PBS hopes for Internet hit

On television, Big Bird stands tall among children’s shows. But on the iPad, he is just a little chick. That dynamic has become a growing worry to the executives of PBS who have a stable of popular educational shows for the living room television but are making far less headway on smartphones, tablets and other mobile gadgets.

With children adopting mobile technology at a breakneck pace and spending immense time on those devices, executives said they have had to broaden their offerings to stay relevant. “Audience on TV is harder and harder to reach, so the audience on all platforms is critical,” said Scott Chambers, Sesame Workshop’s senior vice president of worldwide media distribution. “Are we gaining a larger audience overall? It’s really hard to say and difficult to track, which is something we lose sleep over.” Not all are confident that PBS Kids, the network’s educational division, will be able to make the transition. “The idea of public broadcast was for it to be a TV experience, not a math experience and not a mobile app experience,” said Lloyd Morrisett, chairman emeritus for the board of the Sesame Workshop. “It will be difficult for PBS, as it will for Sesame Workshop, as television organizations to change the culture of those organizations.”