I was watching the pledge drive on my local PBS station, and they were explaining (again) how I make all this great programming possible with my donations, and I wondered, what if no one donated? Are there places where there is no PBS because the community either doesn’t care, or isn’t financially able to keep the station in the black? I know the federal gov. helps some, but they really stress during these drives that it isn’t enough to bring me “the programming I’ve come to love and expect.” So what happens if no one gives?
All I know is that all of those “great programs” are shown only during the pledge drives (e.g. anything by Joseph Campbell).
IIRC, PBS stations in low-budget areas are on a public access channel. Some of the programs you see on PBS are funded by PBS corporation, so they can air those, but other shows they have to “subscribe” to-- that is, pay the producers of the show to air it. If they can’t afford to buy programming, the dead time is filled with either local public access programs or infomercials.
Buck Henry: “That’s right – we’re talking about using tax-free municipal bonds to bring Communists over here from Russia to kill your puppies. Call in if you want to discuss.”
(from a hilarious first-season Saturday Night Live skit.)
I’ve always wondered another thing about pledge drives.
I’m sure they have a target figure in mind for how much they hope to raise in a given pledge drive. I wonder what the station would do if an eccentric rich guy called in and said, “I will pledge a million dollars… but ONLY if you end this insipid pledge drive RIGHT NOW and quit pre-empting the programming I actually WATCH. Otherwise no deal.” Would they take it? COULD they take it?
Then they kill a kitten every 15 minutes, until somebody does.
Same as always.
Why do you ask?
Sure – and, why not?
Oh. My. God. This has been a long-standing fantasy of mine! To win the MegaMillions and go down to CH 13 in NYC with a cashier’s check for something like $13M and say “STFU already and play the goddam shows!”
I’d love to see this happen!
VCNJ~
Some years ago our local PBS station tried the gimmick of dedicating each program pledge segment to that specific program. When pledging fell short at one point, the host said “unfortunately, since we couldn’t raise the minimum needed, we won’t be able to bring you this program anymore.”
And they never ran the program again. They also never had the woman host a pledge drive again.
In the mid-1990s, Pittsburgh’s WQED 13/WQEX 16 ran into a lot of financial troubles (due to various reasons, including mismanagement). Channel 16 for a time was converted to cheap syndication and both channels were subject to frequent and long pledge drives. Eventually WQEX became a repeater channel. I don’t know what the situation is now. They tried to sell the second channel to a religious network, but I don’t know whether they were allowed to.
Of course they could take it. And I’m sure they would, so long as it was enough to cover their annual budget or was comparable to how much they had expected to raise through the pledge drive.
But this scenario isn’t really very likely. Any rich person who was so dedicated to watching public programming would be more likely to make an advance donation or participate in one of the matching programs used to attract even more pledges.
Some stations set a goal, and if it’s reached early, end the pledge drive then (our local public radio station does this from time to time). They’re happy to go over, of course, but if someone gave them enough to reach their goal, under the condition they end the pledge drive, they’d probably be willing to do it.
The only issue is that most shows broadcast during pledges are scheduled so there can be pledge breaks. So the programming would end early, and there would be empty time to fill.