INSIGHT 

Connecting global audiences through partnerships: How Prefects found the world

20 November 2025 
Amidst a difficult global environment challenging media companies’ budgets and reach, international collaboration and great storytelling has the power to overcome modest budgets and ensure good content can reach a global audience. 
Prefects: We Make the Rules title poster.
Prefects - series produced by PVI. Credit: PVI

By Paul Falzone, Founder and Executive Director of Peripheral Vision International 

In a media landscape defined by fragmentation and fierce competition for audience attention, Prefects has proven that great storytelling transcends borders. Produced in Kenya by Peripheral Vision International (PVI) on a modest budget, the International Emmy-nominated TV series has now been licensed to more than 50 television channels and streaming platforms around the world. Its success story is not just about one show – it’s about the potential of collaboration between public media and emerging creators from the Global South. 

Through the support of the Public Media Alliance (PMA),  Prefects  reached audiences far beyond its original home in East Africa. PMA’s outreach to its international membership helped connect the series with broadcasters across Africa, as well as in the Caribbean, Asia, and the Americas—including Jamaica, Trinidad, Belize, Malaysia, and Sri Lanka. These partnerships demonstrate how a shared commitment to public service media can amplify authentic voices and diverse stories to audiences everywhere. 

Public media broadcasters today face a dual challenge: shrinking budgets and a rapidly evolving media ecosystem. Streaming platforms–many operating at a loss–are transforming audience expectations, while the traditional funding models that sustain public broadcasters are under increasing pressure. Yet this moment of disruption also presents an opportunity. By embracing creative, cost-effective partnerships, public media can expand its reach and relevance in ways that serve both their missions and their audiences. 

Prefects—a drama that blends humour, heart, and social insight—illustrates what’s possible when public media connects with this new creative ecosystem. Its global journey is not just a testament to the power of story, but also to the spirit of cooperation that defines public media at its best. 

One promising avenue lies in looking beyond national borders for programming that reflects a truly global audience. As populations become more diverse and more interconnected, audiences are seeking stories that mirror that reality. Collaborating with producers from other regions can help broadcasters showcase fresh perspectives, deepen cultural understanding, and engage younger viewers. 

Nowhere is this opportunity more apparent than in Sub-Saharan Africa. Over the past decade, major streaming platforms have invested in upskilling local talent in Africa. The result has been an explosion of creativity and technical skill—but also a growing pool of creators whose ambitions outstrip the budgets available to them. Public broadcasters, with their mandate to inform, educate, and entertain, are uniquely positioned to bridge this gap. By offering global exposure to these creators, broadcasters can access high-quality, emotionally resonant content at affordable rates, while fulfilling their public service mission in innovative ways. 

Prefects—a drama that blends humour, heart, and social insight—illustrates what’s possible when public media connects with this new creative ecosystem. Its global journey is not just a testament to the power of story, but also to the spirit of cooperation that defines public media at its best. 

As the lines between local and global continue to blur, the future of public media may depend less on scale and more on connection: between creators and broadcasters, between continents, and between audiences who recognize themselves in each other’s stories.  

Partnerships like those fostered by the Public Media Alliance show how, even in times of financial constraint, creativity and collaboration can keep public media both vital and vibrant. 

Peripheral Vision International

Peripheral Vision International (PVI), an affiliate member of Public Media Alliance, is an international non-profit organisation that produces public interest and educational content. Through innovation and adaptation, PVI employs appropriate technologyto create engaging, relevant content, enabling it to connect with a wide audience that has limited access to public interest media.An award-winning media NGO, PVI’s mission is to use media, technology, and popular culture to catalyse social change in Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond. 

PMA members have been offered the free distribution rights to the educational drama Prefects and this year a new science tv series N*Gen. Members still interested in this offer can apply by emailing info@publicmediaalliance.org.  

About the author

Paul Falzone headshot

Dr. Paul Falzone is a social entrepreneur, media expert and an Emmy and Peabody nominated producer. He is the Founder and Executive Director of Peripheral Vision International, an NGO that researches, creates and distributes entertainment-education internationally and whose TV programs have been broadcast on more than 100 channels/platforms around the world.

His publications include the book “Entertainment-Education Behind the Scenes: Case Studies for Theory and Practice” (Palgrave Macmillan 2021). He has been an invited speaker at MIT, Cornell, The New School, BBC Media Action, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the World Bank Global Forum, SBCC and many other conferences, universities and institutions.

He earned an MA and PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania.

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