Considering that I watch about an hour a month, I suppose it’s really not all that bad. They do, after all, have the commercial that says something to the effect of, “because of viewers like you.” I = viewer that watches an hour a month and doesn’t donate --> PBS = result of lots of people who don’t pay and don’t watch frequently.
So what are they complaining about?
Or, perhaps they’re complaining about the low quality of shows on PBS, which would be a result of me, and viewers like me, not donating. I suppose technically, I don’t watch PBS because I don’t find any of the shows appealing, so perhaps I am the problem. Not that they’d drop all those damn cooking shows if I sent them $35 to get a travel guide to the city I live in.
Anyone donate to these sorts of PBS/NPR things? What are the guidelines (i.e. when do I determine that I “owe” it to them to pony up the loot?) that you use? What ring of the Hell can I expect to be fitted into?
You can expect to be consigned to at least some level of hell for not donating, but I’ll be damned if I know which one.
Just kidding. Seriously.
Viewer contributions do make up a large portion of NPR and PBS’s budget. I don’t remember exactly how much, but it isn’t a small percentage. I contribute to NPR when I can, and I should contribute to PBS because of their kids’ programming, but money is kinda tight right now.
For me, my local public broadcasting outlets (WITF-FM and WITF-TV) offer some fascinating programming. I like some of their cooking shows (nothing compares to Good Eats, of course), and Newshour is about the only TV news I’ll watch.
If you use it, you should contribute. But don’t feel guilty if you don’t. Just call during their next pledge drive and pony up a few bucks.
“Elmo knows where you live!”
When it’s pledge time (you can always tell when pledge week is coming up because of the jazz, do-wop, or (lately) folk-music themed promos), PBS stations point out how the federal government only pays a tiny percentage of their budget, so they really, really need your contributions… but when it’s budget time on the Hill, they point out that viewer contributions only pay a (slightly less) tiny part of their budget, so Congress better dole out the cash if they don’t want to kill off Big Bird.
I suppose its possible to reconcile these two postions, but it still leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Compared to other broadcasters, PBS is just as susceptible to the allure of marketing dollars when deciding what to air as “kids’ programming”. As a result, having kids watch PBS is only marginally better than having them watch any other network. Perhaps the question is not which channel kids should be watching, but rather whether kids should be watching television at all.
I’ve watched the occasional show on PBS, on and off. When I was just out of college, and enjoying the income from my first full-time salaried job, I used to donate to PBS every so often. I would donate some small amount, and put a letter with it naming a program I liked on PBS, saying “I enjoy this program, thank you for showing it, here’s a donation”, only with more words.
Inevitably they’d stop showing that program within 3 months.
So I stopped doing that – I can take a hint. And once I stopped donating, they were a lot less likely to cancel shows I watched. Oh, their schedule still changed regularly, but it would usually be years, and not months.
I think they were trying to tell me something. I no longer feel guilty.
After all, I shudder to think about when my kid was just a toddler. What if I had donated because he liked “Sesame Street”? Would I really want that on my conscience?
I feel a tinge of guilt by not donating. But not enough that I’m going to go out and start donating. I figure, I’m already kinda supporting them thru tax dollars. Besides, I never heard why they can’t touch that $200 million donation from the wife of Ray Crocket. Something about its reserved for future things or other. Wouldn’t programming be “future things”?
I listen to NPR regularly. On the average of 4 hours a day. I heard that NPR takes about 1 million annually to run. Neal Cohen (sp?) stated this during the last pledge drive a couple months ago. Well, with the sizable Crocket donation, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out how long that will stretch.
PBS stations are in a bit of trouble these days. They used to program quite a bit of science and kids shows, but with the advent of cable and channels such as the History Channel, Discovery, Discovery Science, Discovery Kids, Nickelodeon, Disney, et al, their mission is not as clear as it once was. It will be interesting to see if they can adapt.
I made a deal with a PBS huckster over five years ago. I promised that I would sign up to donate $5 a month (taken directly from my bank account) if they would promise to never, ever send me begging letters or call me again. They did call me one time after that, but I told the guy on the phone about the deal, and he must have worked some magic with the phone list, because I never got another phone call. That alone is worth five bucks a month.
I can’t tell you what to do. I felt a little guilty when NPR did their drive, because I listen most weekends.
But I only have so much to give each month and right now it all goes to a local shelter. I thought about it and decided that poor people needed my money more than I needed to hear NPR and if they were canceled, then so be it.
I think you must’ve misheard. According to the NPR website, their annual operating budget is about $100 Million. Note that this is just for NPR itself and does not include any costs for the affilliate stations, which typically purchase programming from NPR, but still have to keep the lights on, the transmitter cranking, their staff paid, etc. So the $100 mil is just to get the 22 NPR shows produced. Which seems about right to me. I wouldn’t be surprised if All Things Considered burns $1 million a year just in airfares for reporters. Only 1-2% of this comes from federal grants – most of the $100 million comes from programming purchases from the affiliate stations.
Also according to the NPR website:
My calculator works that out that costs for the affiliates run about $530 Million in total for the affiliates, of which $86 million is from taxes (through grants, etc.) and $444 million comes from contributions.
IMHO, if you’re listening four hours a day and not contributing, you should feel at least a little guilty.
I listen about an hour a day, and my wife probably listens a bit more. We typically give around $100 once a year, depending on how money is.
I would agree, except that I am no longer impressed by a lot of programming cable, especially the History Channel and Discovery. I don’t think they’re in as much trouble as you might think, because I would much rather watch a documentary on PBS than on cable.
Oh, I dunno… at least the commercial channels don’t pretend to be anything but.
PBS has the whole “we’re so much more tasteful than the hoi polloi” bit going for it… but when pledge time rolls around, you bet they lard up the schedule with whatever trash will most appeal to the current doner demographic. They they hit you with ten or more minutes of pledge break for every ten minutes of program.
