In our last two issues, we’ve been taking you behind the scenes to meet some of our staff and learn more about what their departments do. This month, we are featuring our Production team—the producers, editors, videographers, hosts and studio staff members responsible for many of the programs we bring you.
Production during a pandemic is quite a challenge! Most of our production staff are still working from home and have needed to figure out new ways to record, edit and produce our television content.
I am so proud of these folks and their creativity and dedication during these unprecedented times! Even with the new challenges imposed by concerns over COVID-19, they have produced a record amount of programs in a short time. For our VA TV Classroom program alone, the team created 140 hours of content. And those broadcast hours are only a fraction of the working hours it took to create all of this great content. I hope you will take a moment to learn more about these staff members and what they do in our story on page 12.
Speaking of good television programs, we have a great line-up for you this month. Season 7 of the popular drama Endeavour on Masterpiece premieres Sunday, August 9 at 9 p.m. And for some real-life drama, PBS NewsHour will be covering both the Democratic and Republican national conventions this month. Tune in during the weeks of August 17 and August 24 for that coverage as the nation gears up for our next presidential election.
Lastly, I’d like to thank our outgoing board members for their diligent service. The members leaving us include Jayne Barnard, Faye Gargiulo, Mary Haddad, Angelica Light, Pat McDermott and Randy Webb. And I’d like to welcome our new incoming board members Yvonne Almond, Cari Parish, Mike Sterling and Benny Zhang. We look forward to an exciting new fiscal year!
And thank you also to YOU, our generous members. Your faithful support over the last few months has enabled us to continue providing our community with the news, education and entertainment that you expect from your local public media station. We couldn’t do it without you!
Bert Schmidt President & Chief Executive Officer