'POV Shorts' Leaves PBS for Time Studios' YouTube Channel

By Grace Kim

"POV Shorts," the PBS series devoted to independent short-form documentaries, is moving to Time Studios' YouTube page for its ninth season. The season launches November 17.

The shift isn't total, at least not at first. The two opening films — Crystal Kayiza's "Bloodlines, Mississippi" and Arielle Knight's "The Boys and the Bees" — will still air on PBS. Everything after that becomes exclusive to Time Studios.

What does the lineup look like?

Season 9 runs nine films in total:

• "Bloodlines, Mississippi" (Crystal Kayiza)
• "The Boys and the Bees" (Arielle Knight)
• "Hold Me Close" (Aurora Brachman and LaTajh Simmons-Weaver)
• "Tessitura" (Brit Fryer and Lydia Cornett)
• "In the Morning Sun" (Serville Poblete)
• "Artificial Love" (Arjun Fischer)
• "Buckskin" (Mars Verrone)
• "Still Standing" (Victor Tadashi Suárez and Livia Albeck-Ripka)
• "Who Loves the Sun" (Arshia Shakiba)
• "A Derailment" (Nathan Truesdell)

Six of them have already qualified for Oscars consideration in the documentary short category: "Bloodlines, Mississippi," "The Boys and the Bees," "A Derailment," "Buckskin," "In the Morning Sun" and "Still Standing."

Why the move matters

The mechanism here is straightforward: PBS broadcasts reach a public-television audience, while YouTube reaches viewers who never sought out an independent documentary in the first place. That's the argument from Opal H. Bennett, executive producer of POV Shorts and senior producer of POV.

"Nine seasons in, POV Shorts has shown that a twenty-minute film can change how someone sees a problem they thought they understood," Bennett said in a statement. "Partnering with Time Studios means these stories reach people who might never seek out an independent documentary — which has always been the point."

She framed the season around a single question. "Season 9 asks 'what holds people together when the systems around them fail,'" Bennett said. "A doctor in the Delta fighting to keep patients whole, two brothers learning their homestead, a town living inside the aftermath of a toxic derailment — these films offer answers to that question from completely different perspectives, which is exactly what short form does best."

The two organizations aren't strangers. "POV Shorts" and Time Studios previously collaborated on the Season 6 film "Sol in the Garden," from Débora Souza Silva and Emily Cohen Ibañez. Time Studios has also joined as a distribution partner for the Co-Production Fund from American Documentary/POV Shorts and Chicken & Egg Films.

Justine Simons, executive producer, video, at Time, tied the deal to the company's longer history. "For more than a century, Time has been dedicated to powerful real-world reporting and extraordinary storytelling," Simons said in a statement. "Our partnership with POV Shorts builds on that mission, bringing our audience some of the finest short documentaries being made today. We're thrilled to collaborate on Season 9 and share these remarkable films across our platforms."

The opening films

"Bloodlines, Mississippi," produced by Harri Grace and Paul King in collaboration with Nobel Prize Outreach, "follows Dr. Foluso Fakorede and his team at Cardiovascular Solutions of Central Mississippi as they work to prevent avoidable amputations." Kayiza's film, set in the Mississippi Delta, examines community-centered healthcare as a response to racial disparities and the barriers patients face in accessing treatment within a system shaped by historic inequality.

"The Boys and the Bees," produced by Knight and Sean Weiner, "follows two brothers as they tend hives and restore their family's Georgia homestead, deepening their bond along the way."

What does this change for viewers?

The track record gives the move weight. "POV Shorts" films have won three IDA Documentary Awards for Best Short Form Series and landed several Academy Award nominations since the series launched in 2018. From November 17 onward, YouTube becomes the primary home for that pipeline — free, and no PBS broadcast schedule required.