NEW YORK, NY.- Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and WNET.ORG jointly announced today that this spring a street-level, glass-walled production facility and television studio will open on the Lincoln Center campus, at the corner of Broadway and 66th Street. The leased space will be used for the production of programming for two of WNET.ORG’s media outlets, Thirteen and WLIW21, the most-watched and the third most-watched public television stations in the nation. The new facility will enable WNET.ORG to offer different types of programs for New York and national audiences and opens the way for new collaborative programming between WNET.ORG and Lincoln Center. The two-level, multipurpose space is part of the dramatic transformation of Lincoln Center, making the campus more transparent and welcoming.

The facility will be the production site for Worldfocus—the new international news program launched in October—which airs in New York, on public television stations across the country, and is available online. In addition, the studio will be used for the production of Thirteen’s weekly arts showcase SundayArts, which debuted this spring. Located in the newly expanded building housing Alice Tully Hall and The Juilliard School, designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in association with FX Fowle, the new production facility will be designed so that the public and passersby can see the programming activity in the studio.

Both Lincoln Center and WNET.ORG’s public television station Thirteen began operating in the early 1960s, a time of heady growth in New York’s cultural and educational sphere. Lincoln Center was the first organization in the United States to bring together major cultural institutions on one campus in the heart of a city. WNET.ORG’s Thirteen, which predated the launch of PBS by eight years, was one of the country’s earliest public television broadcasters. The two institutions have a long history of collaborative programming, including the Emmy Award-winning Live From Lincoln Center. The new project opens another phase in the ongoing relationship between WNET.ORG and Lincoln Center.

“With this new facility, we are bringing WNET.ORG into the life of the city in a new way, enabling New Yorkers and visitors to see into the production process and working with Lincoln Center to add a new dynamism to one of the great streetscapes of New York,” said Neal Shapiro, CEO and President of WNET.ORG. “Like Lincoln Center, WNET.ORG is international in scope, but firmly rooted in this metropolis. Both organizations share a commitment to enriching the cultural and intellectual life of this city and this new facility will provide almost boundless ways to do so.”