Far different animal. C-SPAN produces very little real programming and doesn’t need to acquire distribution rights for other shows on its networks.
I entirely agree. If I were in charge, I’d ax every last penny of corporate subsidies.
There is nothing particularly horrific about PBS. It’s simply an example of how impossible it is to get rid of government spending. Most folks are aware that we need to cut some federal spending at some point, preferably sooner, but whenever it comes down to actually downsizing or eliminating a federal program it virtually never happens, even if the program has outlived its usefulness or never had any usefulness to begin with.
Define “educational.”
I’m not trying to slip *Discover *or (ha!) The History Channel inside the door, either - what do we mean when we say *PBS *is educational?
Clearly, lots of preschool shows exist to teach kids - but, as has been mentioned, Sesame Street is not PBS. PBS Kids has some hits, some misses. Other channels have some of that too.
PBS has Nova, and some other science shows - but plenty of PBS programming isn’t explicitly educational. Is Antiques Road Show educational? Is it more educational than Mythbusters?
I’m just curious in the academic question. I think it’s silly to say you’ll cut PBS but won’t shrink the Department of Defense at all. So, public money aside, what does it mean to say PBS is educational where other stations aren’t?
This is common wisdom, but it isn’t true. We cut discretionary spending all the time (though usually this is by freezing increases and letting inflation erode support for programs). Ask NASA.
Including defense spending, discretionary spending accounted for 67.5% of total outlays in 1962, but only 37.8% of total outlays in 2010. Entitlement spending rose from 26.1% to 56.1% over the same period. The long-term debt problem is basically a medical cost problem.
Saying Washington has a spending problem so we should cut PBS is like looking at your personal budget and seeing that your gas bills are increasing by 25% annually while you continue to pay less and less for cable TV and deciding your solution is to nix the TV.
Because apparently the audience is not telling the industry that they want an entirely educational TV channel. There are countless educational programs, DVDs, websites, and more available. There’s no particular advantage to having an entire channel devoted to education as long as there’s enough material available for those who want it.
The problem with funding PBS is not that it’s a significant contributor to the debt, but that its existence (and the existence of other unnecessary spending programs) makes it politically more difficult to cut more significant but more painful things. Try to cut farm subsidies, and people will point out that PBS gets funding, so why shouldn’t the farm? Try to cut corporate subsidies, and people will point out that that PBS and farms get subsidized, so why should corporate subsidies be cut?
And so it goes. I actually like Romney’s basic formulation of the issue: You may like PBS, but do you like it enough to borrow money from China to pay for it?
To build political will for either spending cuts and/or tax increases, the government has to show that it’s getting its fiscal house in order. To do that, frivolities like government funding for Sesame Street need to be eliminated.
As for the lack of another channel that has PBS’s educational offerings… that’s the wrong question. Why does education have to be packaged into one TV channel? That’s 20th century thinking. The real question is whether there is general availability of similar programming, and the answer is clearly yes. Between ALL the available cable channels, plus the internet, DVD’s, Amazon, and other sources, there is more educational material than people can consume.
Discovery and History and all the other ‘educational’ channels may have strayed from pure educational programming, but between them they still offer enough educational material to keep people who want to consume that material happy.
In addition, PBS would still exist without the government funding. In fact, it might do better since one thing that keeps people from donating to them is the fact that they also get government funds. And it wouldn’t be the end of the world if they had to show an ad or two every hour.
Another trope of the pro-PBS crowd is that while other options exist, the poor might not have access to them. The problem with that argument is that PBS isn’t really a station for poor people. The bulk of the programming on that channel is aimed squarely at middle and upper class Americans. Or do you really think that “American Masters: The day Carl Sandburg Died” is a popular show in the 'hood?
This is similar to the public arts funding that tends to go to places like the New York Symphony and the Met - places that poor people simply don’t go. So what you have is rich producers and TV executives being subsidized with taxpayer money so they can continue to produce art for other rich people. Something the left should be heartily against - except that in this case the subsidies are going into areas predominated by liberals, so suddenly government pork is just fine with them, even if it’s pork for rich people paid for by borrowing against future generations.
That’s one theory. Here’s another:
Conservatives don’t like PBS and NPR for various cultural reasons, the same way they don’t like Planned Parenthood or the NEA. So, despite the fact that this spending is not only miniscule, but also has nothing to do with the growing budget deficit, they make these entities the face of the deficit issue because they want to end that funding.
If you believe that killing Big Bird will build political will for reforming Medicare, I think you need to spell that out a bit.
I’m not arguing!
ARS routinely details how articles were made, and how to spot inferior imitations. They talk about the history of artists, artisans, and workshops. They routinely talk about the history of the items, and the history of their popularity. Yeah, they do the “what is it worth” part eventually.
On the whole, I’d say it is about equally educational with Mythbusters, Who’s experiments seem aimed at visual appeal more than rigorous research.
Wait, are you talking about the Antiques Road Show, or Pawn Stars? You get a little history lesson with every object brought in the door there, too.
And I disagree. Mythbusters is one of the most successful programs ever in terms of reaching young people and teaching them how to think about problems, the scientific method, being skeptical of claims, etc. Of course there are explosions and lots of fun - that’s how you get people to watch. But while you’re watching, you get a constant lesson in the value of collecting data instead of trusting your gut, in not believing every claim you see on the internet, and in how to think through and solve problems.
Antiques Road Show is a boutique show for older people who like to look at old things. Its average audience age is over 50. Its effect on educating the general public and especially young people is probably close to nil. I actually enjoy the show, and I think it’s good enough that it would find a home on another network if PBS ever went away. But in terms of reaching young people and teaching them things of real value, it doesn’t hold a candle to Mythbusters.
Does Canada have a publicly funded tv network?
Do you want to get rid of it?
We need to go back a bit further in the history here. In the beginning, there were only alimited number of band widths available for television and radio broadcasting. These were judged to be the property of the public, and so rented out at a premium to broadcasting companies which had to show proper usage as well as offering the highest price in an auction.
It was determined that some bandwidth should be maintained for the use of the Government in emergencies. (This need, it could be argued, has since been balaned by the Emergency Broadcast system.)
In much the same way, local Governments demanded use of a cable channel in early cable TV contracts.
Now, the questions became, what to do with the channel betwen emergencies? Well, obviously it should be used to promote the arts and education.
Given the overwhelming volume of cable and satellite and Web TV now being produced, and the nearly unlimited number ofdigital channels available, many marketers are predicting the death of over-the-air broadcasting. The time could well come when all TV is subscription based, except the Public stations.
No overwhelming point here, just a bit of food for thought.
Yes, Canada has public television. We have the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, or CBC. The government gives it almost a billion dollars per year in taxpayer money - far more than PBS gets. And by the way, all major markets in Canada also get PBS, and PBS stations solicit donations from Canadians.
Public opinion in Canada is generally anti-CBC, with only about 1/4 of the population supporting increased funds for it, 1/3 of the population wanting it completely privatized and de-funded, and about 1/2 wanting it to become more like PBS with the vast amount of its funding coming from private donations.
And yes, I would completely cut funding to the CBC. The argument back in the day was that Canada was so large, and so distributed with so many small communities, that it was necessary for the government to fund public television and radio. The rise of cable and the internet renders this argument moot.
The other argument was that Canadian television programming couldn’t compete on a level playing field with the massive U.S. networks, and thus we needed publicly funded television to help maintain our ‘unique Canadian identity’. To that end, we also impose Canadian content requirements on television and radio stations, forcing them to air a percentage of Canadian-produced programs.
I’m opposed to all of these interventions, and I think they have done more to inhibit Canadian art than they have done to help it, for precisely the same reason that U.S. government quotas and tariffs on foreign cars helped keep Detroit from improving the quality of their cars in the 80’s and 90’s.
You think PawnStars would exist without AR? Not to mention that those of us over 50 can learn things also. If you want to criticize something, there is a spinoff, called Market something or other, which has a bunch of nitwits buying stuff at flea markets to sell at auction - and usually losing their shirts. It is neither educational nor good, and with any luck it will be gone soon.
That there are a few good shows on regular TV in no way reduces the benefit of PBS.
But it does make public funding of it seem less important.
That’s the whole point. Commercial TV works on what the masses (or more properly the advertisers) want. PBS works on what kids want. When my kids were little is was very nice to let them watch something which would not inundate them with commercials for cheap toys and sugary cereals. Plus, having to compete with PBS raised the game of some of the commercial channels.
Who is going to pay for the websites? Especially enough to have the kind of production and educational values you see on PBS?
As for the cost of the whole thing, dump an unneeded ship or two and you are good.
What was that about “lies, damned lies”?
Googling CBC poll, I found this, in which 80% of Canadians say they are satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the programs broadcast, 41% said cuts would hamper the delivery of national news and 59% support maintaining or increasing support for the CBC, with fewer than a quarter wanting decreased support for CBC.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t find anything about racial demographics for PBS viewership. Perhaps a publicly funded study is warranted?
(A) There’s impoverished people outside “the 'hood”. One of the original purposes of PBS was to bring educational and cultural programing out into rural areas.
(B) Another part of PBS’s function is to bring cultural programming to people who can’t trot on down to the stage theater specifically because they’re not middle or upper class. Paying $100 a ticket to see Les Miserables performed is not in everyone’s budget. Watching it on PBS is.
(C) PBS is probably the only outlet for watching “American Masters: The day Carl Sandburg Died” in “the 'hood” for those who do want to watch it and I think it’s worthwhile that they have that opportunity.
(D) PBS isn’t exclusively “stuff for poor people”. It’s an educational and cultural network. Some people will find aspects of it more interesting than others regardless of their social or economic status. But, in its purpose of sharing educational and cultural materials with the United States, it’s superb.
You know a great place to see and hear great classical performances even if you’re poor? PBS.
I agree. The United States government is facing a huge fiscal crisis that will devastate the economy in the next 30-40 years. Obama can’t name anything that he wants to cut from the budget, and Romney can’t name anything other than PBS. Unless some or our politicians get serious about the topic soon, we’re doomed.
I agree in that we definitely can’t get out of the current deficit problem with tax increases alone (barring a simultaneous healthcare breakthrough and economic boom.) But it gets us a lot closer than no spending cuts and tax decreases.