[15] PBS is funded by a combination of member station dues, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, pledge drives, and donations from both private foundations and individual citizens.

[18] It began operations on October 5, 1970, taking over many of the functions of its predecessor, National Educational Television (NET), which later merged with Newark, New Jersey station WNDT to form WNET.

[26] For seven months, nightly "gavel-to-gavel" broadcasts drew great public interest, and raised the profile of the fledgling PBS network.

[28][29][30][31] Since the mid-2000s, Roper Opinion Research polls commissioned by PBS have consistently placed the service as the most-trusted national institution in the United States.

[42] The studio's first hit, an auto-tuned version of the theme from one of their most famous television programs, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, was one of YouTube's 10 most viral videos of 2012.

[1] Unlike the affiliates for commercial TV networks, each non-profit PBS member station is charged with the responsibility of programming local content such as news, interviews, cultural, and public affairs programs for its individual market or state that supplements content provided by PBS and other public television distributors.

Suppliers, however, retain the right to sell the program's intellectual property in non-broadcast media such as DVDs, books, and sometimes PBS-licensed merchandise.

The evening and primetime schedule on PBS features a diverse array of programming including fine arts (Great Performances); drama (Masterpiece, Downton Abbey, American Family: Journey of Dreams); science (Nova, Nature); history (American Experience, American Masters, History Detectives, Antiques Roadshow); music (Austin City Limits, Soundstage); public affairs (Frontline, PBS NewsHour, Washington Week, Nightly Business Report); independent films and documentaries (P.O.V., Independent Lens); home improvement (This Old House); and interviews (Amanpour & Company, Tavis Smiley, The Dick Cavett Show).

All of the programming carried by PBS, whether news, documentary or entertainment, is created by (or in most cases produced under contract with) other parties, such as individual member stations.

PBS member stations are known for rebroadcasting British television costume dramas, comedies and science fiction programs (acquired from the BBC and other sources) such as Downton Abbey; 'Allo 'Allo!

; The Benny Hill Show, Red Dwarf; The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin; Father Ted; Fawlty Towers; Harry Enfield & Chums; Keeping Up Appearances; Monty Python's Flying Circus; Mr. Bean, The Vicar of Dibley, the original run of Doctor Who, and Sherlock.

In addition, the member stations themselves also produce a variety of local shows, some of which subsequently receive national distribution through PBS or other distributors.

The most prominent exception to this is The Lawrence Welk Show, which has aired continuously in reruns on PBS (through the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority) almost every weekend since 1986.

Reruns of programs originally produced for public television are common, especially with former PBS shows whose hosts have retired or died (for example, The Joy of Painting and Mister Rogers' Neighborhood).

Notable football commentators included Upton Bell, Marty Glickman, Bob Casciola, Brian Dowling, Sean McDonough and Jack Corrigan.

PBS YOU, a distance education and how-to service operated between 2000 and 2006, and was largely succeeded by Create (a similarly formatted network owned by American Public Television).

PBS introduced its first iconographic logo in 1971, a multi-colored wordmark of the network's initials with the P designed to resemble a silhouette of a human face.

[77] Chermayeff & Geismar felt that the Lubalin-designed logo was too similar to those of the three dominant commercial networks of the time, and they sought "to develop a symbol that could stand for the more inclusive concept of 'public television'".

[76] On November 4, 2019, in honor of the network's 50th anniversary, PBS unveiled a revamped brand identity by Lippincott, intended to be better-suited for use on digital platforms.

[82] Tim Goodman of The Hollywood Reporter marked PBS' airing of Downton Abbey as a turning point for the network's reputation and program variety.

[104] Nonetheless, in every year since 2004, surveys of Americans have shown PBS to have been consistently ranked as the most trusted institution in comparison to commercial broadcast and cable television, newspapers, and streaming services, and in January 2021, Americans valued tax dollars spent on PBS behind only military defense and oversight of food and drug safety.

[109] In December 2004, Bill Moyers resigned as a PBS regular, citing political pressure to alter the content of his program, and saying Tomlinson had pursued a "vendetta" against him.

[111] The inspector general's report was issued in November 2005 and described possible political influence on personnel decisions, including e-mail correspondence between Tomlinson and the White House which indicated that Tomlinson "was strongly motivated by political considerations in filling the president/CEO position", a position filled in June 2005 by former Republican National Committee co-chair Patricia Harrison.

[113] In January 2021, Michael Beller, the chief attorney for PBS, resigned after being caught on tape suggesting that the children of Donald Trump supporters should be sent to re-education camps.

[114] In the 1990s, PBS became involved in a dispute over home video licensing rights with Pacific Arts Corporation, a multimedia company owned and operated by former Monkees guitarist Michael Nesmith.

The six plaintiffs included PBS, WGBH-TV, WNET, the Ken Burns-owned American Documentaries and Radio Pioneers Film Project and the Children's Television Workshop.

They sought approximately $5 million in disputed royalties, advances, guarantees and license fees for programs and the use of the PBS logo from the defendants Pacific Arts and Nesmith.

The jury resolved the outstanding license fee issues by ordering Pacific Arts and Nesmith to pay approximately $1.2 million to American Documentaries for The Civil War, about $230,000 to WGBH-TV, and $150,000 to WNET.

[115] Following the ruling, Nesmith expressed his personal disappointment with PBS and was quoted by BBC News as stating "It's like finding your grandmother stealing your stereo.

"[117] The decision never went to an appeals court and the final amount paid to Pacific Arts and Nesmith was an undisclosed sum agreed to in an out-of-court settlement.