If you frequent the Janson Media website, your probably aware of how much we admire the contributions of Wanda Urbanska and her sustainable living movement. Spreading her core message of “less is more” Urbanska has been tapped for her expertise by such media outlets as The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today show, NPR’s All Things Considered and CBS This Morning to champion sustainable lifestyle choices. As the author or co-author of 8 books and the host/producer of America’s first national television series on sustainable living, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, her audience continues to grow. Thanks to a recent article on SecondAct.com, we we’re treated to a first hand account of the effect Wanda’s principles had on a North Carolina couple. It’s amazing to see the inspirational real life experiences that sparked a transition to a simpler, more meaningful life and even lead to a new friendship. For more on the story please visit the SecondAct.com website.

A magazine-style series advocating enhanced quality of life through environmental stewardship; thoughtful consumption; community involvement; and financial responsibility. Simple Living, hosted by Wanda Urbanska, addresses such subjects as lowering your carbon footprint, reducing your personal waste stream, buying locally, green building, and reconnecting with nature. In short, taking one’s life back from the grip of consumerism. Each episode makes the case that change is not only possible but inevitable; it urges viewers to adopt the mindset that “nothing’s too small to make a difference.” Wanda will show you how to replace time-starved, possession-cluttered, high carbon-footprint lives with a more meaningful approach. Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska was produced by Simple Living, LLC, and is available for all television, DVD, VOD, non-theatric, and new media markets worldwide exclusively through Janson Media.

About Wanda Urbanska
Wanda Urbanska is the author or co-author of eight books, including Less is More; Simple Living; Nothing’s too Small to Make a Difference; Moving to a Small Town; and Christmas on Jane Street. A graduate of Harvard University, she makes her home in North Carolina, where she is raising her 12-year-old son, Henry.

She has been tapped for her expertise by such media outlets as The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today show, NPR’s All Things Considered and CBS This Morning to champion sustainable lifestyle choices. She is host/producer of America’s first national television series on sustainable living, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, which premiered on PBS stations in 2004. Her work has been published in such outlets as the Washington Post, Vogue, Glamour, Mother Earth News, Natural Home, Shape and many more. Her web site is www.simplelivingtv.net.

Fresh off the heels of its new deal to become a Content Partner with Hulu, Janson Media announced today that the first season of Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska (8 x 30′) is now available for live viewing on the online video service. Seasons 2, 3 and 4 of Simple Living are also set to launch on Hulu.com between late July and August.

“I am so excited about the launch of my series on hulu.com, which will bring our core message of environmental stewardship; thoughtful consumption; community involvement; and financial responsibility to a wider audience. This series — which was groundbreaking when it launched on public television in 2004 — has never been more timely.”

-Wanda Urbanska, President and host of Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

A magazine-style series advocating enhanced quality of life through environmental stewardship; thoughtful consumption; community involvement; and financial responsibility. Simple Living, hosted by Wanda Urbanska, addresses such subjects as lowering your carbon footprint, reducing your personal waste stream, buying locally, green building, and reconnecting with nature. In short, taking one’s life back from the grip of consumerism. Each episode makes the case that change is not only possible but inevitable; it urges viewers to adopt the mindset that “nothing’s too small to make a difference.” Wanda will show you how to replace time-starved, possession-cluttered, high carbon-footprint lives with a more meaningful approach. Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska was produced by Simple Living, LLC, and is available for all television, DVD, VOD, non-theatric, and new media markets worldwide exclusively through Janson Media.

About Hulu

Founded in March 2007, Hulu is operated independently by a dedicated management team with offices in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Beijing. NBC Universal, News Corp., The Walt Disney Company, Providence Equity Partners and the Hulu team share in the ownership stake of the company. Hulu is an online video service that offers hit TV shows, movies and clips at Hulu.com and other online destination sites. Hulu’s mission is to help people find and enjoy the world’s premium video content when, where and how they want it. As we pursue this mission, we aspire to create a service that users, advertisers, and content owners unabashedly love.

About Wanda Urbanska

Wanda Urbanska is the author or co-author of eight books, including Less is More; Simple Living; Nothing’s too Small to Make a Difference; Moving to a Small Town; and Christmas on Jane Street. A graduate of Harvard University, she makes her home in North Carolina, where she is raising her 12-year-old son, Henry.

She has been tapped for her expertise by such media outlets as The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today show, NPR’s All Things Considered and CBS This Morning to champion sustainable lifestyle choices. She is host/producer of America’s first national television series on sustainable living, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, which premiered on PBS stations in 2004. Her work has been published in such outlets as the Washington Post, Vogue, Glamour, Mother Earth News, Natural Home, Shape and many more. Her web site is www.simplelivingtv.net.

About Janson Media

Established in 1989, Janson Media is an independent content distribution company based in the United States, with a rights portfolio of over 1,500 hours of exclusive programming available for licensing to worldwide television, VOD, DVD/video, and emerging new media platforms. The company has licensed programming to virtually every country in the world, and its clients include nearly every major broadcaster or media company, as well as a wide range of DVD labels and distributors. Janson Media is also a publisher/ manufacturer of award-winning DVDs.

Sustainability advocate, television producer/host and author Wanda Urbanska has been identified by The New York Times as “a spokeswoman for a phenomenon known as the simplicity movement.” In her latest book due May 11th through Krause Publications, The Heart of Simple Living: 7 Paths to a Better Life, Urbanska shares her wisdom in one remarkable volume, laying out 7 clear and inviting paths to the lifestyle for our times.

- The Path to Financial Independence;
- Meaningful Work;
- Housing Happiness;
- Reclaim Homemaking;
- Back into the Kitchen;
- Beating a Path to the Garden; and,
- Reclaiming Ritual & Community for Life.

Wanda’s Urbanska’s simplicity movement grew beyond paperback and hardcovers expanding to the small screen in 2004 with Wanda Urbanska’s Simple Living, the first nationally syndicated television series of its kind. For years, Wanda’s magazine style series has offered thoughtful ideas and actionable tips for viewers to become better environmental stewards and more thoughtful consumers. Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska was produced by Simple Living, LLC, and is available for all television, DVD, VOD, non-theatric, and new media markets worldwide exclusively through Janson Media. Episodes from the TV series are available for online viewing at janson.tv.

“The era of over-consumption is over,” declares Urbanska. “Now more than ever, Americans are embracing values of simplicity, understanding that less is more and finding more meaning in their lives through friends, families and community.” Here’s what the critics are saying about Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska…

Once dubbed “the de facto Martha Stewart of the voluntary simplicity movement,” Wanda Urbanska has carved out her own niche as an expert in simple living, and this five-episode set from the 2004 debut season of her public television series covers a range of topics, from living simply and sustainably in big cities (Chicago and San Diego are featured) to combating global warming. One thought-provoking segment discusses efforts to help contemporary youth—who spend much of their time indoors—reconnect with nature. The last two installments, which cover a “green remodel” of Urbanska’s 1956 ranch home in Mount Airy, NC, bring home the complex issues homeowners might face tackling such projects. The technical quality of the UNC-TV production varies (with repeated shots and some fuzzy focusing), but Urbanska’s energy and enthusiasm more than compensate, and while much of the information is familiar (use compact fluorescent bulbs; dry the laundry outside; compost; turn off the lights; buy local), Urbanska also offers hope for a sustainable future while underscoring the important message of “reduce, reuse, recycle.” As she says at the end of each episode, “Nothing is too small to make a difference.” Recommended. Aud: P. (F. Gardner) – Video Librarian

About Wanda Urbanska
Wanda Urbanska is the author or co-author of eight books, including Less is More; Simple Living; Nothing’s too Small to Make a Difference; Moving to a Small Town; and Christmas on Jane Street. A graduate of Harvard University, she makes her home in North Carolina, where she is raising her 12-year-old son, Henry.

She has been tapped for her expertise by such media outlets as The Oprah Winfrey Show, the Today show, NPR’s All Things Considered and CBS This Morning to champion sustainable lifestyle choices. She is host/producer of America’s first national television series on sustainable living, Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, which premiered on PBS stations in 2004. Her work has been published in such outlets as the Washington Post, Vogue, Glamour, Mother Earth News, Natural Home, Shape and many more. Her web site is www.simplelivingtv.net.

Janson Media announced today that Wanda Urbanska will be speaking at the 2009 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference to be held in Chicago, July 9th – 15th. The host/producer of the PBS syndicated Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska has risen to become a pioneer in the movement of frugal, conscious, and sustainable living. An author/coauthor of several books on the trend, Urbanska has also been called on for her expert commentary by the likes of Oprah, The Today Show, CBS This Morning and Good Morning America, among others. She can be seen on Sunday, July 12th at 10:30 AM as she discusses how librarians can become advocates for environmental friendliness.

The American Library Association (ALA) is a non-profit organization based in the United States that promotes libraries and library education internationally. It is the oldest and largest library association in the world, with more than 65,000 members. The ALA annual conference is notable for being one of the largest professional conferences in existence, typically drawing over 25,000 attendees. The 2009 Annual Conference will take place in Chicago, IL July 9- July 15, 2009 at McCormick Place West located at 2301 S. Lake Shore Drive Chicago, IL 60616.

Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska (39 x 30′) is a magazine-style series advocating enhanced quality of life through environmental stewardship; thoughtful consumption; community involvement; and financial responsibility. Simple Living, hosted by Wanda Urbanska, addresses such subjects as lowering your carbon footprint, reducing your personal waste stream, buying locally, green building, and reconnecting with nature. In short, taking one’s life back from the grip of consumerism. Distributed worldwide exclusively through Janson Media, the series can be seen on your local PBS station in HD.

Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska was produced by Simple Living, LLC, and is available for all television, DVD, VOD, non-theatric, and new media markets worldwide exclusively through Janson Media. Episodes from the TV series are available for online viewing at janson.tv.

Janson Media today announced the worldwide release of Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska, a DVD featuring five introductory episodes of the popular, public television series of the same name. The release marks the extension of the Simple Living brand into the DVD market, where it introduces a message in keeping with the times and the realities of the new economy: frugal, conscious, sustainable living. Simple Living – which made its debut in 2004 as the first nationally syndicated television series of its kind – offers thoughtful ideas and actionable tips for viewers to become better environmental stewards, more thoughtful consumers, fiscally responsible, and involved with community.

These five episodes travel cross country, from Chicago to San Diego to America’s “small town” of Mount Airy, North Carolina, to show you how to live simply in the city or country, to reduce your carbon footprint and fight global warming, to connect with nature and gardening, and to do a “green remodel” of your own home, as Wanda does with her 1956 brick rancher. This sampler will inspire you to reclaim the good life through simple living.

The PBS television series has been hailed by reviewers ranging from the New York Times, which called Wanda “a spokeswoman for the simplicity movement,” to O, The Oprah Magazine, which described Wanda as “the de facto Martha Stewart of the voluntary simplicity movement.” Utne Reader called it “…a kind of This Old House for the American Dream.” “If you feel overwhelmed…” said the Washington Post, “watch the series.”

Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska was produced by Simple Living, LLC, and is available for all television, DVD, VOD, non-theatric, and new media markets worldwide exclusively through Janson Media. Episodes from the TV series are available for online viewing at janson.tv.

SIMPLE LIVING WITH WANDA URBANSKA DVD
LENGTH: Program: 140 Minutes
MSRP: $24.95
CATALOG#: 20388
UPC#: 6-4603203889-7
ISBN#: 1-56839-318-0
RELEASE YEAR: 2009
PRODUCER: Simple Living, LLC
STREET DATE: May 27th, 2009

Janson Media announced today that it has entered into a distribution agreement with Simple Living, LLC, of Mount Airy, North Carolina to release its successful “simplicity movement” series, Simple Living With Wanda Urbanska (39 x 30′) to worldwide television, DVD, VOD, and New Media markets. The series, which originally debuted on public television in 2004, inspires viewers to replace time-starved, possession-cluttered, high carbon-footprint lives with a more meaningful approach.

The show, hosted by the elegant, empathetic and congenial Wanda Urbanska, focuses on four interlinked themes — environmental stewardship, thoughtful consumption, community involvement and financial responsibility. Each episode makes the case that change is not only possible but inevitable; it urges viewers to adopt the mindset that “nothing’s too small to make a difference.”

“The Simple Living organization is delighted to be working with Janson Media on the international distribution and DVD sales of our series. The uplifting, family-friendly values at Janson definitely resonate with the positive, community-oriented, earth-friendly messaging of Simple Living. We look forward to a long, working relationship,” said Wanda Urbanska.

After completing its fourth successful season in April 2008, Simple Living offers a catalog of 39 half-hour programs with such notable guests as former President Jimmy Carter; California First Lady Maria Shriver; climate change activist Bill McKibben; actor and environmentalist Ed Begley Jr.; and small home advocate Sarah Susanka. Simple Living features non-celebrity guests as well and such diverse themes as tracing one’s roots; learning a foreign language; the link between art and simplicity; and ways to reduce one’s personal waste stream. Financial topics such as frugality, bartering and breaking the dependence on credit cards are covered.

“We think the timing is better than ever before for a relaunching of the Simple Living brand,” said Stephen Janson of Janson Media. “The series is a handbook for how to live a sustainable existence, and in our new ‘post-financial crisis’ world, we will all need to relearn how to live simply.”

Established in 1989, Janson Media is an independent content distribution company based in the United States, with a rights portfolio of over 1,500 hours of exclusive programming available for licensing to worldwide television, VOD, DVD/video, and emerging new media platforms. The company has licensed programming to virtually every country in the world, and its clients include nearly every major broadcaster or media company, as well as a wide range of DVD labels and distributors. Janson Media is also a publisher/ manufacturer of award-winning DVDs.

The Simple Living project was established in April 2000. Based in Mount Airy, NC, the project was initially funded through a combination grassroots effort of individual contributions and the support of 20 area foundations. The first run of the series, consisting of eight half-hour programs, began broadcast on PBS stations nationally in July 2004, reaching 84% of US TV households — an outstanding number for a newly launched series. The series is produced by the Simple Living Company in partnership with American Public Television (APT) and University of North Carolina Public Television (UNCTV). Wanda Urbanska is a nationally recognized simplicity advocate, speaker and author or co-author of several books, including Simple Living (1992) and Nothing’s Too Small to Make a Difference (2004).