Fun read. 
Isn’t use of the public airwaves a more fundamental subsidy than monetary grants?
Oh, whatever.
waves to Debaser.
Regards,
Shodan
I realize I never responded to Mr2001 (most likely the thread fell off my radar for some reason…I have a pretty small attention span), but as I’m not sure if this poster is either still with us or cares about a reply I’ll refrain in this zombie unless s/he wants me to ramble on a bit more.
ducks as various stinky vegetables are tossed as head by groaning 'dopers
-XT
Kevbo (-7.0,-5.4) ticks strongly disagree.
Excepting PBS and NPR, 99.9% of what is on the airways is pure crap…crap that apparently is none the less effective at selling soap. I am by the way lumping BBC in with PBS, as it is the PBS affiliate that exposes me to their programming. Markets are an utter failure at providing interesting content. On rare occasions corporate broadcasting has occasionally experimented with high quality programming. It is usually canceled before I need to take off my shoes to count the episodes. It is thus abundantly clear to me that high quality programming is ONLY possible through public funding. I am delighted that a fraction of my tax dollars go toward this end. I wish it were a larger fraction. I send public broadcasting stations many multiples of my tax funding as donations.
Further, I have noticed that the whole right wing “Public Broadcasting is Evil that must be stamped out in the name of all that is good” position has only come about with the emergence of Fox News. The existence of that one network has shifted the average bias reporting so far to the right, that actual even-handed reporting looks leftist by comparison. It is my belief that right wing opposition to public broadcasting is not at all based in saving money. It’s goal is to eliminate any and every voice that is not paid to broadcast corporate propaganda.