Posted on 06/19/2002 5:13:14 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
Wednesday, June 19, 2002
PBS Is in Trouble
This will be bad news for all those liberal elitists who consider the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) their personal fiefdom, and good news for all us yahoos who think America could well do without a federally funded radio and TV liberal propaganda network - PBS may be sinking into the swamps that swallowed Enron and Global Crossing.
"We are dangerously close in our overall primetime number to falling below the relevance quotient," whined liberal PBS president Pat Mitchell last February in a heads-up for her local affiliates.
"And if that happens, we will surely fall below any arguable need for government support, not to mention corporate or individual support," she said, according to Fox News reporter Kelley Beaucar Vlahos.
Noting that PBS ratings have fallen to their lowest levels in its history, Vlahos reported that while the network's officials are privately deeply concerned that PBS may be on the skids, they are still downplaying Mitchell's warning.
"It looks more dire than her intentions," John Wilson, vice president of programming told Fox News. "That's not her view and it's not the view of the entire speech she gave. She was just trying to grab [the affiliates] by the lapels and say look, 'we have to keep our eye on the ball.'"
Vlahos, however, wrote that critics of PBS see the situation differently, claiming that "PBS has compromised its mission over the last 30 years, squandering taxpayer dollars with little thought to viewer accountability and becoming slaves to corporate underwriters and political correctness."
And while others say that PBS should seek to stand on its own two feet and free itself from dependence on Government funding, critics insist that the network has no real purpose today.
"PBS is no longer unique," Richard Noyes, an analyst for the Center for Media Research Center in Washington, D.C. told Fox News.
Noyesd Noted that "for every Julia Child culinary tutorial, there is an Emeril Live or Nigella Bites confectionery drama on The Food Network or the Style Network ... and for every documentary on jazz or prehistoric beasts, there is another on The History and Discovery channels."
"Overall, PBS is self-destructing quite nicely," Laurence Jarvik told Fox News. Jarvik, author of "PBS: Behind the Screen," worked unsuccessfully with the GOP in the 1990s to de-fund public broadcasting. "The good thing is with cable, the Internet and satellite, you have alternatives, gradually fewer and fewer people will watch [PBS]. The franchise will become increasingly less valuable," he said
Even veteran PBS supporters admit that the network relies too much on public and corporate money - a reliance that has had a bad effect on program quality.
"There is a lack of courage in dealing with controversial subjects that might offend any powerful group in America, which we obviously refer to as the establishment or anyone who in the future might become a major corporate contributor," Nicholas Johnson, a University of Iowa law professor told Fox.
Johnson served on the Federal Communications Commission during the years that the Public Broadcasting Service was formed more than 30 years ago when CPB got $5 million from the taxpayers to fill the alleged cultural void left by the three major television networks.
According to Fox News, in 2004 the taxpayers will have to cough up a whopping $380 million for PBS. Moreover, the president has requested $395 million for 2005, a Senate Appropriations Committee spokesperson told Vlahos.
According to the CPB annual report for 2001 the network gets 45 percent of its revenue from member stations through dues paid through all those infuriating and seemingly endless on-air fundraisers, 20 percent from royalties, investments and licensing fees, and 17 percent from educational products sales.
"The fact of the matter is, we and our member stations are very much dependent on the voluntary support of our viewers," Wilson told Fox News. December's and March's pledge drives, he said, were the largest ever.
While PBS is attempting to jazz up their programming to build ratings, however, there has been no move toward eliminating the network's blatantly obvious leftist bias, typified by such liberal icons as Bill Moyers who has a new show "Now With Bill Moyers," and the ultra-liberal PBS boss, Pat Mitchell.
"If it were taken off the air, I think people would be upset for a few days and then they would pick themselves up and their lives would go on," Noyes said.
And a lot of other people would jump with joy.
I haven't missed a thing ever since I turned off PBS 20 years ago. Cable offers much more interesting and varied offerings. And doesn't always come with a leftist slant.
/john
Johnson was and is an incredibly leftist ..leftist. He thinks the only thing wrong with Castro is that Fidel is way too damed conservative.
1. They started moving the schedule around, so that my favorite programs became hard to find (McLaughlin (sp?), William Buckley, Austin City Limits).
2. Their bias became more and more obvious. One week there was some great news in the Republican world. I knew that Washington week in Review would just HAVE to cover it. So, I sat down to enjoy the show, to see how they would present it. What did they do? Well, they did not cover it at all! What did they do instead? They had a LIVE report from Moscow about an election they would be having six weeks from then. That's it. This program, called Washington Week in Review, was more interested in what might happen in Moscow six weeks in the future -- and they had their reporter up in the middle of the night to comment on it.
3. Locally the other year they were begging for contributions above and beyond what was needed to stay on the air. This extra money was to build a new video production center. This new center may have been needed, but during the same period the TV station went from shutting down broadcasting at about midnight to staying on all 24 hours.
I might tune in for a Nova or something, but that's about it.
"I shaved the constitoothshun"!
I think the figure is closer to 20 to 1, which is why I haven't watched PBS in years. Throw in the other Discovery channels and the ratio is probably 200 to 1.
or
I haven't had PBS on since they fired LR on WSW.
Ask them if they will "Hold for awhile."
Lay down the phone and walk away and do what you were doing and then hang up the phone when the phone compnay notifies you with the incessant beepings.
I thought it was a priceless tactic. Takes up their telemarketing time and would grind the work room to a halt as everyone would be placed on "HOLD"
Dare I ask?
(Drooling and an evil grin) How about the Federal Department of (mis)Education??????
Compromised??? Sold out, prostituted, perpetrated fraud would be more accurate terms for what pBS has done in the past 30 years.
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