Population Media Center (PMC) works worldwide using local mass media to educate people about the benefits of family planning and promote general reproductive health. PMC’s programs concentrate on entertainment broadcasting to encourage delayed parenthood, use of effective methods of contraception, adoption of safe sexual behaviors, and empowerment of women to play equal roles in family decisions and in society. These “Soap Operas for Social Change” are entertaining and engaging while imparting useful information. The material is expressed in a human rights framework, and we are always sensitive to the cultures in which we work. Every woman on earth deserves access to quality maternal and reproductive healthcare, information and services. PMC’s work aims to stabilize the human population and lessen our harmful impact on global resources. We believe in the vital importance of increasing knowledge to change attitudes and behavior. Data from the Demographic and Health Surveys show that non-use of family planning is often the result of misinformation and male opposition. It is these things that PMC aims to eliminate. The more people we can reach, the more people we can inform, the more people we can empower to improve their lives. Solving the population problem requires informed choice, not force. We envision a world where the number of people, and their diverse ways of life, are in harmony with earth’s current naturally renewable resources. We envision a world where education and information enhance human health, human rights, environmental protection, and economic equality. These enhancements empower women, men, and children to make decisions that result in smaller, healthier families and stabilize population at a level that can be sustained by current natural resources.

PMC knows that strategic and audience-specific communications can result in behavior change. For PMC, entertainment-education has been the most powerful form of behavior change communication, particularly long-running radio serial dramas. We put “entertainment” first because it must be entertaining for people to get engrossed in the story and it must inspire emotion to motivate behavior change. PMC’s behavior change communications approach, known as the Sabido methodology (created by Miguel Sabido of Mexico), uses characters in the dramas that evolve into role models, encouraging the audience to adopt healthier behaviors. It provides a platform for education and discussion, allowing people to make their own decisions. The Sabido methodology creates culturally-specific stories with “positive,” “negative,” and “transitional” characters to model behavior in long-running serial dramas. Local teams of writers, producers, and actors create the program, and the range of characters and plot twists give audiences an entertaining way to absorb and discuss important social and health issues. As the story unfolds, information gets woven into the story in a non-intrusive way that allows people to watch actions and consequences. Another one of PMC’s tools is the Whole Society Strategy that combines print, television, radio, music, and new media to reinforce serial drama themes and reach more people. Audience research identifies preferred media channels across audience segments, which can occur geographically, linguistically, culturally, or economically. PMC then creates a message and dissemination strategy across the nation or region the serial drama reaches. PMC has often included media capacity building in its Whole Society Strategy, training journalists and broadcasters within the region in pro-social reporting. PMC sometimes brings the serial drama narrative alive across multiple platforms to allow audience members to be drawn further into the fictional world, interact with characters, and learn in different ways. This is called transmedia storytelling and can be done through old and new media, such as fictional characters having in-character social media profiles and blogs or a newspaper from the fictional setting being produced for the audience to read. Serial drama storylines weave together so many characters and components of life that the possibilities for transmedia storytelling can be endless depending on the media usage and interests of the audience.

PMC’s programs are all over the world with global headquarters located in Shelburne, Vermont. The headquarters staff of 11 has expertise in accounting, administration, research, program development, program support, training, fundraising, marketing and communications. Established in 1998, we have over 15 years of experience in the field. An average PMC project, from hiring in-country staff, to setting up an office, to baseline and formative research, to writing, producing and broadcasting the radio drama, to monitoring and evaluation, will take place over three years at a cost of about $1. 8 million. As our experience and reputation have grown, our partnerships have also grown wider. PMC has received funding from major foundations such as Ford, MacArthur, Packard and Colcom, and several UN agencies including UNFPA (UN Population Fund), UNICEF, and UN Women. We have had support from the US government (USAID, Fish and Wildlife, PEPFAR), the Ethiopian government (HAPCO – HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control Office), the government of Norway (via Save the Children), Australia (AUSAID), Germany (via the Rotarian Action Group on Population and Development), the government of Canada, and the United Kingdom (DFID – Department for International Development via UNFPA). The Oak Foundation of Geneva, Switzerland has supported our work in Ethiopia. We have been invited by the Prime Minister of Senegal to develop a program in that country and have many long-term contacts among Ministers and Cabinet members across Africa. PMC has a complimentary membership in the Clinton Global Initiative, we are a recommended resource for UNICEF’s C4D program (Communication for Development), and we have special consultative status with the United Nation’s Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). After years of experience in radio drama, PMC moved into television production in 2011, partnering with MTV Latin America to produce a telenovela that aired in 18 Spanish-speaking nations. The next year, we ventured into producing our own web series, East Los High, which aired as a Hulu exclusive program. In its first season, East Los High became an award-winning program. The National Association of Hispanic Journalists recognized Hulu for its commitment to Latino programming, and especially for launching East Los High, the first original program with an all-Latino cast. The show won two Global Media Awards from the Population Institute for Best TV Show and Best Social Media Campaign. Season 2 will be available through Hulu starting in July 2014.

A look at any PMC operating budget shows that 85 to 90 percent of expenses goes to Program. The balance goes to Administration and Fundraising. Almost all PMC field operations have a line item in their individual budgets for monitoring and evaluation. Our basic philosophy is: “if you don’t measure it, how do you know what you achieved?” We hire in-country research firms who work with our own research staff to determine terms of reference, sample size, and logistics. The data from the endline survey is analyzed to determine any differential between listeners and non-listeners, and compared with the data from the baseline survey to determine what changed over the course of the program. We also use regression analysis to filter for variables that might skew results. We also recruit health service facilities to ask clients what motivated their decision to visit the clinic and report the percentage that cite our programs. PMC sometimes does a qualitative evaluation of the program through guided focus-group discussions with listeners to investigate what they learned from the program, if they did anything differently after having listened to it, and what impact the program may have had on their lives. Some listeners also participate in a sketching exercise, where they draw sketches to visually represent how listening to a program changed their lives. Results are compiled and shared with donor agencies as part of any grant agreements. Internally, we are always mindful of best practices and work to incorporate our findings into the next program, wherever it may be. PMC’s Vice President for International Programs is also our chief trainer, and therefore is the vanguard for the dissemination of new results and practices. We strive to build each new program on the strengths of the previous one.

Since 1998, PMC has collaborated on or managed projects in over 50 countries worldwide. We estimate that over 100 million people have heard a PMC radio or TV drama. We have successfully addressed and motivated behavior and attitude changes on a wide array of issues through our dramas, in the categories of sexual and reproductive health, child and maternal health and nutrition, child protection, gender based violence, environment and conservation, education, and women’s empowerment. We have enjoyed some high profile partnerships as mentioned in the capabilities section above. Today, we have more than double the number of individual donors than we had seven years ago. After establishing our reputation in serial radio dramas, we turned to television, as detailed under the capabilities question. On the domestic front, PMC has conducted a 6-year effort to bring the population issue into the public discourse through our Talk Show Project, whereby various population and sustainability experts are placed on talk shows around the US to share information and stimulate discussion. We have not yet established global partnerships or coalitions to advance this communications strategy further around the world. We have not impacted the content of US or Asian entertainment network television, the primary medium for media consumption in those parts of the world. We have not achieved widespread public recognition of the problems caused by population growth, and the impact on resources and infrastructure. Our hope for the betterment of women, children and entire nations hinges upon what should be the most fundamental human right: every woman deserves access to quality maternal and reproductive healthcare, information and services.