The WGBH Educational Foundation,

doing business as A trade name, trading name, or business name is a pseudonym used by companies that do not operate under their registered company name. The term for this type of alternative name is fictitious business name. Registering the fictitious name with ...

GBH since August 2020, is an American

public broadcasting Public broadcasting (or public service broadcasting) is radio, television, and other electronic media outlets whose primary mission is public service with a commitment to avoiding political and commercial influence. Public broadcasters receive f ...

group based in

Boston, Massachusetts Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. Established in 1951, it holds the licenses to all of the PBS member stations in

Massachusetts Massachusetts ( ; ), officially the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Maine to its east, Connecticut and Rhode ...

, and operates its

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of navy, naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically ...

station

WGBH-TV WGBH-TV (channel 2), branded GBH or GBH 2 since 2020, is the primary PBS List of PBS member stations, member television station in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. Affiliated stations and facilities WGBH-TV is the Flagship (broadcasting), ...

, sister station WGBX-TV, and a group of NPR member stations in the state. It also owns

WGBY-TV WGBY-TV (channel 57) is a PBS member television station in Springfield, Massachusetts, United States. Owned by the Boston-based WGBH Educational Foundation, it is a sister station to that organization's flagship (broadcasting), flagship and nam ...

in Springfield, which is operated by New England Public Media under a program service agreement. Nationally, WGBH is known as the distributor of a number of major PBS programs, including ''

American Experience ''American Experience'' is a television program airing on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. The program airs documentaries, many of which have won awards, about important or interesting events and people in American his ...

'', ''

Arthur Arthur is a masculine given name of uncertain etymology. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. A common spelling variant used in many Slavic, Romance, and Germanic languages is Artur. In Spanish and Ital ...

'', '' Frontline'', ''

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'', and '' Nova'', among others; as the owner of

Public Radio International Public Radio International (PRI) was an American public radio organization. Headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, PRI provided programming to over 850 public radio stations in the United States. PRI was one of the main providers of programmi ...

until 2018, a syndicate of public radio programming; and for its role in the development of

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and audio description technologies for broadcast television.

History

In the 1990s, the WGBH Educational Foundation published books and other educational materials such as ''Africans in America: America's Journey Through Slavery''. In 2003, WGBH and the City of Boston formed a joint venture for Boston Kids & Family TV channel that replaces one of the city's cable access channels. Boston Kids was launched on October 31, 2003. By December 2005, Boston’s WGBH and New York City's WNET were already broadcasting a local version of

World The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...

on a subchannel. and added by April 2006, Washington’s WETA. Then, WGBH and WNET teamed up with PBS, APT and NETA to roll out a national version of the local channels as PBS World. The network was launched nationally on August 15, 2007. In July 2012, WGBH acquired

(PRI). PRI would continue with its own board while WGBH would be able to distribute more of its programs through PRI. In November 2015, WGBH purchased GlobalPost, with editorial operation and reporting resources being merged with PRI's The World news staff. On August 27, 2020, it was announced that WGBH would shorten its name to "GBH" as part of a larger corporate reimaging (which saw the adoption of purple as a new corporate color, and a font originally commissioned for

Red Hat Red Hat, Inc. (formerly Red Hat Software, Inc.) is an American software company that provides open source software products to enterprises and is a subsidiary of IBM. Founded in 1993, Red Hat has its corporate headquarters in Raleigh, North ...

as its new corporate typeface). The foundation stated that due to its present-day multi-platform operations, the full WGBH

call sign In broadcasting and radio communications, a call sign (also known as a call name or call letters—and historically as a call signal—or abbreviated as a call) is a unique identifier for a transmitter station. A call sign can be formally as ...

was too synonymous with broadcast media; "WGBH" will still be used as part of the organization's formal name. All other WGBH-owned and operated stations similarly dropped the W from their respective brandings, such as WCRB rebranding as "CRB Classical 99.5".

Board of trustees

Richard M. Burnes Jr. of Charles River Ventures is the chair of the board as of 2014, replacing Amos Hostetter Jr., who left the board. Henry P. Becton Jr., former WGBH President, and Maureen L. Ruettgers, the wife of former

EMC Corporation EMC Corporation (stylized as EMC²) was an American multinational corporation headquartered in Hopkinton, Massachusetts, which sold data storage device, data storage, information security, virtualization, analytics, cloud computing and other pro ...

CEO Michael Ruettgers, are vice chairs. Jonathan C. Abbott, as WGBH president, is also on the board. William N. Thorndike Jr., managing partner of the Housatonic Partners private equity firm, is on the board of trustees as the chair of the WGBH board of overseers. The presidents of four regional universities are institutional trustees: Joseph E. Aoun of

Northeastern University Northeastern University (NU or NEU) is a private university, private research university with its main campus in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was founded by the Boston Young Men's Christian Association in 1898 as an all-male instit ...

, Jackie Jenkins-Scott of

Wheelock College Wheelock College was a private college in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. The college was founded in 1888 as the Miss Wheelock's Kindergarten Training School and was merged into Boston University as part of the university's Boston Univer ...

Frederick M. Lawrence Frederick M. Lawrence (born 1955) is an American lawyer, civil rights scholar and 10th Secretary and CEO of Phi Beta Kappa society, the nation's first academic honor society, founded in 1776. Lawrence is a Distinguished Lecturer at the Georgetown ...

Brandeis University Brandeis University () is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts, United States. It is located within the Greater Boston area. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational university, Bra ...

, and L. Rafael Reif of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...

. The remaining board members are: * Amy Abrams, wife of Abrams Capital founder David C. Abrams * Terrie F. Bloom, wife of Berkshire Partners managing director Bradley Bloom * Laura A. DeBonis, former

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical charac ...

manager and wife of hedge fund executive and State Department official Scott Nathan * Juan Enriquez, managing director of Excel Venture Management and husband of Cabot family heir Marjorie Cabot Lewis * Ann L. Gund, wife of architect Graham Gund * Susan B. Kaplan, daughter of Stanley H Kaplan and president of the Kaplin Family Foundation * Marjie B. Kargman, wife of Commonwealth Capital Ventures founder Robert Kargman * Sara Lawrence-Lightfoot, sociologist * William A. Lowell, partner of the Choate, Hall & Stewart law firm * Richard K. Lubin, managing director of Berkshire Partners * Oscar F. Malcolm, president of Darien Capital Management * Christopher J. McKown, husband of

Fidelity Investments Fidelity Investments, formerly known as Fidelity Management & Research (FMR), owned by FMR LLC and headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, provides financial services. Established in 1946, the company is one of the largest asset managers in the ...

executive Abigail Johnson * Cathy E. Minehan, former president of the

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, commonly known as the Boston Fed, is responsible for the First District of the Federal Reserve, which covers New England: Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Vermont and all of Connecticut excep ...

* Paul R. Murphy, former partner at the Foley Hoag law firm and former counsel for

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zepha ...

* Melinda Alliker Rabb,

Brown University Brown University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. It is the List of colonial colleges, seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the US, founded in 1764 as the ' ...

professor and wife of Stop & Shop heir James Rabb * Henri A. Termeer, retired chairman, president, and CEO of

Genzyme Corporation Genzyme (also known as Genzyme Transgenics Corp or GTC Biotherapeutics) was an American biotechnology company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. From its acquisition in 2011 to 2022 Genzyme operated as a fully owned subsidiary of Sanofi. In 2010, ...

* David T. Ting, president of Mugar Enterprises, the investment firm of Star Market heir David Mugar * Hans Ziegler, retired senior managing director of Bernstein Global Wealth Management

Units

* First 8 Studios, learning mobile app design group for kids ages 8 and younger * Forum Network, a Lowell Institute funded online lecture * GlobalPost * PBS Distribution, a joint venture with PBS to distribute PBS and WGBH programs to various markets, home video, foreign, and commercial * PBS LearningMedia, a joint venture with PBS to distribute teacher material related to PBS programs * WGBH Education

Radio

* WCAI * WCRB * WGBH * WNAN * WZAI WCAI, WNAN, and WZAI are the

Cape A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment of any length that hangs loosely and connects either at the neck or shoulders. They usually cover the back, shoulders, and arms. They come in a variety of styles and have been used th ...

Coast A coast (coastline, shoreline, seashore) is the land next to the sea or the line that forms the boundary between the land and the ocean or a lake. Coasts are influenced by the topography of the surrounding landscape and by aquatic erosion, su ...

, and Islands (CCI) NPR stations, serving part of southeastern Massachusetts.

Former Radio Properties

(merged with

Public Radio Exchange The Public Radio Exchange (PRX) is a non-profit web-based platform for digital distribution, review, and licensing of radio programs. The organization is the largest on-demand catalogue of public radio programs available for broadcast and internet ...

in 2018)

Television

: the foundation's flagship station * WGBX-TV: its secondary Boston station *

: Springfield, Massachusetts station; Operated by New England Public Media under a program service operating agreement. * Create (TV network), a joint venture network with American Public Television (APT), WGBH, WNET, and National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA). * World Channel, a joint venture network with WNET, NETA, and APT.

Public Media Management

Public Media Management is a joint venture of WGBH and Sony Electronics for remote TV master control services over the internet. Public Media Management was tested for a year. The services were available starting April 1, 2015, just before the two Las Vegas shows, PBS's April 8–10 TechCon and NAB Show April 11–16, to be able to showcase the service during the shows. WGBH's two Boston stations went live with PMM first followed by its Springfield, Massachusetts station WGBY in early May 2015. New Hampshire Public Television launched the system next. In August 2015,

Maryland Public Television Maryland Public Television (MPT) is the PBS member state network for the U.S. state of Maryland. It operates under the auspices of the Maryland Public Broadcasting Commission, an agency of the Maryland state government that holds the licens ...

switched to using their system.

References

External links

*
WGBH alumni websiteforum-network.orgfirst8studios.org
{{Authority control 1951 establishments in Massachusetts Culture of Boston Educational organizations based in the United States Mass media in Boston Non-profit organizations based in Boston Organizations established in 1951 Peabody Award winners Public Radio International Radio organizations in the United States Television organizations in the United States Educational organizations based in Massachusetts Public television in the United States Public radio in the United States Public broadcasting in the United States