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"Three years ago, when the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) was developing its local, national online video platform, the company had a 65-year-old viewer test the user experience. \"This isn't at all what I expected from PBS,\" she said about the radically different design. \"It's so modern.\"\nJason Seiken, the senior vice president of PBS Interactive who oversees all digital services, shared this anecdote with the audience at Mashable's Media Summit on Friday. In a nutshell, this sweet story tells us something very integral about the company's digital initiatives: It's radically changing the way people see PBS, and that's its goal.\nIn a discussion with Mashable senior tech analyst Christina Warren, Seiken explained that PBS saw approximately 165 million video streams online last month, as opposed to about two million a few years ago. Not only that, around 62% of last month's streams were viewed on a mobile device.\n\"PBS, three or four years ago, faced a big business challenge,\" Seiken said. \"The challenge was that we dominate on television up to age 6, and we get people 55-plus, but that big doughnut hole in the middle, we're missing. And we weren't capturing them online, either.\"\nSeiken said that moving linear video production to distribution channels fixed the online problem, but the company realized that wouldn't solve the overall business challenge. PBS created PBS Digital Studios, initially trying to create what Seiken called \"bad television for the small screen.\"\n\"We realized that what we needed to do was get away from what we do in television, and do things that are very native to this medium \u2014 we call it PBS quality with a YouTube sensibility,\" he said.\nAnd from that came the Mister Rogers remix, a video that became an overnight sensation by combining nostalgia for Rogers' many lessons with a modern beat and autotuning. The viral hit has helped change the culture of PBS in a \"radical and an incremental way,\" Seiken said. The remix is certainly not the way PBS has always done things, but by having a big idea and ensuring that there would be a a big payoff, it worked.\nAt the Media Summit, Seiken announced that the fourth and newest remix in the series from PBS Digital will be released on Monday.\nBut how does PBS garner a modern audience to return to PBS for content? The answer definitely returns the conversation to mobile, and having consumers expect PBS to be at the forefront of that space. PBS has three apps for iPhone and iPad \u2014 two for adults and one for kids, and according to Seiken, kids are devouring the brand's content through mobile. Almost 10 times as many kids are watching PBS on mobile devices than adults. \"They're just voracious consumers of tablets,\" Seiken said.\nPhoto courtesy of Erica Gannett.\n\n\nRead more of Mashable\u2019s coverage of the 2012 Media Summit:\n\nHow Social Media Impacts TV and Film Ratings\nThe Nate Silver Effect: How Data Journalism Can Predict the Future\nWill Cond\u00E9 Nast or Hearst Create the Next Pinterest?\nTablet Readers Don\u2019t Want Interactivity, Says Hearst President\nHow to Monetize Without Hurting Your Community\nIs Twitter Helping or Harming Political Journalism?\nPBS Digital Isn\u2019t Your Grandma\u2019s Public Television\nNPR's Brooke Gladstone: The News Media Has Almost Always Been Fragmented\nDo Publishers Still Need Native Apps?\nHow Social Networks Are Redefining Journalism\nCan Ecommerce Keep Magazines Afloat?\nDon't Miss These Highlights From Mashable Media Summit 2012\nExperience the 2012 Mashable Media Summit on Storify\n\nSupporting Sponsor\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/11/30/pbs-digital/>