Hello hello!

My name is Heidi Lanier and I am the Director of Marketing and Communications at Southern Oregon PBS. I began working at the station inSeptember of 2018 and have immensely enjoyed getting to learn the inner-workings of America’s best broadcast TV station. I do have something to admit though. Before beginning to work at Southern Oregon PBS (then SOPTV), I was not really aware of PBS’s primetime offerings. In my mind, PBS was for children’s programming. So, while I raised my own two children tuningin to Sesame Street, Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood and Wild Kratts, I myself was missing out on all the magnificence of Masterpiece, Frontline, POV, and all the other stimulating, moving, thought-provoking, and downright entertaining PBS content.

Yes, I would tune in for the occasional Antiques Roadshow. I have caught an Austin City Limits here and there throughout the years. But the brunt of PBS’s programming was lost to me. I didn’t even know who Ken Burns was before I began working here.

This oversight is more than slightly embarrassing; it’s sad. I look back at programs we aired through the years, and wonder how my life could have been affected by being a regular viewer. This may sound dramatic, but I mean it when I say that every program I have viewed on SO PBS has made some kind of impact on my life.

So now, I work to amend my unfortunate oversight. I want to use my role here at the station to help our community to be aware of the quality of programs that PBS offers every single day(which is a good thing, because I believe my boss would say that it’s a major component of my job).

There is a silver lining to my formerly sorry state… SO PBS Passport. This may sound like a marketing plug, but I assure you it is not. Many, many, many PBS programs are available for streaming online, and dozens if not hundreds are added every week. Since working at the station, I took the plunge and became a sustaining member. One of the perks of this membership is access to the video library on SO PBS Passport, and since I needed to familiarize myself with our content, I logged in.

My watchlist has grown to nearly overwhelming length in the past year or so. Years of NOVA to catch up on; hours and hours of Frontlines, many of which are just as relevant now as when the debuted. And Masterpiece, oh Masterpiece. Lovely, lovely Masterpiece.

There literally is something for everyone. This blog will be used to give my unvarnished, untarnished opinion of the programs I am watching on Passport (though be warned, thus far I haven’t seen anything I would not recommend). I hope to help viewers find programs to enjoy amidst our prolific catalogue of programs. I will try to post reviews weekly, and would love to have suggestions about what to view & review next.

Let’s make the most of this as we leap into the future.

Warm regards,

Heidi