It’s all new at Vancouver’s The Knowledge Network: a new name, a new logo, a new focus on digital technology and new status as a provincial Crown corporation.

And Rudy Buttignol, CEO of the BC educaster, is counting on new eyeballs too.

‘We’ve proven to the government that we’re lean and successful,’ he says. ‘We have 1.2 million viewers watching at least one hour every week – that’s one in four British Columbians – and we’re number one with kids. But we can be better.’

Appointed as CEO in September 2007 after a lengthy stint at TVOntario, Buttignol raised $2.2 million from 26,000 private donors last year, ‘all solely for programming, and I phone five to 10 donors a week to thank them personally,’ he explains.

Murray Coell, the province’s minister of advanced education, handed over $2.7 million during the relaunch yesterday afternoon, to pay for the digital conversion.

This is a coup for Buttignol, as Knowledge has been on shaky legs for the past few years as the provincial government reviewed whether it should shut the channel down or privatize it.

Knowledge was previously an agency of the provincial government, run through the Open Learning Agency and creating programming that often focused on distance education.

Those in-house efforts have been mothballed, for now. Knowledge will air acquired educational programming, though it hopes to commission its own shows from indie producers in the future.

‘We don’t create it. We find it, filter it, aggregate and disseminate it,’ says Buttignol.

As a Crown corporation now under its own board of directors, Knowledge has ‘a measure of independence we didn’t have before,’ he adds. ‘This is a signal that we’re important and that the government recognizes that. Going digital is putting flesh on the bones. It’s vital. Digital is transforming the world.’

Also, the channel will now air 24 hours a day.

In future, the provincial government will ante up $6.3 million of Knowledge’s $8.5-million annual budget. The rest comes from donors.

From Playback Daily