2007 Operating Highlights

• In FY07 UNC-TV provided 43,800 hours of programming over its one analog and five digital channels.
  
  
• In FY07 UNC-TV hosted “An Evening with Ken Burns” in Fayetteville and in Durham. The program screening events featured Emmy Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns, whose new documentary series, THE WAR, was broadcast nationwide beginning September 23, 2007.  The events were well attended and helped to generate new major donors and corporate supporters. Guests enjoyed remarks by Ken Burns, First Lady Mary Easley, WRAL anchor David Crabtree, chair of UNC-TV Presents: North Carolina’s WWII Experience Julia Carpenter, and Board of Trustees member Colonel Don Porter.
  
  
• During 2006-2007 UNC-TV and its partners developed and produced 419.5 hours of programming for and about North Carolina. North Carolina Weekend, UNC-TV’s weekly year-round series, completed a successful fourth year and secured underwriter funding from the North Carolina Division of Tourism, Film, and Sports Development for a fifth year. Our State, UNC-TV’s monthly series shot in high definition and featuring an in-depth look at the people and places that make North Carolina great, completed its third season and reached agreement with its production partner, Mann Media, and underwriter, BB&T, for a fourth season. Exploring North Carolina concluded its third season and secured funding for a fourth season.
  
  
• UNC-TV completed the major health initiative, HealthWise, in June 2007.  Related projects and activities throughout the year included regular reports and interviews on North Carolina Now during the fall of 2006, a series of six monthly hour-long HealthWise specials on statewide health issues, and award-winning short announcements targeted to children and parents stressing the importance of healthy choices. Our Fit Together workshops trained 1,000 adults and affected more than 5,000 children. We also developed an online Fit Together workshop and created a Let’s Go Shopping with Read-a-roo DVD on healthy eating for distribution at the Mountain State Fair, the North Carolina State Fair, and various other events for children, their parents, and their caregivers.
  
  
• For the first time in its history, www.unctv.org surpassed the total of 60,000 unique visitors in a month and currently is averaging somewhere between 64,000 and 65,000 individual visitors each month. In addition, we exceeded our goal of bringing in $100,000 worth of online contributions during FESTIVAL 2007, reaching a total of $141,000 in pledges.
  
  
• UNC-TV continued to take important steps to utilize emerging technologies to distribute original programs. We produced and distributed 10 hours of programs exclusively on UNC-NC, our digital multicast channel devoted to programming for and about North Carolina. Projects included The Past, Present and Future of College Athletics, The NCCBI 2007 Economic Forecast Forum, The Climate Change Symposium, and Jumping the Sun: Creating a Competitive Business Advantage in an Increasingly Flat World.
  

• UNC-TV distributed 230 hours of original programming by video streaming on www.unctv.org and podcast 187.5 hours of original programming. 
  
  
• North Carolina Now celebrated its 13th anniversary and had another productive year providing statewide coverage of issues and information important to North Carolinians.
  
  
• UNC-TV original productions and our production partners received five nominations and one award in the Magazine Series category for Our State in the 21st Annual Midsouth Regional Emmy Awards competition. We also received a national award in the Documentary Series category for Our State from the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA). In addition, UNC-TV’s on-air promotion staff received six nominations and three awards in the Midsouth Regional Emmy Awards competition and a Bronze award from the 28th Annual Telly Awards competition.
  
  
• UNC-TV outreach staff and trainers conducted 50 Ready To Learn workshops, training 1,250 adults and affecting more than 9,350 children.
  
  
• Over 200 teachers enrolled in courses from UNC-TV’s online teacher professional development service, PBS TeacherLine. In our second year of offering PBS TeacherLine, 65 of 115 districts in North Carolina have agreed to award CEU (continuing education) credits for PBS TeacherLine courses.
  
  
• The winning third-grade story in UNC-TV’s Reading Rainbow Young Writers and  Illustrators Contest became a national Third Place winner in the 13th Annual Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest. UNC-TV was one of 107 public television stations participating in this year’s contest.
  
  
• UNC-TV multicast services are now available on the Outer Banks systems of Charter Cable for digital customers. This includes UNC-KD, UNC-NC, UNC-ED and UNC-HD (three hours a day).
  
  
• UNC-TV successfully completed a technical proof of performance of our first datacasting service statewide with 22 county sites. These sites received health-related data from North Carolina State University, as well as correlated programming from UNC-TV’s digital channels.  The datacasting grant project from the USDA was in partnership with the North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service (NCSU).
  
  
• UNC-TV had a very successful year raising funds from private sources in FY07, attracting $10,757,756 in contributions and underwriting. The total amount is $709,039 above the FY06 total of $10,048,616, representing a 7.1 percent increase. Increased support from major donors resulted in a 22 percent increase in the area of major gifts. Corporate and foundation underwriting surpassed last year’s total by 17.5 percent. Overall viewer support was up by 4 percent, including an 8 percent increase in renewal mail revenue and a 9.9 percent increase in on-air revenue.
  
  
• UNC-TV received a clean financial audit report during FY07 for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2006.