WLIW promotes itself as a more locally oriented station than WNET. For most of the late 1990s and early 2000s, it branded itself as "New York Public Television." However, it is a major producer of national PBS and American Public Television programming in its own right, much like WNET. Among its more prominent shows are the innovative "Visions" series and many music specials featuring noted American performers like Frank Sinatra, Billy Joel, Neil Sedaka, Ricky Nelson and international stars like Helmut Lotti and Sarah Brightman. Regular hosts of these specials produced for PBS include Laura Savini, Terrel Cass, Mark Simone, David Rubinson and Lisa Jandovitz.