Beth Hoppe

Beth Hoppe is Chief Programming Executive and General Manager, General Audience Programming at PBS. In this role, she oversees all PBS general audience primetime programming, fundraising programming, and PBS Plus, a package of fully funded programs for stations' use in their weekend schedules. She is responsible for creating and implementing PBS’ primetime content strategy, building on PBS’ series and commissioning new programming working with producers, partners, and funding sources.

Ms. Hoppe joined PBS in 2011 as Vice President, General Audience Programming. Over the last year she has shepherded some timely documentaries including STEVE JOBS – One Last Thing (Pioneer Productions), TITANIC with Len Goodman (BBCWW and 360 Productions), and CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS - Three Men Go to War (Crossing the Line Productions). Ms. Hoppe has curated PBS’ science and history pipeline which includes “Exploration Wednesdays” with new episodes of NATURE (WNET), NOVA, and NOVA ScienceNOW (WGBH), in addition to the partnership between Kunhardt Magee Productions and AOL that will bring MAKERS – Women Who Made America to PBS.

Ms. Hoppe joined PBS from Discovery Studios. Prior to that she was President and CEO of Optomen Productions (USA), a New York-based television production company known for science, reality and factual programming. With Beth in the role of Executive Producer, Optomen produced numerous programs and series for Discovery Channel, Animal Planet, Travel Channel, PBS, and the Food Network. Productions included Monsters Inside Me for Animal Planet, Worst Cooks in America for Food Network, Mars: The Quest for Life and Are We Alone? for Discovery and Science Channel and Most Evil for Discovery and I.D.

Before joining Optomen, Ms. Hoppe spent many years in public television. She was Thirteen/WNET’s Executive Producer of PBS’s ground-breaking Frontier House and Colonial House, both of which were nominated for primetime Emmys, and while Director of Science Programs at Thirteen/WNET, two projects, DNA and The Secret Life of the Brain, won the Emmy award for Outstanding Science Program. Working with Channel 4 in the UK, she created the long running strand Secrets of the Dead, and oversaw numerous productions and co-productions including 1900 House, Savage Seas, Savage Earth, Savage Planet, and Innovation. At WGBH she was series producer of NOVA, and directed and produced several episodes of the series including Great Moments from NOVA with Bill Cosby, and Avalanche! Before NOVA, she directed the Ten O’Clock News. Beth got her start in production at New Hampshire Public Television where she directed and edited New Hampshire Journal, floor managed Granite State Challenge, and ran camera for many productions including UNH Wildcat Hockey.

Ms. Hoppe is serving her third term on the Steering Committee of the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers, appeared on panels at RealScreen and the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, served as a jury member for the Japan Prize and has been a judge of the News and Documentary Emmy Awards. She also has served on National Science Foundation grant review panels and has privately reviewed grants for other organizations.