Why does PBS annoy us with those pledge weeks (or months?) when they might as well have ads. Especially nowadays, the breaks between shows might as well be TV commercials! And, why not? I’d enjoy TV better without the begs for pledge…
Also on this note, why doesn’t a protion of the profits from Sesame Street toys, Barney toys, etc. feed back into PBS? These shows could really fund PBS on their own!
And yet, PBS begs us for pledges when there’s water, water everywhere for them to tap in to! Why? - Jinx
I believe that the company that creates Seasame Street (which is not PBS) is the one that profits from the merchandising, not PBS itself. Same goes for Barney, etc, this PBS would not see a cent. They simply buy the episodes for the show itself.
I suspect if they went in for the kind of responsible, intelligent fundraising you suggest, they’d lose out on those fat NEA grants the government gives to `non-profit’ organizations.
For most PBS stations, pledge time works out to 2-3% of their total time on the air. For the major networks, advertisements come to about 25% of total airtime.
I get 15 channels, and I can often circle the entire dial and see nothing but ads and PBS programming. Personally, I can barely stand to sit through ads, so I’m constantly surfing away. But they can only be escaped by putting on the public station.
I once read an article about making kids less susceptible to advertising. They explained that public television sells its programming to viewers through pledge drives, while the commercial stations sell the audience to their advertisers. I’d rather be a consumer than a product, most days.
Even more interesting is the PBS Red Book, an online version of the packaging, deliverable, promotion, and legal guidelines for PBS broadcast programs. Facinating information. I seriously doubt the commercial networks, let alone commercial stations, lay bare their policies and inner workings for everyone to see.
Do you really think commercial stations could ever do this …
With commercial stations now having something like 17 minutes of non-content per hour, PBS requires their sponsorship messages to the first three minutes max per hour and a brief teaser at the end.
I can endure the pledge weeks knowing I’m getting at least 54 minutes of uninterrupted quality content per hour when pledge weeks are not operating!
Bob, you make the assumption that they are politically biased, which is a question that belongs in great debates.
I think the more general answer is, the 1st ammendment. What makes you think that they have an obligation to be politically neutral? Certainly most official political communications (which are funded by our tax dollars) are biased towards whatever the current administration policy is, no?
A slight, off-topic reminder: If you have a TiVo then the amount of commercials and pledge-drives is meaningless. The only disadvantage is that you may miss some new movie trailers (on commercial television), but you can always use Sherlock 3 to see most of them.
Leaving aside the question of whether PBS is biased or not, it’s clear that being a beneficiary of tax monies or tax policies doesn’t disqualify an entity from taking a specific political stance. A private, for-profit corporation that’s granted a tax abatement, for example, isn’t prohibited from making political contributions, is it? A person who receives welfare is still allowed to vote.
Besides, tax dollars make up only a small part of public broadcasting’s budget. They’re not kidding when they say support comes from “viewers like you.”
Does public money go to PBS? I always thought the pledge drives paid the bills over there.
I know my tax dollars are going towards NPR, which has a clear liberal bias. Even if there wasn’t a bias, they still shouldn’t be on the air if the cannot generate enough revenue to pay their operating expenses without government assistance. But, using my tax dollars to pay for a political agenda that I disagree with is even more disturbing.
If they are on air, then they cannot help but have some kind of spin on things. There is no such thing as non-biased media, only media biased towards or against your own belief system.
Debaser, my tax dollars are paying for the Bush political agenda that I disagree with. What do you think I should do?
Is anyone interested in seeing how PBS spends their money? I think when I get a chance, I’ll head over to the local PBS station and ask for a copy of their 990. If anyone else wants to do so, I’d be interested to compare notes. E-mail me if you get a chance.
…using my tax dollars to pay for a political agenda that I disagree with is even more disturbing.
Considering the very small percentage of our tax dollars that go to public TV and radio, and the very small percentage of their programming that lends itself to political bias, this strikes me as a rather niggardly complaint.
…they still shouldn’t be on the air if the cannot generate enough revenue to pay their operating expenses without government assistance.
Why not? Is it not in the nation’s interest to invest in the type of programming that public TV offers? I daresay there are any number of far less justifiable ventures that receive government help.
I’m always amazed at how much nudity there is on PBS sometimes. I don’t give them money cause they never caption or have a sign language interpreter during pledges. Ironic.
You know what? This was really more of a rant to begin with. It could have turned into a General Question, but some folks apparently would rather argue than actually look up facts.
