The TV Station Building a Strong Social Media Network (HBBIP #142)

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Like any American child of the Nineties, I grew up on Sesame Street. Not, like, actually on the street, but adjacent to it. A Sesame Cul-de-Sac, if you will.

There was a whole lot of Elmo in my house, is what I’m saying. And hey, I had to learn to count somehow.

But as I grew up, I put aside such childish concerns and became a nerd. History seemed pretty neat, and thankfully there was a range of Masterpiece programming to satisfy my curiosity, with most of those programs being…pretty decent. And how about science! How about space—pretty cool, eh? For that, there was NOVA.

Even though I actually was into politics as a kid, like way more into it than kids should be, I can’t sit here and lie for the sake of the bit and tell my HBBIP readers that I was into Frontline. I wasn’t that cool. Nor can I pretend that I was ever into Antiques Roadshow, which I originally typed as ‘Antiques Roadhouse,’ which would almost certainly be a more interesting program.

I’m not sure at what age I realized that all these programs came from the same magical source. Again, I had my interests, but basic understanding of ‘television networks’ might have been beyond me.

Even more spectacular than the common source of these programs? That network’s sudden rise as a creator marketing powerhouse. Or maybe it’s not that shocking. After all, who is Elmo if not the original influencer?

So come and play. Everything's a-okay. Can you tell me how to get, how to get to…

The Top Brand of All Time (of the Week): PBS

That’s right: in my ongoing quest to chronicle the world’s hottest brands, we’ve come at last to the Public Broadcasting Service. Hey, we’ve done the BBC already, and they don’t even have Oscar The Grouch.

Believe it or not, PBS is taking over social media. They’re kind of like the Anua of non-commercial television.

How Is PBS Performing on Social Media?

PBS Creator Count, 2020 - 2025

From 2020 to 2025, PBS’ creator population expanded from 3.8k creators in 2020 to 9.3k pledge-drive contributors, a 2.5x increase over six years.

Unlike many brands that experience explosive creator acquisition, PBS followed a steadier trajectory. The brand’s creator count remained relatively consistent through 2023, then accelerated in 2024 and 2025, with this modest creator growth laying the groundwork for more explosive growth across other metrics.

PBS Post Count, 2020 - 2025

Meanwhile, PBS’ annual creator content volume increased from 13.1k posts in 2020 to 59.8k posts in 2025, a 4.6x growth.

Notably, although posting activity dipped slightly in 2022, growth resumed in 2023 before spiking sharply over the following two years. It’s further proof of the fact that for successful brands, content volume growth paces ahead of creator count growth. And then, of course, there are our engagement-based metrics, which tend to track even further ahead…

PBS EMV, 2020 - 2025

PBS’ Earned Media Value (EMV), a metric that reflects share of viral conversation on social media, climbed from $43.3M in 2020 to $310.1M in 2025, a strong 7.2x increase.

By this point, savvy readers are probably noticing two patterns: one, that after a slower 2022-2023, PBS really took off in 2024 and 2025; and two, that the six-year growth multipliers are getting bigger, just as I predicted.

                                                                                                       PBS Impressions, 2020 - 2025

I must have a crystal ball, because PBS’ impressions surged from 205.4M in 2020 to 3.1B impressions in 2025, a 15.3x increase. As you can see, that is a bigger number than 2.5 or 4.6 or 7.2. It might not be as dramatic of a growth as some newly launched breakout brands, but those other brands don’t have Elmo, so let’s call it a wash.

PBS Engagements, 2020 - 2025

Finally, we come back down to earth a tad, with the classic ‘engagements lagging behind impressions’ formulation that we know and love from other HBBIP spotlights. Once PBS made it past that 2022 shakiness, engagements spiked from 11.8M in 2020 to 103M in 2025, an 8.7x increase. I can draw no other conclusion than that the people love Grover.

Which Social Channels Were Key to PBS' Growth?

However, to draw a few other conclusions, let’s take a look at PBS’ platform-level data from June 2025 to May 2026, and see where all this growth is coming from.

PBS Share of Impressions by Platform, June 2025 - May 2026

YouTube accounts for just over half of PBS's total impressions, making it the brand's largest source of audience reach by a considerable margin. What’s especially notable about PBS relative to other brands I’ve profiled is the multipolar nature of its social media mentions. I can’t recall ever having five different slices of pie in one of these charts.

Instagram and Facebook provide meaningful secondary distribution, while TikTok and X contribute comparatively smaller, but still substantial, portions of the total.

PBS Share of Engagements by Platform, June 2025 - May 2026

Unlike impressions, engagements are distributed fairly evenly across platforms. Instagram leads overall engagement volume, with YouTube, TikTok, and Facebook each contributing roughly one-fifth of total interactions. X’s whopping 1% share represents a notable YoY decline, implying that the platform might continue to be even less of a factor for PBS.

Who Are PBS' Creators?

1. Institutional Voices Dominate, But Affiliates Spark Growth

As you might expect, PBS's creator community is structurally unlike a typical consumer brand's: it’s basically an ecosystem of child institutions talking about their mother institution, with relatively few individual personalities driving the bulk of social media engagement. As a result, PBS is one of the most extreme examples of stratification among its creator population that I’ve ever seen, with its top 10 accounts alone generating 48% of all EMV.

PBS NewsHour sits at No. 1 by a wide margin: $106.7M in EMV, representing 28.7% of the entire community's output. Basically, as with many other streaming services and networks, PBS is amplifying itself.

A more interesting story emerges amongst the PBS properties beneath NewsHour. Over the past 12 months, a wave of local and regional PBS stations have surged dramatically:

• kansascitypbs grew 2.4k% YoY
• NinePBS grew 1.8k% YoY
• americanexperiencepbs grew 1.8k% YoY
• pbsnature grew 2k% YoY

The list goes on across local affiliates in Arkansas, Milwaukee, Southern California, Minneapolis, Arizona, Vegas, and more. In aggregate, PBS’ distributed media network is where the brand is setting itself apart.

2. A Breakout New Platform Story

Remember earlier, when I said that PBS sees content distribution across a lot of social platforms? Well, how about one more?

The most striking individual creator in PBS’ dataset is Heather Cox Richardson, a historian and political commentator whose Substack newsletter has made her one of that platform’s breakout stars. Richardson generated $2.7M EMV for PBS from June 2025 to May 2026, a 1k% YoY increase.

While CreatorIQ doesn’t track EMV from Substack (yet), Richardson cross-posts to Facebook, in turn driving a lot of that platform’s momentum. Richardson’s content is so potent that she claims the No. 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 14, and 16 spots on the post EMV leaderboard. However, she’s just one of many politics-focused, Substack-friendly accounts to fuel EMV, including PBS-affiliated progressive media groups like Meidas Touch, Watch Fight Back!, amanpourandcompany, and even the owned TikTok account of the Democratic Party.

When you consider all this political fervor, it begins to make sense why 2024, 2025, and 2026 have been such banner years for PBS. So you know, there’s at least one silver lining.

3. PBS Is More Than Sesame Street

Despite my continual trips to this particular well, PBS produces more than one program, and that multiplicity is part of what’s driving big numbers for the network. Shoutout to the aforementioned masterpiecepbs account—your stateside home for prestige British drama—which surged over 7k% YoY thanks to something called Call the Midwife. Additionally, America’s favorite documentarian kenburnspbs grew 643%, while okaytobesmart, PBS’ Digital Studios' science channel, surged 468%.

And while they might not claim Emeril or Guy, don’t sleep on PBS’ food and lifestyle arm. Joanne Molinaro, Pati Jinich, This Old House, and MotorWeek all stood out, reinforcing the diversity of PBS’ portfolio as a genuine asset.

Oh, and not for nothing, but Sesame Street surged 574% YoY, placing three posts in the top-30 leaderboard, including a YouTube post at $240k, a Facebook post at $228k, and a TikTok at $194k. Talk about range!

No need to tune into Masterpiece Theater, folks. The real masterpiece is PBS’ creator marketing, and it’s available for free on a social media platform near you.

*All data, unless otherwise specified, stems from CreatorIQ's public-facing brand leaderboards. We will never share performance metrics from a customer's CreatorIQ profile, or any brand's private information.

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