Opportunity

When BeaconCollege secured a partnership with the National Educational TelecommunicationsAssociation (NETA) in 2025, it gained access to hundreds of PBS stations andnetwork affiliates nationwide. What it needed next was a strategy to makestation program managers notice, care and schedule the program on theirairwaves.

Approach

We consultedwith WUCF TV to understand how program managers at PBS stations actually makescheduling decisions. Based on this conversation, we launched a sustained printand digital mailer campaign delivered directly to other stations across thecountry, designed to reach program managers bimonthly with information aboutthe show. Each touchpoint was anchored to a relevant awareness moment –Learning Disabilities Awareness Month, ADHD Awareness Month, Dyslexia AwarenessMonth, International Day of Persons with Disabilities and Autism AcceptanceMonth and more – giving program managers a ready-made scheduling rationale fortheir audiences.

We alsorecognized that local relevance drives local decisions. For select majormarkets in New York, Texas and Georgia where many Beacon College familiesreside, we developed targeted postcards that referenced show guests from thoseregions, giving station managers a direct connection between the program andtheir own communities.

Impact

This effort extendedthe show’s reach from a single station in Central Florida to 30+ U.S. marketsthrough the NETA platform. We secured air dates in some of PBS’s top markets,including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Salt Lake City and Minneapolis. Inpeak campaign months, we secured nearly 20 percent market share of PBS stationsairing the program. We also positioned the program for long-term presence onNETA, with a second season of the show added to platform exactly one year afterthe first campaign launched.