PBS Faces Financial Challenges

[DoYouEverWonder]

February 26, 2005

CHALLENGES: The Public Broadcasting Service has seen cuts in corporate underwriting, while production and other costs have outpaced the small increases in government funding.

FUNDING: Less than 20 percent of PBS funding comes from Congress. The rest comes from fund raising, corporate underwriting and station member dues. Recently, PBS established a foundation so that it could accept large donations.

http://www.newsday.com/news/politics/wire/sns-ap-pbs-chief-summary-box,0,2529935.story?coll=sns-ap-politics-headlines


Gee, maybe that hard turn to the right wasn't such a good idea after all?

I know that for myself I will never donate another dime to PBS, not if they want to continue to be the Propaganda Broadcast System.

[Toucano]

1. Step one:

Make bed.

Step two:

Lie in it.

I think PBS is one of the things I miss most about America.

[Psephos]

2. There's a flaw in that reasoning, IMHO

PBS is public TV, not Democrat TV, not Republican TV, not Southerner TV, not Atheist TV, not Gay TV, not Native American TV, not Suburban Bourgeoisie TV, etc., etc.

PBS needs to express a diversity of viewpoints. If each group or subgroup with a political identity thinks PBS should only reflect their view of the world, then PBS is no longer public.

Please continue to support them. If you disagree with some content, write them and let them know in reasoned language why. They listen.

[DoYouEverWonder]

3. They listen - ha, ha, ha

I've written. They never even send an auto response. I don't know anyone else that's ever gotten a response either.

[Psephos]

4. Whether or not they write back to you is a separate issue

No question, they should acknowledge your submissions. Are you writing to an individual station (e.g., WNET), or PBS HQ in Washington?

I'm in the television business, and can assure you that viewer feedback figures *strongly* in deciding which shows PBS commissions, and how to produce them once they are commissioned. Especially these days.

[dogpatch]

5. I wish you'd rethink that position

Okay, I'm biased because I've worked as a independent producer for public tv for 10 years and you can believe how frustrated and scared I and many of my colleagues are about the intense pressure coming from the right and the financial situation which is only getting worse. But think for a second about the fact that 5 multinationals own pretty much the entire mainstream media universe and ask yourself if you really want to let this one little teeny sliver of public-owned air space be snuffed out.

Instead of flinging really stupid and insulting names about, how about if you show some of the same backbone you're demanding of PBS? Push back against the right wing by supporting independent works on public tv, write letters to your representatives on both sides of the aisle (many of whom are still actually supporting us, on both sides), and send a few goddam lousy dollars to keep non-commercial production going. Find a producer who's working on a project intended for PBS if the national system makes you too sick, or contribute to your local station and make demands of them. If you give up then the bastards have won, and just like with social security, they've been trying to get rid of us from the minute we began back in the 60s.

[DoYouEverWonder]

6. I was not referring to independent producers

or local programming.

Yes, most of those people and shows deserve all the support they can get.

However, my snide remarks are for the parent organization, which is a sad dying shadow of their former selves.

I can barely sit through the News Hour anymore and I use to watch that show religously.

Frontline and Nightline have become little more than propaganda outlets towing the party line, no longer the cutting edge investigative programs that they use to be.

My advise to people who still want to donate, is to only donate during their fund drives when a program you support is being shown. They do take into account what is on, when the donations come in.

[KharmaTrain]

7. PBS Deserves Support

Most problems people have with Public television is on the local level. I do no donate to one of the public stations any longer since they have whored themselves to local corporations and continously crying poor (they had an announcer asking for people to include the station in their wills and estates...sheesh) while making millions and squandering a lot of it. Hopefully a housecleaning will happen soon and I'll resume donating locally.

Nationally, PBS is a national treasure. Nova, Frontline, Nature, American Experience, Sesame Street and the list goes on of quality programs that surpass anything the commercial networks crank out. These programs and the network deserves support.

There's a Catch 22 as running a television operation is expensive and "people intensive", thus there is a need to find "alternative" funding sources. I don't mind when a company gets a mention at the start of the show as long as I know the integrity of the program isn't compromised...and for the most part, while I see it on locally produced shows, I don't see it on the PBS ones.

Sadly, if left to membership, we'd have no public television and depending too much on government money asks for partisan manipulation. While imperfect, I can't think of a better way for PBS to be structured.

[depakid]

8. Yep- PBS & NPR have made their beds

It's too bad- but it was bound to happen. Gingrich set out to destroy them, but the right found it more useful to squeeze and subvert them instead.

They lost a lot of viewership and listenership, in addition to financial support. Part of me says good riddance-

[dogpatch]

9. Actually, no, it started with Nixon

PBS infuriated Nixon and he really screwed it up by preventing it from gaining any power as an actual network. Instead he pushed to keep it a Balkanized group of 300-some individual stations. The argument in favor of this is that you have all these stations with local control, productions/programming and constituencies but the argument in contra of course is that there is no real system or central organization.

PBS is just a programming service, not a network. And actually the folks at PBS are sick about what's happening politically. It's a terrible blow that we're losing Pat Mitchell. CPB, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is the entity that provides production funding, and is the one that is under extremely intense White House pressure right now. But they are separate entities.

The whole system is a mess but like I said, let's fight to keep it and fix it, not toss it out wholesale.

[depakid]

10. That's very interesting

I need to learn more about the history and structure of PBS.

The why I said part of me says... is that I recognize some of the problems with the current organizational "form." Much of the programming is invaluable (a few gems have been mentioned by other posters- and there are others) but some of it (like what passes for news anymore) is little different than the mainstream media- and perhaps worse in the sense that it enjoys undue credibility. Paul Gigot, I mean- really.

I also have had a few minor run ins with OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting) in Portland and found them very unresponsive- and quite unwilling to consider doing much outrreach to the local community. They are stodgy, resistent to change and thus have had little appeal to young people- and its affected their viewership and listenership over the years (much to theirs and all of our) detriment.

[SoCalDem]

PBS has ALWAYS faced financial challenges

at least since the republicans took control. They apparently cannot survive without the congressional financial help, and wihen financial help is given, there are obviously strings attached. As their programming morphs into republican-friendly, their base audience falls, and with it, the subscriber money, which only means they need MORE money from congress. It's a vicious cycle. They lean right, and lose more viewers (repubes never cared much for , or watched PBS anyway), and the programming just gets worse.

The goal for repubes is to KILL IT..not improve it. Repubes are patient, and are willing to underfund PBS into oblivion. They can then pat themselves on the backs and make claims about how they TRIED to save it, but it was too far gone, and too "librul", and there is no audience. They will proclaim a "mercy-killing", and that will be the ned of it.

The subscribers will not continue to send money only to see Tucker Carlson, old BBC re-runs,and assorted right wing loons .

It's sad too, because PBS used to be wonderful.

[SoCalDem]

11. oops...a dupe

:)