WASHINGTON, D.C. — He’s been at the helm of Inside the Beltway advocacy group America’s Public Television Stations working on behalf of educational broadcast UHFs and VHFs since January 2011.
Come 2024, this longtime leader will be retiring.
Patrick Butler will stay on through the selection of his successor, but no later than the end of next year.
During Butler’s tenure, federal and state funding for public broadcasting reached record levels, APTS notes. Additionally, the group says that under his direction, APTS has pursued a strategy to help stations achieve “greater success through greater service,” concentrating on three pillars of local public service: education, public safety and civic leadership.
“It has been my great honor to advance the cause of America’s public television stations during a period of extraordinary challenge and opportunity,” Butler said. “I am grateful for the support of a visionary board of trustees, a station community profoundly dedicated to public service, and the wonderful people with whom I am privileged to serve at APTS Global Headquarters.”
APTS board chair Franz Joachim, CEO/GM of New Mexico PBS, commented, “He has been an innovator, a builder and a committed public servant throughout his career, and it is precisely these talents and instincts that America’s public television stations have needed most during his transformative years with us.”
NAB President/CEO Curtis LeGeyt congratulated Butler on “his well-deserved retirement in 2024,” noting, “Pat’s transformational leadership on behalf of public TV stations has helped usher in a new era of public broadcasting that provides invaluable support to our communities. I am personally grateful for his kindness, his friendship and his deep commitment to the power of broadcast television to improve and uplift our communities. I thank him for his lifetime of service and wish him all the best.”
