American Public Television
American Public Television (APT) is an American nonprofit organization and syndicator of programming for public television stations in the United States. It distributes public television programs nationwide for PBS member stations, as well as the Create and World television networks. History. Eastern Educational Network. APT began in 1961 when it was incorporated as the Eastern Educational Network (EEN). At first, EEN was a regional cooperative that began to exchange programs between a few of its member stations. EEN was one of the first distributors of shows such as "The French Chef" (with Julia Child) in 1963, "Mister  Rogers' Neighborhood", and "Washington Week in Review" on a national basis. Another first from EEN was the distribution of "Newsfront", America's first live and non-commercial daily news program, starting in 1970. EEN introduced "Wall Street Week" in November 1970 before PBS began distributing it nationwide in January 1972. EEN also began importing UK's BBC and Canadian CBC productions to America in 1974, with "Monty Python's Flying Circus" as one of them. In 1978, the EEN started the Free Library. In 1980, Eastern Educational Network started the Syndication Service and was renamed Interregional Program Service (IPS). IPS  started the Premium Service in 1989. The organization became American Program Service (APS) in 1992. American Public Television. American Program Service was renamed American Public Television (APT) in January 1, 2000. Also, with many fax requests from international outlets, an international division called APT Worldwide was started. With the digital roll-out, APT became the distributor of a couple of multicast networks. In January 2006, APT started distributing Create. They later began distributing World on July 1, 2009. Programming services. Networks. APT also owns two digital broadcast television networks with WGBH, WNET, and NETA: Programming. APT distributes more than 300  new program titles per year, including documentaries, talk shows, music performance content, dramatic and comedic series, how-to programs, children's series and classic films. Shows currently or previously distributed by APT include, but are unlimited to, "The Open Mind", "Rick Steves' Europe", "Live From the Artists Den", "," "America's Test Kitchen" and its spinoff series "Cook's Country", "Yan Can Cook", "Barbecue University with Steven Raichlen", "The Big Comfy Couch", "Net Cafe", "Pati's Mexican Table", "Samantha Brown's Places to Love", "Globe Trekker" (known as "Pilot Guides" in other countries), "Doc Martin", "Rudy Maxa's World", "Sara's  Weeknight Meals" and "". APT distributes weeknight international news series "Asia Insight" and "NHK Newsline" from Japan's NHK, as well as the business news program "Nightly Business Report". APT has also distributed special pledge shows to public television, including programs such as "Frank Sinatra: Voice of Our Time", "Anne of Green Gables", "Carreras Domingo Pavarotti", "Celine Dion: A New Day", "Mike Douglas – Moments & Memories", "Leonard Cohen: Tower of Song" and "Tony Bennett Duets: The Making of an American Classic". In 2001, APT was the first company to bring a high-definition series to public television with the premiere of "Smart  Travels with Rudy Maxa". As of January 1, 2018, the PBS Kids 24/7 channel started airing APT kids programs, starting with "Peep and the Big Wide World/Pocoyo".