through NEXTGEN TV, public television now has the means to thrive,” Joachim said. “The depth and breadth of Pat’s leadership has only begun to be realized. Now it is up to us to continue his vision for the good of our communities, our nation, our democracy.”
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About APTS
America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) is a nonprofit membership organization ensuring a strong and financially sound public television system and helping member stations provide essential public services in education, public safety and civic leadership to the American people. For more information, visit www.apts.org.
Contact:
Stacey Karp
202-654-4222
skarp@apts.org