This article was originally published on the EIDR website in August of 2025.
PBS has joined the board of the Entertainment ID Registry (EIDR), with Rachelle Byars-Sargent, VP of enterprise metadata management for PBS, becoming an EIDR board member.
PBS has long used EIDR’s required fields as a baseline to collect metadata for licensed content. Because episodic titles are known closer to a show’s release, EIDRs are assigned and stored in PBS’s rights management system to correctly identify assets. Additionally, as a distributor, PBS delivers fully packaged content to member stations. To facilitate this, an EIDR Manifestation ID is assigned and accompanies each media file to local station servers to enable identification and disambiguation.
A graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Byars-Sargent has worked for PBS for more than 27 years and currently serves as VP of enterprise metadata management, where she manages the establishment and implementation of PBS’s metadata management strategy. When she was promoted to the position in late 2022, Byars-Sargent was tasked with building an enterprise metadata management team.
Prior to her current position, Byars-Sargent served in several positions with PBS, including senior director of enterprise metadata management, director of enterprise product development, and director of collaborative technology.