Posted on 03/14/2011 6:12:01 PM PDT by La Lydia
If it feels as though Suze Orman and the cast of “Les Misérables” have taken over your local public television station, you’re not dreaming. The current pledge drive comes to an official end on March 20...and the baby boomer concerts, “Laugh-In” retrospective, doo-wop groups and self-help gurus will go on hiatus. But in a few short months, those programs and similar ones will be back.
Since 2005, the average amount of time PBS member stations devote to on-air pledge drives has increased by 9 percent...Some stations now devote a full 10 weeks a year to the special shows. Driving the expansion is the same theme weaving through much of public television: money. Financially troubled state governments are rapidly cutting and sometimes eliminating subsidies for public media.
In Washington, the threat of losing federal funding looms large, with last week’s turmoil at NPR, PBS’s public radio counterpart, only adding to opponents’ ammunition. The economic downturn crippled many foundations that traditionally support public media, and corporations have cut back underwriting.
That leaves stations turning to viewers...While many viewers grumble when they cannot find their staples of “Masterpiece Theater” or “Frontline,” there is another pool of viewers who like the concerts....
National pledge drives date to the early days of public broadcasting, in the mid-1970s, when they were called festivals. ... Even then, the drives had their critics; an early festival featured Nashville’s “Grand Ole Opry,” which some stations believed was beneath them, Mr. Grossman said. That program did “phenomenally well,” he recalled...
Some stations have cut back on pledge drives — or changed the way in which they conduct them — since complaints about the drives reached their peak a few years back. A few stations have shunned the special concerts and are asking viewers to support regular shows....
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
I used to work the pledge drives so it's fun to see who is still doing it. To far to drive now.
LLS
As they should.
they should also buy advertisments and stop living off the gov’t teet.
Hey, if the PBS & NPR honchos can lunch at the sidewalk bistros in Georgetown, how tough can this really be?
You are lucky. Mine keeps running and re-running a special about the joys of having attention deficit disorder (!), along with the Suz Orman and Les Mis on repeat. I would much rather they ran Doc Martin re-runs on a continuous loop. I’m still not giving them any money.
These guys suck.
The take public funding, They take private funding, they air commercials for profit and then every other week they run a begathon.
I hope PBS goes completley out of business - but, of course they won’t, liberals will see to it that they stay in business broadcasting leftist swill.
Ha, Ha!
NPR/PBS must be the only thing that liberals actually donate their own money to. So let them dig deep.
Perhaps the Republicans can suggest a 50% tax on electric cars, windmills, and college professors to pay for NPR and PBS? Now THAT would be funny.
Actually, I think user taxes for Liberal items would be hilarious.
PBS is run by stooges. How do you think commercial radio would do if they ran all their commercials all day on one day every six weeks? If the elite, well educated, ivy league geniuses that run public broadcasting had the brains G-d gave grapes they would integrate their requests for funding daily into their broadcasts the way the grown ups program commercials on real radio and TV stations.
What gets me, is if you are a fan of Dr. who or some such thing, they choose to run a doowop show or some BS during the DR Who time slot and they expect that will make you want to give them money.
Why not run a Dr Who special during that time slot and appeal to those fans?
Silly me. I had no idea my state tax dollars, in addition to federal taxes, went to the Commune known as PBS.
I remember castigating my late father, years ago, when he told me he had pledged $25 after watching something about Benny Goodman and other Big Band artists during a PBS drive.
A week later Pop turned on his TV and was “treated” to something called “Tongues Untied”, a documentary about black homosexuals. I never said “I told you so.”. I didn’t need to.
RIP Pop....
I refuse to donate to a local that airs a huge block of programming, on a nightly basis, that is in several languages not English...
I wouldn’t know. It’s been 15 years since I last felt the need to have my intelligence insulted by the pseudo-intellectuals on PBS.
NPR fund drives = pathetic, crying, nagging beg-a-thons
But at all times, pbs leans to the left
I never donate.
I sometimes watch
But often they go through weeks of unwatchable pledge drives.
I agree that the “specials” they chose to run are more apt to cause annoyance than enthusiastic giving.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.