Here are many interesting things about AETN that most people may not know:

Helping Educate Arkansans

• AETN has proved to be a national trendsetter in online delivery of educational professional development.  Created and maintained by AETN and the Arkansas Department of Education, ArkansasIDEAS (Internet Delivered Education for Arkansas Schools) is a one-of-a-kind online resource for Arkansas's teachers and administrators with multiple options of courses approved by the Arkansas Department of Education.  The ArkansasIDEAS portal utilizes cutting-edge technology to provide licensed educators in Arkansas with the highest quality online professional development available in the country at no charge.  ArkansasIDEAS helps secure exceptional professional development content from nationally recognized providers such as ASCD, Teachscape, PD360, Annenberg Media and SimpleK-12 as well as courses developed from AETN local productions.  Currently the only statewide, online professional development portal for educators in the nation, ArkansasIDEAS is unmatched in the quality of its content and extraordinary collection of courses.  (Visit the ArkansasIDEAS portal at www.arkansasideas.org for more information.)
• AETN Scholar (a part of AETN PLUS channel and a modern continuation of the traditional Instructional Television Service found on AETN since its beginning in 1966) is the only instructional television service in Arkansas now providing three hours of instructional programming each weekday as a resource for classroom use and for professional development for educators. The AETN Scholar program service on the AETN PLUS channel is broadcast over-the-air free of charge as well as carried on several cable systems throughout the state of Arkansas.
• AETN provides an extensive library of streamed video for inclusion in lesson plans, classroom presentations and student projects. There are more than 10,000 high-quality, curriculum-based, digital resources (videos, interactive activities, lesson plans, teacher guides, audios, images and documents) contributed by more than 80 public TV stations, producers and partners from around the country all correlated to state education standards. These video selections are available at no charge to licensed Arkansas educators.
• AETN produces educational and instructional videos, interactive Web sites and lesson plans to address a variety of topics such as child abuse prevention (A Walk Upstream), self-mutilation (Hidden Wounds) and bullying (Leave Me Alone) with high responses from school counselors, parents and students.
• AETN uses advanced technologies to produce virtual tours available online that allow educators and students to visit historic sites in Arkansas, such as the Governors Mansion and Central High School.
• AETN produced Arkansas: A Six Region Journey, a multi-media professional development project showcasing Arkansas's geographic regions.  The project provides classroom teachers with resources such as lesson plans, classroom presentations materials and videos. 
  
• AETN hosts valuable technology trainings for Arkansas educators that demonstrate the integration of technology into the classroom as well as conducts workshops in the use of ArkansasIDEAS for Arkansas educators.  AETN actively solicits input from educators to develop, design, produce and distribute resources to meet classroom and professional educator development needs.  With positive feedback, AETN has served more than 4,000 educators from every Arkansas county.
• StationBreak, AETN's electronic newsletter and coordinated Web site for educators, reaches almost 5,000 teachers and administrators each month during the school year.
• AETN continues to broadcast GED-related programs, which have enabled thousands of adult students since the early 1980s to work on their educational goals, including a GED diploma.
• AETN and the Arkansas Governors Quiz Bowl Association coordinate efforts to share the accomplishments and abilities of Arkansas' outstanding student scholars. These efforts include the Web site and live broadcast of the final rounds of competition of the annual Arkansas Governor's Academic Competition with about 250 teams participating in the statewide events.
• AETN produces teleconferences (via broadcast, compressed interactive video and satellite) for educational institutions to meet their training and teaching needs.  Required trainings for school administrators, such as the Arkansas Department of Higher Education Lottery Scholarships Training, are maintained and available in ArkansasIDEAS.
• AETN participated as one of only four state public television networks in the national STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) initiative. The focus of the project was to create engaging digital education in these content areas for middle school classrooms.  State public TV network partners in the initiative included Arkansas, Maryland, Kentucky and Alabama.
  
• For eight years, AETN's Arkansas Technology Institute week-long summer sessions brought educators together at the AETN facilities in Conway for intensive hands-on technology training sessions. Participants then took what they had learned to teach their peers.  There were up to fifty participating educators annually from districts in nearly every county in the state which directly affected thousands of students with the increased use of technology in classrooms.
  
• AETN was one of only five public television networks nationally selected to develop major projects in 2009 to coordinate with the PBS American Experience series We Shall Remain telling the story of Native American peoples in this country. The AETN production was called Arkansas' First People and provided extensive multi-media and professional development resources for the project.
  
• AETN's In Their Words multi-media oral history project remains a vital conduit for Arkansas' World War II veterans to share their military experiences. More than 500 oral histories have been recorded with more than 100 archived online for study. An extensive, interactive Web site allows visitors to explore many of these experiences and is available online at http://www.intheirwords.org/.  The project also created a Professional Development component for Arkansas educators.
  
• AETN Adult Education offers career planning workshops and adult education resources for the state of Arkansas.  Workshops offered include: Resume Writing, Acing the Job Interview, Effective Organizational and Time Management Skills in the Workplace, Discovering Skills and Strengths, Interpersonal Communication Skills in the Workplace, and Career Development Planning.
• AETN GO Camp is a week-long, summer camp designed to teach kids healthy habits and staying active and engaged in an educational setting.  Many partners including Arkansas First Lady Ginger Beebe teach about healthy active lifestyles and activities, such as arts and crafts, bicycle safety, cooking and nutrition, green living, dancing, video production, yoga, Zumba, Internet safety, pet care, and martial arts.  There were 29 participants in 2010 and 41 participants in 2011 held at the AETN facilities in Conway. 
• AETN is a partner with four southern state public television networks (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi) in cooperative efforts to efficiently provide programs and services, increase revenues and decrease expenses. One past project created a training series entitled Going to School to help parents and childcare providers know how to best prepare and nurture a child in their first years of school.

Television That is Valued and Watched

• About 300,000 households (or more than 500,000 viewers) watch AETN at least once a week during Prime Time. On average, nearly 10,000 homes are tuned to AETN during any evening quarter hour.  More than 57,000 homes are tuned to AETN at least once a week to watch AETN children's programming. Nearly one-half of all Arkansas television viewers turn to AETN first for programs that help people learn.
• Viewers are about evenly split between men and women during evening hours. During daytime and weekend hours, nearly one-fourth of viewers are children under age 12 while women account for about forty percent of viewers and men account for about one-third of viewers.
• AETN is a commercial-free television service that is free over-the-air to nearly every Arkansas household, regardless of income.  AETN is legally prohibited from receiving any financial compensation from cable or satellite companies and thus is provided to these providers at no charge.
  
• While much of children's television embraces violence, coarse language and commercials, AETN continues to provide Arkansas with an education-driven, trustworthy, non-commercial and violence-free children's television service.
• On its primary digital channel, AETN provides more than 40 hours of programming per week for pre-school children helping to prepare them for school. AETN provides more non-commercial, trustworthy, children's programming in one morning than commercial stations do in an entire week. Additionally, AETN broadcasts more than 100 hours of programming each week for school-age children, providing additional instruction in key subject areas like geography, science and social studies -- something rarely found on commercial television.
• AETN's mission is to serve viewers with life-long learning opportunities, not to serve advertisers and create profits for shareholders.
• On repeated surveys, eight out of ten television viewers say that they know that AETN is using telecommunications to provide life-long learning opportunities for all Arkansans. Three out of four television viewers believe that AETN is Arkansas leading source of high-quality education, information and entertainment programming and provides more education and information benefits than most other television.
• National surveys show that eighty percent of American viewers believe that public TV helps children learn reading, math and essential skills.  Viewers see public TV as a trusted and safe place for children to watch television (84%) and PBS Kids fro children to visit online (74%).
• National polls repeatedly show nearly half (44%) of Americans trust public broadcasting "a great deal" compared to 15% for commercial broadcast TV and 9% for cable TV.  Polls also show that Americans rank PBS and public TV as number one in fairness and trust regarding information on new and public affairs programs that are broadcast -- far above CNN, Fox News, CBS, ABC, NBC and MSNBC.   
• In 2010, PBS was honored more than any other organization with six Peabody Awards, the most selective and prestigious international award in broadcast journalism, educational programs and entertainment.
  
• In 2011, PBS received a record-breaking 43 Prime-Time EMMY nominations.  In addition, PBS received 32 News and Documentary EMMY nominations.  Adding the 46 Daytime EMMY nominations brings the total EMMY nominations for all PBS programs to 121 -- the highest combined total ever.  PBS programs receiving multiple EMMY nominations include "Sesame Street", "POV", "Frontline", "Independent Lens", "PBS Newshour", "Nature" and "NOVA".
  

Community Supported Television

• About one-fourth of the AETN budget is funded by private sources through efforts of the AETN Foundation. This money is used to help acquire, produce and broadcast general audience programs to Arkansans.
• Currently to supplement state and federal funding, about 17,000 contributors annually contribute almost $1.8 million to AETN through the AETN Foundation. The AETN Foundation also receives more than $220,000 from businesses, state agencies and foundations to underwrite programs and projects. More than $80,000 in donated advertising is received each year.
• More than 1,000 individuals and businesses volunteer annually, providing almost 5,500 hours of service valued at more than $108,000 to AETN.
• The AETN Membership Hot Line provides personal service to more than 2,500 contributors each year.
• The AETN Foundation Endowment annually generates income that is used to help pay for programming on AETN. More than $500,000 has been donated to the AETN Foundation Endowment through bequests, memorial or restricted gifts.
• Opinion surveys consistently show that Americans value public television as a unique educational and cultural resource that generates a high return on their tax dollars. Public TV is seen by the American public as the second best value for tax dollars with national defense ranked first.  More than three-fourths (76%) of Americans believe that funding to public TV stations from government, corporations and individuals is money well spent. 
• These same polls show that nearly two-thirds (61%) of Americans believe that elimination of federal funding to public TV could cause the elimination of important programming and even some stations, which would be a definite loss to the country.  Likewise, more than two-thirds (69%) of Americans oppose the elimination of government funding for public broadcasting.

Special Services to Help Arkansans

• AETN is Arkansas' only statewide television network, with six digital transmitter sites and thirteen microwave sites, bringing the AETN broadcast signal to more than 95% of the state.
• AETN's production studios help produce and transmit teleconferences,  as well as training and electronic town meetings to address the needs of Arkansans in a cost-effective manner. AETN has provided interactive distance learning for many state agencies and organizations, including the Department of Education, Department of Emergency Management, Head Start, Department of Human Services, and the Secretary of State.
• AETN provides descriptive video (DVI) for visually impaired Arkansans and closed captioning (CC) for hearing impaired Arkansans. AETN also provides, at no charge, a separate audio channel on its on-air broadcast (AETN-4) for the Arkansas Information Reading Services for the Blind, which provides the reading of local and national newspapers and magazines for the blind and visually impaired of Arkansas continuously throughout each day.
• AETN provides free technical consultation services for Arkansas schools. AETN also serves as the technical infrastructure for the states emergency broadcast system.
• AETN's Viewer Services responds to more than 3,000 phone calls, letters, cards and e-mails annually from the AETN viewers providing them personalized answers and program-related information.

Productions About Arkansas for Arkansans

• AETN produces more than 100 hours of original programming annually featuring the people and places of Arkansas, as well as issues of local, national and international importance to the state. AETN receives hundreds of telephone questions and comments during each live call-in program.
• AETN is the state's leader in creating and broadcasting full-length, in-depth documentaries about Arkansas history and culture.
  
• AETN's cultural series AETN Presents highlights Arkansas musical artists of all musical genres with On the Front Row as well as Arkansas writers with On the Same Page.
• AETN helps Arkansans understand how the national and state news affects them with in-depth analysis programs like Arkansas Week as well as opportunities to call in questions to key leaders on important topics with series like Arkansan's Ask: The Governor.
• AETN takes Arkansas around the state with it's popular Exploring Arkansas and Arkansas Outdoors.
• AETN seeks and secures national and foreign markets for AETN programs, successfully enhancing Arkansas' image outside its borders. Several AETN productions have been in the past or are currently being televised outside the state "The Lost Squadron", "Aging Successfully" with Doctor David, "Saving The Eagles", "The Long Season", and "Precious Memories: Our Vanishing Rural Churches" through PBS, while "Arkansas Outdoors" has been seen throughout the world via syndication on the Outdoor Life Cable Channel.
• AETN offers multiple outreach components for every public affairs program including: viewer access to elected officials, public opinion makers, community leaders and other experts; free information packets, hot line telephone numbers, online web site information and other resources.
• AETN annually wins numerous local, national and/or international awards for its productions with more than 400 received over the past forty years.  Nineteen (19) separate AETN productions have received a total of thirty-nine (39) EMMY nominations for excellence in television production.  Of these nominations, the coveted EMMY award has been received eleven (11) times for eight (8) AETN productions: "The Edge of Conflict: Arkansas in the Civil War", "When Lightning Stuck: Saga of an American War Plane", "Precious Memories: Our Vanishing Rural Churches"," The Sound of Dreams","The Forgotten Expedition","Charles Banks Wilson", "The Buffalo Flows" and "Silent Storytellers". 
  
• AETN's audio CD production of the "Trout Fishing in America" episode of "AETN Presents: On The Front Row" series was nominated for a Grammy music award in 2008.
• AETN regularly partners with many freelance and independent producers, writers and musicians as well as state agencies, universities and other non-profits to further enhance the AETN library of programs about Arkansas and disperse program information statewide.
• AETN is podcasting and videostreaming several programs to viewers to further utilize new technologies as a convenience to viewers.

Communicating the AETN Story

• The AETN Magazine providing program schedule information and highlights, network news, upcoming events, volunteer information, AETN Foundation news, technical updates, outreach, education and production news is mailed to about 17,000 AETN Foundation contributors each month.
• AETN keeps Arkansans informed by providing program promotion and press releases to more than 100 media outlets statewide. AETN mails thousands of program related outreach packages to schools and viewers. AETN tells its story nationwide through regional and national publications.
• Annually, AETN shares its story by providing AETN speakers to dozens of civic organizations throughout the state as well as conducting tours of its network headquarters for all interested groups that are in the 3rd grade and older during regular business hours.
• AETN web site (www.aetn.org) has hundreds of pages of information about AETN programs and services and includes links to PBS; programming web sites; state, regional and national educational resources; and program underwriter home pages. On average, more than 10,000 homes visit about a dozen pages on AETN's web site each month.

Trustworthy and Efficient Use of Resources

• Annual audits by independent professionals of AETN and the AETN Foundation financial records reflect high quality business practices, which safeguard all resources available to AETN.
• About two-thirds of AETN's annual operating budget comes from state tax dollars provided by the state legislature. About eleven percent of the budget comes from federal tax dollars as a partial match to locally obtained funds.
• AETN employee and applicant statistics are representative of the cultural and racial diversity of the state, helping AETN to better serve Arkansas' needs.
• AETN was named a best mid-sized workplace in Arkansas in 2010 for the 3rd consecutive year by the Governor’s Work-Life Balance Awards Program.  AETN has also been recognized three times as a Psychologically Healthy Workplace by the Arkansas Psychology Association, including once being a state finalist.
• Since 1965, AETN has received more than $11 million in restricted grants from the federal government for new and replacement equipment. These funds have been matched more than $30 million in state and private dollars to help acquire, replace and maintain AETN's broadcast and production equipment. Former Arkansas Governor and U.S. Senator Dale Bumpers called AETN and Public Television the best example of the public-private partnership.

Revised: 10/24/2011