Between the Lions children's TV show to hit the road

Between the Lions, the popular children's television show, will begin a seventh season on PBS KIDS on September 17, 2007. And, on the heels of new research results that demonstrate that the PBS KIDS® series is helping children learn how to read, the Lions plan to hit the road this summer and engage live audiences with readings and interactive performances. Between the Lions airs daily on PBS KIDS.

Father of the pride, Theo, and cub Leona will be joined by executive producers Judy Stoia and Chris Cerf as they visit Baltimore, Maryland, and Atlanta, Georgia in July, and Birmingham, Alabama, and New Orleans, Louisiana in September. The producers plan to continue the tours over the next three summers, providing opportunities for more children to meet the Lions in person, and to demonstrate directly to their families the value of Between the Lions in helping teach reading skills.

Between the Lions, which is also the beneficiary of major new funding from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting and from the Barksdale Reading Institute, announced the results of several independent research studies earlier this year. Over the past four years these studies have demonstrated the impact of using Between the Lions with high-poverty, high-risk children in Kansas, Mississippi, and New Mexico. The studies all found that young children who watch Between the Lions show significant improvements in their reading skills.

Between the Lions is produced by WGBH Boston, Sirius Thinking, Ltd., and Mississippi Public Broadcasting. Between the Lions is funded in part by a grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Ready To Learn through the U.S. Department of Education, and by the Barksdale Reading Institute. National corporate funding is provided by Chick-fil-A, Inc.

Partners are:

WGBH Boston, the source of about one-third of PBS's prime-time lineup, along with some of public television's best-known lifestyle shows and children's programs and many public radio favorites. WGBH is the number one producer of Web sites on pbs.org, one of the most trafficked dot-org Web sites in the world. For more information, visit www.wgbh.org.

Sirius Thinking, Ltd., is a children's educational entertainment media company based in New York City. Its co-founding partners, Christopher Cerf and Norman Stiles, have played a major creative and production role in educational television programs such as Sesame Street, The Electric Company, and numerous Jim Henson productions. Sirius Thinking's creative team has won a host of honors including multiple Emmy and Grammy awards, most recently a 2004 Emmy for their writing contributions to Between the Lions.

Mississippi Public Broadcasting (MPB) operates an eight-station public television network, an eight-station public radio network, and the Radio Reading Service of Mississippi. MPB serves all 82 counties of the state of Mississippi providing quality instructional and public programming. Since its first broadcast in 1970, MPB has won over 350 awards for its local productions including numerous regional Emmys for early childhood instructional programs, and a national Emmy and Parents' Choice Award for Ticktock Minutes.

For more information about Between the Lions, contact:

Susan Barrett
WGBH
(617) 300-5335
susan_barrett@wgbh.org

For details of the local tour, contact:

Jackie Herskovitz
President
Teak Media Communications
(617) 269-7171
jackie@teakmedia.com