Picture Elmo from “Sesame Street” dancing with joy.

That’s how Steven Schupak felt when he learned he would be the next president and CEO of Maryland Public Television, he said in a recent interview.

“I felt very happy,” Schupak said. “This is something that I’ve wanted to do for a long period of time.”

Schupak has worked at MPT for more than 20 years and will lead the organization starting July 1, taking over from outgoing CEO Larry Unger. Schupak joined the organization in 2003 and admitted he didn’t expect to love it as much as he has.

“I told my wife I’d probably be there for two years, and I absolutely fell in love with it,” he said.

MPT is the only statewide broadcaster in Maryland, and its television and digital programs also reach people in parts of Washington, Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. It carries well-loved national PBS news and entertainment series as well as local programming and specials like Chesapeake Bay Week and HBCU Week.

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Schupak recently spoke with The Baltimore Banner about the challenges facing public media and what MPT is doing to meet viewers where they are.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What made you want to pursue a career in film and television production?

It seemed just really cool, frankly, to work in video. Video was going portable in those years. Before that, it was always big, heavy cameras and studio-based recording machines. And suddenly people had portable video.

It was an exciting time to be involved in content creation, and I thought, “I want to do something that much fun.” And it has never stopped being that much fun.

I’m not pointing a camera anymore, but creating the broadcasts and licensing these shows, partnering with people, being part of the production, it’s really exciting. I still get energized by it.

What made you take the jump from commercial stations to public television?

At my last job, we were producing for Discovery Channel, TLC, Animal Planet, History Channel and [HGTV]. We were doing documentaries about prisoners of war, about military disasters like the USS Forrestal ... and doing really serious and entertaining work. Almost within six months, the people that we were negotiating and licensing with at the cable networks turned and said, “Well, we would now like a reality show with some coeds that are, you know, living in a group house, but it can’t be the ‘Jersey Shore,’ because MTV is doing that.”

I said to myself, “I’m not sure I want to do that with my life.”

I saw [public television] as the people who were still doing real, quality work. Instead of having quick sound bites, they could have a deeper understanding of science and technology and social issues and environment and natural history and the arts. I thought, “Wow, they’re really doing terrific things.”

Public television was originally threatened because all of these cable networks popped up and were creating whole networks based on genres that were in many, many instances created by public television. But then the cable networks moved away from it. Instead of having cooking on Food Network, they were having competition shows. Bravo, which was an arts channel, just started doing “Real Housewives” shows.

That was the time I joined public television. It was a rebirth of public television, and we have been growing and satisfying audiences ever since then. We’ve never looked back.

What have you found most fulfilling about working for MPT?

You could almost dream up anything at a station like MPT if you bring in the right partners and a vision. We’re doing education now for a program called “Carl the Collector‚” the first animated television series where the lead character, Carl, a raccoon, is on the autism spectrum. He’s neurodivergent, and we have been amazed by how well this has been received.

It started only in November, and it’s a bona fide hit with parents because many people have somebody in their immediate or extended family — or a neighbor or someone at their school — who is somewhere on the spectrum. This really bridges the gap and helps people understand each other. … It’s very rewarding working on a program like that.

You’ve had many roles at MPT. What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned over the years across your different jobs?

I think sometimes in public television, we try to be all things to all people. Today’s media landscape is so competitive that we must pick a handful of things that we know we can do better and differently than others, and really focus on those. So, I think I’ve learned the discipline of focusing our energies.

What would you say are the biggest challenges facing public media today?

The biggest challenge for any educational or arts organization is funding. We have to work very hard to find the funding to match our ambitions. This is a particularly challenging time, but we’ve had challenging times before.

Our streaming service, the PBS app, is free. A lot of people pay for Netflix and Amazon and Paramount Plus. Our streaming service, which is very robust with wonderful dramas and documentaries and natural history and the arts, is free. We’re spending a lot of time and energy bringing this to the attention of the public.

So that’s a big challenge: making sure we have stability and communicating what’s on, how you can get us and making sure we’re fully funded.

Where do you see MPT in the next five years?

We are doubling down on creating engaging content in genres that people have come to expect from us, including the arts, education, natural history, news and public affairs and nonfiction works that help and support our community, create dialog and inspire our audiences.

We want to continue to do more, but we must bring that content, in a very competitive world, to where our viewers are. Let them know that, however they want to enjoy MPT programming, we’re going to provide it on that platform.

We have a brand spanking new app just for mobile. We redid our website. We have a YouTube channel. All of these things are to meet our viewers in ways they want to engage with their content.

So, it’s making great content, but also making sure that we get it delivered in a way that they know about it and they can access it.

What would success look like for you as CEO of MPT?

Success to us looks like engaging more with our community, on stories that are important to them all across the state, and making sure we represent every corner of our viewing area.

Folks who live on the Eastern Shore have different interests — they’re on the water more and they’re thinking about agriculture — than people living in Baltimore, who are living a more urban life. People in Western Maryland are in the mountains, people living outside of Washington and Prince George’s County and Montgomery County, they’re living more of a suburban life.

All of these folks look at their life in Maryland a little bit differently. We want to make sure we have programs that appeal to all of them.