Aiming to help fill in part of the gap that recent funding cuts have created, Janis’ upcoming PBS pledge special, “Tim Janis: Our Natural World, Returning to Earth,” airs on Rocky Mountain PBS at 7 p.m. Aug. 20 and 4 p.m. Aug. 23.

Tim Janis and his wife, Elizabeth Demmer Janis, moved to Marble, Colorado, in 2023 to intentionally bring together his connection to nature with public broadcasting. 

A musical composer with seven previous PBS specials, Janis began work on his next public broadcasting special just a year after moving to Marble. Upon its completion, he found that PBS was likely to receive massive funding cuts from the federal government. 

According to Janis, donations have always been integral to funding PBS, so it was a given that the loss of these government dollars would be impactful. 

“I was with public television stations in general since I started many years ago,” said Janis. “The pledge was important then when they had (public) funding. Now they don’t have that funding, so pledge is even more important.”

PBS receives some of its funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was directed to cut its budget by about $1 billion in July. CPB funds go to both NPR and PBS, neither of which function entirely on government funds but will likely feel the  loss of about $500 million each in public funds, according to CBS News. 

Public broadcast pledge shows like Janis’ upcoming project largely benefit the station by occasionally interrupting broadcasting to encourage viewers to donate to the station or buy CDs from the current broadcast, with 90% of those proceeds going to PBS. 

Janis’ new hour and a half long pledge show features collaborators like actor and environmentalist Robert Redford and zoologist Jane Goodall, among others. 

The music was composed and performed by Janis locally in his Marble home, as well as being an international collaboration. It features artists like Lynn Hilary, a musician who has performed in the Celtic Woman ensemble.

Visually, the project radiates from Marble out into the international community with dances by Janis’ wife, filmed in Janis’ home in Marble, as well as visuals from artists from around the world like Elizabeth Gadd from Banff, Emily Ristevski from Australia, and Jonna Jinton from Sweden.

“This mixture of amazing women photographers have explored our earth and put together incredible imagery and shared their stories,” Janis said. 

Those three artists, and others, film themselves in the natural world, sharing their culture and bond to nature.

“Public broadcasting is important because we need local voices,” Janis concluded. “It’s a broadcast that originates from where we are, here in Colorado, and it’s going to speak more relevantly to the things that we need to hear about.”