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Celebrating the Women in

STEAM

AND ADDRESSNG IMPORTANT NATIONAL ISSUES.

- Watch on PBS
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Inspiring the Next

Generation

OF STEAM PROFESSIONALS.

Watch Recent Promo
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Each Episode Addresses a

IMPORTANT

TOPIC IMPACTING OUR NATIONAL AUDIENCE.

On-Sheet PDF
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Reaching Students In

Classrooms

AND 26000 Libraries globally.

Distribution
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Biography Stories Filmed

On-Location

ACROSS NORTH AMERICA.

Pioneering Women
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Storytelling that

Sparks Interest

AND CHALLENGES PRECONCEPTIONS.

NETA Catalog Listing

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The Breakthrough Women in Science & Medicine series is an educational series from the American Medical Women's Association produced in collaboration with Capital Media Group, Inc. This series showcases breakthrough women across multiple industries to spark interest, create dialogue, and contribute to the advancement of women in STEM + Arts = STEAM . The impact and contributions of these women need to be documented, promoted, and celebrated on a national scale. This documentary series is currently seeking stakeholder participation to champion STEM leaders, nominate breakthrough women, and support this national effort through grants and sponsorships.

Public Television

National Education Telecommunications Association (NETA) distribution to public television stations nationwide with recent episodes reaching 80 million households.

PBS On-Demand

This series is available on-demand via the PBS.org website, PBS Phone App, and the PBS OTT channel reaching 15 million unique monthly users nationwide.

Amazon Prime Video

As of January 2025, 150 local PBS station viewers can watch PBS ad-free on Prime Video, AppleTV, DirecTV, Hulu+Live, fire TV, Roku, Sling TV, and YouTube TV.

Classrooms & Libraries

This on-demand educational series reaches more than 40 million students in 2,500 Universities, 77,000 Schools, and 26,000 Public & Academic Libraries worldwide.

Latest Episode: Understanding The Obesity Epidemic

In communities across the United States, public television has been a source of education, entertainment and awareness for decades. According to PBS Foundation data, roughly 100 million people watch their local PBS stations in a given month. Public TV, including PBS, historically boasts a diverse range of demographics in its viewership. In fact, according to publicly available data, PBS viewership tends to closely reflect the demographics of the local community. (*According to PBS Audience Insights 2021) In a typical month, PBS attracts nearly 15 million unique viewers across their PBS App, YouTube Channel, and PBS OTT platforms.

As of January 2025, PBS viewers can watch their location PBS station ad-free on Prime Video, AppleTV, Directv, fire tv, Hulu+Live, Roku, Sling TV, and YouTubeTV.

Following the spike in OTT streaming in the spring of 2020, due to the onset of the pandemic, the slow and steady gains in streaming have continued at pre-pandemic rates for most demographics. However, the March 2020 bump in streaming among Adults 65+ persisted, with streaming among this demographic now outpacing teens. While PBS’s owned OTT user base is relatively small, it’s a highly engaged platform, garnering the majority of Passport and non-Passport streaming among PBS’s owned platforms. Its users were up 10% season-overseason, the highest annual gains among PBS’s owned platforms. As of 2025, PBS has 15 million OTT and App subscribers.

The PBS Video App has 1.8 million subscribers meeting audiences where they are and when they want to watch. While the mobile app garners the least amount of users among PBS-owned platforms, its users grew slightly season-over-season (+4%). This was driven by streaming gains of +56% compared to last year.

PBS’s General Audience (non-KIDS, non-DIgital Studios) accounts on YouTube experienced modest season-overseason monthly user declines (-11%). However, the accounts proved to be a reliable way to garner large amounts of views relatively quickly (see Ali special page). Despite falloff in average monthly users, these accounts had gains in both engagement (+25%) and views (+15%) from last year.

Two-Tiered Academic approach: #1. CMG's direct publisher distribution into 77,000 U.S. Schools + 26,000 Public and Academic Libraries and #2. Public Television is the No. 1 source of educational media content for class-room ready digital learning experiences to engage students.

CMG grants U.S. public television stations permission to extend licensing rights to schools and libraries within their service area. "Off-air school rights" are defined as the right for a school or other educational institution to record the program from the public television broadcast, retain the recording, and display the program in an educational setting an unlimited number of times, commencing with the first such display.

Distribution FAQ's

Are PBS Stations Going To Disappear?

No. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is not the same as PBS, though it is the main source of federal funding for PBS and NPR. CPB is a private, nonprofit organization that distributes federal funds to public broadcasting stations. While CPB supports PBS and NPR, it does not own, operate, or control them. They are separate entities. As Federal Funding is no longer being provided to the Corporation for Public Broadcast to support and promote public broadcasting, it will be closing operations. However, PBS is committed to building on CPB's legacy and maintaining broadcast services to the American people for years to come.

Supporters for PBS programming should be fully confident in their decision to sponsor educational programming. PBS is not going anywhere.

How is the series distributed?

All public television show scheduling decisions are determined locally by each of the member stations. Unlike the commercial television networks that broadcast nationwide using a SINGLE feed, PBS provides its member stations with approved shows from which they can build their TV schedule independently. In comparison, public television has what could be considered 150 individual feeds. But most people watch TV shows on-demand by watching content on PBS.org or pull up shows on the PBS streaming channel or PBS apps.

The Breakthrough Women series utilizes the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA) to distribute this series to both PBS member stations and non-member stations. The Breakthrough series has a multi-channel distribution strategy with Public Television as our foundational national audience but the series is also utilized in schools, libraries, and local TV networks.

Learn more by visiting PBS.org and NETAonline.org.

How is the series scheduled?

The Breakthrough Women series can be found airing before and after PBS' most popular shows, Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates Jr and the award-winning Nova science series. These two shows carry a huge audience and we are honored to have our series broadcast next to their most important branded shows.

The majority of our airings occur during Prime Time (42%) with 66% of our airing occurring within Early Fringe, Prime Time, and Late Fringe.

Is the Series available in The Classroom?

Yes, this documentary project is designed to spark interest, dialogue, and contribute to the advancement of females in STEAM career fields.

Our primary goal is to inspire the next STEAM generation. We target this audience through academic publishers representing over 400 Universities, 70,000 K-12 schools classrooms and multimedia platforms inside 26,000 Public & Academic libraries in 150 countries reaching 40 million students and faculty members each day.

Does this series also have a PODCAST?

Yes, each episode has a podcast that discusses the important takeaway messages delivered on each Breakthrough Women episode. The conversation typically centers around addressing complex topics discussed in each episode and empowering the viewer with important issues impacting women.

Is this series available to Local TV channels?

Yes, Capital Media Group distributes editorial and educational content on broadcast servers utilized by program directors at 9 of the top 10 MSOs and over 100 U.S. cable & telco TV operators such as AT&T and Verizon serving over 50 million households each day. Once local program directors agree to licensing terms, they can broadcast the series in their local market.

These networks provide programming to a national viewerships interested in informative and educational shows.

Breakthrough Woman from all STEM industries:

ALL
Science
Technology
Engineering
Art
Mathematics

Documentary Filming Locations

A partial list of institutions, agencies and universities that have participated in CMG productions.

  • Baptist Hospital, Miami
  • Boca Raton Regional Hospital
  • Bon Secours St. Francis Hospital
  • Brigham and Women's Hospital
  • Casa Central: Alzheimer’s
  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta
  • Cleveland Clinic, Ohio
  • Crozer-Chester Medical Center
  • Duke Cancer Institute
  • Emory Hospital
  • Food and Drug Administration
  • FAU Comprehensive Center for Brain Health
  • Florida Atlantic University Medical Simulation Center
  • George Washington University
  • Grady Memorial Hospital
  • Great River Health System
  • Harvard Medical School
  • Holly Cross Hospital
  • Huntsmans Cancer Institute
  • Jacobs Institute of Women's Health
  • Johns Hopkins
  • Medical University of South Carolina
  • Massachusetts General Hospital
  • Moffitt Cancer Center
  • Mount Sinai
  • North Carolina Specialty Hospital
  • Northwell Health
  • Orlando Regional Hospital
  • Rush University Medical Center
  • South Texas Regional Advisory Council for Trauma
  • St. Vincent Heart Center
  • Tampa General Hospital
  • Temple University Hospital
  • The Mayo Clinic Jacksonville
  • The Mayo Clinic Rochester
  • The Mayo Clinic Scottsdale
  • U.C. Davis Health
  • The University of Pennsylvania
  • University of Miami - School of Nursing and Health Studies
  • University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
  • University of South Florida, Morsani College of Medicine
  • Vanderbilt University Medical Center
  • Veterans Affairs Hospital Washington D.C
  • Veterans Affairs Hospital Pittsburgh
  • Virginia Commonwealth University Hospital
  • West Cancer Center, Memphis

Episode Sponsors

The Breakthrough Women series adheres to all public televisions production and funding guidelines. Support for individual episodes of the Breakthrough Women in Science & Medicine series have been provided by the following companies and organizations through episode specific educational grants and sponsorships.

Phone:

561-304-1111

Email:

producers@cmghd.com

Schedule

time to speak with a Producer