Conservatives and Rivals Press a Struggling PBS

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 - It was no accident that PBS found itself turning to Elmo, the popular "Sesame Street" character, to lobby on Capitol Hill this week. There were not many options.

Public television is suffering from an identity crisis, executives inside the Public Broadcasting Service and outsiders say, and it goes far deeper than the announcement by Pat Mitchell that she would step down next year as the beleaguered network's president.

Some public television executives said that running PBS was a thankless job, and that managing a far-flung network composed of independent fiefs around the country was a particularly daunting assignment. They also said they were facing larger issues that would challenge any executive, like increased competition from the cable industry.

Corporate underwriters have been less willing to finance PBS programs, which has left the network increasingly dependent on Washington, where Republicans criticize its programming as elitist and liberal.

"The biggest problem we've got is the structure we've got," Alberto Ibarguen, the chairman of PBS and the publisher of The Miami Herald, said in an interview yesterday. "It assumes a lot of government funding, continuing heavy levels of corporate image advertising and no competition. But in the world we're in - the world of increased cable competition, less and less government funding and cutbacks in corporate image advertising - it's a significant problem if that's your business model."

Mr. Ibarguen added: "The risk is the tighter your budgets get, the less you can afford to fail. If you can't afford to fail, you can't afford to take risks."

Among the challenges that Ms. Mitchell has confronted is a trend, lasting nearly a decade, in which corporations have scaled back on the so-called "image advertising" through which they had once financed programs like "Masterpiece Theater." According to PBS's financial statements, revenues drawn from program underwriting - which are paid directly to producers, but catalogued by PBS - reached a five-year peak of $221.9 million in 2001, dropped to $179.4 million in 2003, and rebounded slightly to $184.3 million last year.

PBS hopes to relieve some of the pressure by creating a huge endowment from the proceeds of reselling the spectrum used by its stations when they trade their current broadcast positions for new high-definition stations later in the decade. But that will take persuading the same Congressional and administration officials who have objected to its programming.

Conservatives have complained about Bill Moyers's news program (he has since retired from it) and about a recent children's program featuring a rabbit named Buster who visited a pair of lesbian parents.

After Education Secretary Margaret Spellings threatened to retract financing for that program - a controversy that some called Bustergate - Ms. Mitchell decided not to distribute it.

In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Mitchell, 62, said she had felt no pressure, either from inside her board or outside of PBS, to step aside.

She also said she had not been personally pressured to change programming by Republicans at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides federal money to the system. But she said her programmers had worked with their counterparts at the corporation, which is led by White House appointees, in developing several new shows, including a talk show for the conservative commentator Tucker Carlson.

"They certainly want to make sure we are providing a balanced schedule," she said. "We believe we are. We check that with the people we report to - our member stations and the American public."

One high-level executive at PBS headquarters in Washington, who declined to be identified because of the sensitivity of the situation for PBS, said new managers at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had been concerned about a perceived liberal bias at PBS as well as difficulties in fund-raising.

"The thing to remember with public broadcasting is that everything is steered by the money," the executive said. "What used to be a unique thing is now in this competitive environment and has to do whatever it can to survive, which means bending in a way it used to never bend."

Now that 85 percent of Americans subscribe to cable or satellite television, PBS's children shows, historical dramas and wildlife documentaries face competitors like the History Channel, Discovery, A & E, the National Geographic Channel, BBC America, Nickelodeon, and The Learning Channel. PBS has responded by forging new alliances, like a recent agreement to show HBO films.

Ms. Mitchell, who was interviewed between lobbying meetings, said she would devote the rest of her tenure to raising money. Officials at PBS and its affiliated stations are beginning to lobby for a share of the windfall the federal government may get later this decade when public television stations and other over-the-air broadcasters stop using the airwaves to transmit analog signals, relying instead on digital signals over cable and satellite systems.

Once the broadcasters' part of the spectrum is open, the federal government stands to collect tens of billions of dollars by reselling it to other users like wireless broadband companies. Lobbyists for public television stations are supporting legislation that would put some of the money in a trust fund for public television.

Senator Christopher J. Dodd, a Connecticut Democrat sponsoring the legislation along with Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, has called for the trust fund to be administered by an independent agency following the sort of procedures used by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health.

Some critics, like Tim Graham of the Media Research Center, a conservative watchdog group, are reluctant to give PBS any independent endowment.

"They want to create an empire that does not have to answer to the Congress or the people," Mr. Graham said. "Conservatives do not want to give more tax dollars to television stations that attack their ideas."

But there are some sympathetic conservatives, at least among the advisers on the Digital Future Initiative committee created by Ms. Mitchell, which met Wednesday in Washington to contemplate how PBS could put a trust fund to use. Norman Orenstein, a committee member who also sits on the PBS board, said Republicans on the committee believed that a trust fund could pay for socially useful programming.

"We're focusing on education and children and making the case that public broadcasting can do valuable things in a digital age that no one else can or will do," said Mr. Orenstein, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative research group.

"You couldn't have a tougher budget environment," Mr. Orenstein said, "and you're going to have vicious scrambling over discretionary domestic spending."

Referring to the recent programming incident, he said, "The timing couldn't have been worse on the Buster thing. This is not a time you want to be in the cross hairs."

PBS is also being criticized by others, like Jeffrey Chester, the executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy and a longtime advocate of more money for public television.

"I'm concerned that PBS is so desperate for funding and support from the Republican-dominated Congress that they're willing to sell their legacy," Mr. Chester said. "They could forgo their historic mandate to do cutting-edge programming and replace it with Bush-administration-friendly educational content."

John Tierney reported from Washington for this article, and Jacques Steinberg from New York.

Another excellent candidate for budget cutting.

If the states want to spend money on funding public television (and some do), that's fine. But there is no need at the federal level to fund "public" programming; in these times of a huge federal deficit, this would be a great cut.

"The biggest problem we've got is the structure we've got"

No, idiot.
The biggest problem PBS has is its rabid loony left, anti-Americn, anti-Bush, pro-terrorist agenda.
I don't see any reason why even one cent of tax payers' money should be used to subsidize such an nasty, vicious propaganda and disinformation outfit like PBS.
Screw them.

Republicans on the committee believed that a trust fund could pay for socially useful programming.

I don't care if they're Republicans or Democrats. When I hear politicians using taxpayer funds for "socially useful programming" it gives me the creeps

So PBS is content they are balanced because they checked with memeber stations. Presumably like the one in Boston that illegally gave the DEMOCRATIC Party its mailing list--. Oh yeah that is good feedback.

BTW--is Tucker Carlson actually a consevative commentator??? Not that I have heard, when he speaks. It could only be by comparison with Bill Press maybe.

Watching PBS today is like drinking white zinfandel with liberal arts grad students after visiting the community theater in some state college town. It's for people who want to pretend that they are classy, sophisticated, and above everyone else.

LONG past time to defund the malicious, evil ultra-left PBS and NPR.

Here is hoping the Republicans grow a brain. And testicles.

I, for one, detest NPR more than I do PBS, and I REALLY REALLY hate PBS. I find the arrogance of the radio voices more than I can stand.

"...perceived liberal bias..."
"...has to do whatever it can to survive, which means bending in a way it used to never bend."

Liberal bias is first offered as an allegation, then openly admitted to just a couple of sentences later. Does anybody think that PBS is full of anything but Birkenstock-clad leftwing granola grazers?
History channel, Discovery channel, A&E, Nickelodeon, Learning channel, and Animal Planet all do everything that PBS can do... only much better and without tax dollars.

Translation: PBS can't survive in a free market, so it requires money from socialist ... er, coerced charity ... darn! I mean the public treasury just to survive. Then to compound the offense, the network manages to bite just about every hand that feeds it.

It deserves to die.

And next, we should set our sights on National Public Radio, the audio-only version of the same offenses.

Sesame Street is a product of the Television Workshop, which I assume is held by a private company. I think PBS pays to broadcast Sesame Street. I don't know who owns Emily and Clifford but I would again assume the author of the book Emily and Clifford would own the marketing rights for the characters. Public Television is a topsy turvy world where the network that broadcast some of the Mega profit making toys get no cut of the profits from those toys. Those that make a profit off of the merchandising from the programs ought to be kicking back at least 25% of the profits. Until cable came along basically PBS was the only outlet for quality kids programming. And PBS has gotten screwed on merchandising. The profits from Sesame Street and Barney should have been able to fund PBS perpetually. Another gift from the idiot libs who have run PBS from their own personal agendas.

I have a college buddy, now an FBI agent, who said to me that Steve Wassname, the guy who plays Red Green, is an absolute, 1950s-style chauvanist. It drives the FemLib PBS station managers crazy when he goes out to hype and fundraise for one of the few really hot shows PBS presents..."Hi, honey, great to be here. Can you get me a cup of coffee and a danish? OK, thanks!" (Little pat on the butt.)

Those that make a profit off of the merchandising from the programs ought to be kicking back at least 25% of the profits.

Maybe that's how they play in the corporate world, young man, but here at PBS we don't HAVE to do anything so vulger as "make money!" We produce art, we have a sacred trust for the children!

[/sarcasm]

I can understand Sesame Street. That was developed in the heady hippie days of the 60's. But what's PBS's excuse for not getting a piece of the Clifford or Barney pie? If they're that stupid, they deserve to go out of business.

Agreed about Sesame Street and not seeing that gravy train. Correcting my error it is CTV-Childrens Television Workshop. Nickelodeon was the only other option for educational Children's programing until expanded cable hit the country. Nick had their priorities straight from the beginning and marketed products under their own logo. PBS reminds me of a little old lady with a fading trust fund, they just don't understand that Daddy's(for PBS substitute gubermint) money just isn't going to last. About the only thing I watch on PBS anymore is Red Green and Antiques Roadshow. Oh well.

> BTW--is Tucker Carlson actually a consevative commentator??? Not that I have heard, when he speaks. It could only be by comparison with Bill Press maybe. I never even heard of Tucker Carlson until I read his name in a post on the P(inko)BS yesterday.

Where is the anti-PBS lobby? With this billion dollar trust on its way, they'd better get their ass in gear. Because when PBS get its megabucks, it will have to answer to nobody.

I forgot to tell you in my response above that I am female and I absolutely love Steve Smith(Red Green). Since I was born 1960 I have been nursing a life long grudge against Gloria Steinem et al. Some of us actually enjoyed catering to men and putting high heels and a shirtwaist dress to wax the kitchen floor. LOL

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