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Will Rebrand Digital and Social Efforts as PBS News Week of June 17
Media Contact: Ella Richardson, erichardson@newshour.org
Arlington, VA (June 10, 2024) — PBS News Hour will rebrand as PBS News across its digital and social platforms, while retaining the iconic PBS News Hour name for its Monday – Friday nightly broadcast, senior executive producer of PBS News Hour and WETA senior vice president Sara Just announced today. The digital and social rebrand, set for Monday, June 17, incorporates a new suite of PBS News logos and motion graphics for its nightly, weekend, and digital offerings and coincides with the opening of its new studios in Arlington, VA, which makes air on Monday, June 10.
“The PBS News Hour, our nightly broadcast co-anchored by Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennett, remains the flagship of our newsroom as we approach nearly 50 years on the air,” said Just. “Today, all of us consume news across multiple platforms. Audiences encounter our journalism on social media feeds, in news feeds, in live streaming, in primetime specials and breaking news events. Our adjustments to our branding makes it clear that you can rely on PBS News journalism for reliable, trustworthy insight into the events and stories that shape our world and our lives, wherever they encounter it.”
As PBS News Hour continues to reach more people and expand its offerings across a variety of platforms, this rebrand better positions the legacy media organization for audiences outside of the traditional one hour broadcast and creates greater visual alignment across broadcast, digital, and social. The brand’s owned and operated digital and social platforms will implement new PBS News branding starting June 17 with additional updates to social handles and URLs in the coming weeks. Since 2019, average website users are up 44%, at nearly 7.5 million, while average monthly YouTube video views are up 27% at 33 million.
WETA, the flagship public media station in the nation’s capital, recently completed a $58 million expansion project of its Arlington headquarters, including the creation of new studios and editorial offices for PBS News. The multi-year capital campaign and construction project was led by WETA president and chief executive Sharon Percy Rockefeller. The rebrand is a continuation of efforts first launched in 2023 when the Saturday and Sunday broadcast moved production from WNET in New York to News Hour Productions (NHP), a WETA subsidiary, and rebranded as PBS News Weekend, now anchored by John Yang.
Since its inception in 1975 (then as The Robert MacNeil Report), PBS News Hour has been produced out of a large studio in WETA’s aging production center, located a few blocks away from its Arlington headquarters. The new studio, designed by Eric Siegel and George Allison with lighting design by Dennis Size, will also be used by PBS News Weekend and Washington Week with The Atlantic, and will allow for PBS News special programming to be more easily incorporated into the same space. The graphic redesign was led by PBS News creative director for broadcast Kojo Boateng including the logo redesign in partnership with Lippincott and the broadcast opening titles designed in partnership with Adolescent, Inc.
About PBS News Hour
PBS News Hour is a production of News Hour Productions LLC, a wholly-owned non-profit subsidiary of WETA Washington, DC. Major corporate funding is provided by BDO, BNSF, Consumer Cellular, and Raymond James, with additional support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Ford Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the National Science Foundation, David and Lucile Packard Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, Friends of the News Hour and others. More information on PBS News Hour is available at www.pbs.org/newshour. You can watch and find News Hour on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. News Hour Productions also produces PBS News Weekend and Washington Week with The Atlantic.
About WETA
WETA is the leading public broadcaster in the nation’s capital, serving Virginia, Maryland, and the District of Columbia with educational initiatives and with high-quality programming on television, radio, and digital. WETA Washington, D.C., is the second-largest producing station for public television, with news and public affairs programs including PBS News Hour, PBS News Weekend, and Washington Week with The Atlantic; films by Ken Burns and Florentine Films, such as The American Buffalo and the forthcoming Leonardo da Vinci; series and documentaries by Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr., including Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. and GOSPEL; performance specials including The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, National Memorial Day Concert and A Capitol Fourth; and health content from Well Beings, a multiplatform campaign. More information on WETA and its programs and services are available at weta.org. Visit facebook.com/wetatvfm on Facebook.
