I wanna know where Bob got *** numbers for non commercials. Since when has Arbitron/Neilson ??? started doing that? ???
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1. Is PBS/NPR still an important part of the broadcasting landscape?
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
Humor. Look it up. 8)
Commercial broadcasters are paying their way for promoting whatever thought (or not) they choose. Stands in stark contrast to the taxpayer-subsidized 'public' broadcasters that wish the public at large to finance their folly.
Dollars to donuts, I really don't care what NPR has to say or how they say it. I just don't want to be forced to finance something that I find both anti-capitalistic and counter to my personal opinions. That's it. No conspiracy. No drive to silence. (With due respect, that's a little more the liberals' ball of wax.)
Moreover, it grinds my ta ta (s) to have 'public' stations going to the same well of commercial advertisers that for-profit broadcasters must drink from. Lord knows it's not a 'commercial,' but dollars is dollars is dollars.
Well, Jeff, I suspect if you and I try to continue this thread, we will simply be redundant, saying over and over again that you are not supportive of public funding of public radio and me saying we really get out dollars worth out of what it costs us. You and I see life differently, thus you and I alone can never answer the question on behalf of your community, my community or the nation: Is PBS/NPR still an important part of the broadcasting landscape. I'm not sure we can ever answer the question: Were they EVER and important part?
I've looked at your market place today and tried to put myself in the shoes of a station operator in Monroe County, PA. What would the total gross receipts of all of the stations that make up your market place be? Maybe $4,000,000? There are quite a few stations struggling to get their share, and for a market your size you do have an abundance of public radio/NCE/not for profit stations.
It's a lot easier for me to sit here maybe a 1,000 miles away and be pious about NPR stations getting less and less taxpayer money. The operator of any radio station in your market may find it hard to watch any tax money and any advertising/promotional/sponsorship money being shared with one, two or five more stations you wish weren't there.
I'm going to touch lightly on an observation, which if pursued in this thread, the editor may deem as being something more suitable for "take it outside" but it is a simple observation about the reality of political thinking on every part of our life. I grew up on a farm where we didn't grow any crops or products that received a Federal Subsidy. When I see how much Federal Money goes to some large corporate farms today, I get as grouchy on that topic as you do on public radio funding. Our nation has given credit for much of our national success to our public school systems but I get grouchy when people start asking for government funding for their church related and private school systems. I dislike the way states, counties and cities enter into "socialist" style schemes to build subsidized factory buildings and exempt them from property taxes just to steal jobs from another state or another town.
I'm sorry NPR causes you anguish, but please forgive me, but I will be listening to Morning Edition tomorrow morning..... since my county with a population about the same as your county has ZERO commercial radio stations, thus ZERO public information and news at the local level.
You have been an excellent spokesman for what I see as a conservative political view. I assume you would call it that also.
Good night.
I've looked at your market place today and tried to put myself in the shoes of a station operator in Monroe County, PA. What would the total gross receipts of all of the stations that make up your market place be? Maybe $4,000,000? There are quite a few stations struggling to get their share, and for a market your size you do have an abundance of public radio/NCE/not for profit stations.
It's a lot easier for me to sit here maybe a 1,000 miles away and be pious about NPR stations getting less and less taxpayer money. The operator of any radio station in your market may find it hard to watch any tax money and any advertising/promotional/sponsorship money being shared with one, two or five more stations you wish weren't there.
I'm going to touch lightly on an observation, which if pursued in this thread, the editor may deem as being something more suitable for "take it outside" but it is a simple observation about the reality of political thinking on every part of our life. I grew up on a farm where we didn't grow any crops or products that received a Federal Subsidy. When I see how much Federal Money goes to some large corporate farms today, I get as grouchy on that topic as you do on public radio funding. Our nation has given credit for much of our national success to our public school systems but I get grouchy when people start asking for government funding for their church related and private school systems. I dislike the way states, counties and cities enter into "socialist" style schemes to build subsidized factory buildings and exempt them from property taxes just to steal jobs from another state or another town.
I'm sorry NPR causes you anguish, but please forgive me, but I will be listening to Morning Edition tomorrow morning..... since my county with a population about the same as your county has ZERO commercial radio stations, thus ZERO public information and news at the local level.
You have been an excellent spokesman for what I see as a conservative political view. I assume you would call it that also.
Good night.
I appreciate the civility that both Jeff and Goat have brought to this discussion.
Since Goat has brought the issue of other government subsidies to the table, I think it's fair to ask the question - since broadcast advertising is exempt from taxation in most, if not all, jurisdictions, does that also constitute a "subsidy" toward commercial broadcasters? (A double one, even, since the advertiser not only buys the advertising tax-free but also gets to deduct the cost of the advertising as a business expense, right?)
How about the tax breaks that the industrial development authority up here gave to the Clear Channel cluster a couple of years back to keep them in the city - never mind that whatever profits those stations make go straight back to Texas, and that the studios would have stayed within the county no matter what?
I'm also curious, Jeff, to know how much of your tax dollar you think goes to public broadcasting. I suspect the number you have in your mind is higher, by several orders of magnitude, than the reality these days.
I can't speak directly to the situation in Pennsylvania, but I know here in New York that much of the (very limited, and recently severely reduced) state funding that still goes to public broadcasting is directed to very specific programs - largely to the daytime educational TV programming for which the stations were originally chartered by the SUNY board of regents back in the fifties and sixties, and little or none for day-to-day operational costs, which are borne - at least up here - substantially 100% by membership, underwriting and grants.
As to Goat's question of whether public radio/TV were "EVER an important part" of the broadcasting landscape? I think the numbers speak for themselves: according to the Radio Research Consortium, which crunches Arbitron data for non-commercial stations, WVIA-FM pulled a 3.6 share and an average TSL of 7.6 hours in Fall 2008, the most recent numbers available. Placed in the context of the commercial stations' numbers, that's good for about 6th or 7th place, 12+ overall - and it certainly suggests to me that WVIA-FM fills a demand that the market's commercial stations aren't meeting.
(And, yes, I derive a small portion of my income from WXXI public radio and TV here in Rochester, though I speak here only for myself.)
Since Goat has brought the issue of other government subsidies to the table, I think it's fair to ask the question - since broadcast advertising is exempt from taxation in most, if not all, jurisdictions, does that also constitute a "subsidy" toward commercial broadcasters? (A double one, even, since the advertiser not only buys the advertising tax-free but also gets to deduct the cost of the advertising as a business expense, right?)
How about the tax breaks that the industrial development authority up here gave to the Clear Channel cluster a couple of years back to keep them in the city - never mind that whatever profits those stations make go straight back to Texas, and that the studios would have stayed within the county no matter what?
I'm also curious, Jeff, to know how much of your tax dollar you think goes to public broadcasting. I suspect the number you have in your mind is higher, by several orders of magnitude, than the reality these days.
I can't speak directly to the situation in Pennsylvania, but I know here in New York that much of the (very limited, and recently severely reduced) state funding that still goes to public broadcasting is directed to very specific programs - largely to the daytime educational TV programming for which the stations were originally chartered by the SUNY board of regents back in the fifties and sixties, and little or none for day-to-day operational costs, which are borne - at least up here - substantially 100% by membership, underwriting and grants.
As to Goat's question of whether public radio/TV were "EVER an important part" of the broadcasting landscape? I think the numbers speak for themselves: according to the Radio Research Consortium, which crunches Arbitron data for non-commercial stations, WVIA-FM pulled a 3.6 share and an average TSL of 7.6 hours in Fall 2008, the most recent numbers available. Placed in the context of the commercial stations' numbers, that's good for about 6th or 7th place, 12+ overall - and it certainly suggests to me that WVIA-FM fills a demand that the market's commercial stations aren't meeting.
(And, yes, I derive a small portion of my income from WXXI public radio and TV here in Rochester, though I speak here only for myself.)
As a bonus, Goat and I had a pleasant email exchange outside of the forum. We concur that disagreement doesn't have to be disagreeable...but it can add a little zest to the equation.
It's difficult to avoid being political when government funding is in the discussion. Each side has planted their flag firmly and clearly regarding funding/exemptions/etc. My thrust is to point out why each side has claimed the ground they have, and I think it clearly delineates the difference in opinions.
Scott, I agree that both forms of 'advertising' offer a deduction to the advertiser. One's electric bill does as well, but few would point to that as being a source of contention. From my view, the non-profits are able to continue that dollar's 'untaxed' path long beyond the advertiser. Taxation of corporate income penalizes success. The same can be said for personal income...the current climate in Washington is certainly making that pretty clear. The 'non-profits' are not taxed on their bounty, and that alone gives the playing field more than a small slope.
On a personal note, my crusade against non-profits has its origin in my quest for a plum transmitter site some years (decades?) ago. My application for use of state land was denied (because I was deemed an evil profit-maker). Not two years later, a non-profit applied to use the same land for a translator. Their request was immediately approved. Their station was built and to this day generates contributions/advertising from the very land where I was denied. Fair?
A cynic would say that life isn't fair. On a contemporary note, one need only look to Ford to recognize that government's actions always have unintended consequences...and someone almost always ends up with the short end of the stick.
There's an old saying that government cannot give anything to anyone without taking something from someone else. I guess the question is whether or not non-profit broadcasters deserve life support in perpetuity or as simply a method to incubate.
My vote is to pull the plug, but I don't think that surprises anyone.
Good discussion...
It's difficult to avoid being political when government funding is in the discussion. Each side has planted their flag firmly and clearly regarding funding/exemptions/etc. My thrust is to point out why each side has claimed the ground they have, and I think it clearly delineates the difference in opinions.
Scott, I agree that both forms of 'advertising' offer a deduction to the advertiser. One's electric bill does as well, but few would point to that as being a source of contention. From my view, the non-profits are able to continue that dollar's 'untaxed' path long beyond the advertiser. Taxation of corporate income penalizes success. The same can be said for personal income...the current climate in Washington is certainly making that pretty clear. The 'non-profits' are not taxed on their bounty, and that alone gives the playing field more than a small slope.
On a personal note, my crusade against non-profits has its origin in my quest for a plum transmitter site some years (decades?) ago. My application for use of state land was denied (because I was deemed an evil profit-maker). Not two years later, a non-profit applied to use the same land for a translator. Their request was immediately approved. Their station was built and to this day generates contributions/advertising from the very land where I was denied. Fair?
A cynic would say that life isn't fair. On a contemporary note, one need only look to Ford to recognize that government's actions always have unintended consequences...and someone almost always ends up with the short end of the stick.
There's an old saying that government cannot give anything to anyone without taking something from someone else. I guess the question is whether or not non-profit broadcasters deserve life support in perpetuity or as simply a method to incubate.
My vote is to pull the plug, but I don't think that surprises anyone.
Good discussion...
jeffwoehrle said:
There is, I think, another side to that argument that deserves to be aired: it's not as though the non-profits are free to use that "bounty" (an increasingly mythical one these days on both sides of the profit fence) in any way they choose, unlike the for-profits. The trade-off for tax-exempt status is an ever-more-arcane series of regulations that tell the non-profits what they can and can't do with that money. As I understand it - and I am not an accountant, thankfully - the gist is that the money only remains tax-exempt so long as it continues to be used to forward the non-profit's stated mission.
So that "bounty," to the extent it still exists or ever existed, can't be paid out as dividends - it has to be plowed back into the mission...which means employing people at the local level to, you know, do broadcasting. Again, I can't speak specifically to WVIA, but up here in Rochester we have the largest local radio newsroom now that Clear Channel's been swinging the axe some more.
It seems to me that this is the other side of the "slope" you speak of, and the other end of the "untaxed" path - while the "bounty" that's reaped by Citadel is going to Nevada and that reaped by Entercom is going to...well, at least it stays in-state in your case, even if the "untaxed path" is a little longer in the case of public broadcasting, that money ultimately has to be spent on local people who eventually use it in locally-taxable ways - buying houses, going shopping, etc. - that may well be better for the local economy than having out-of-market big commercial broadcasters sending their profits elsewhere.
Probably not, and I appreciate your honesty on this point. Without knowing more about the circumstances involved, it sounds rather as though there were politics at work that went beyond the simple for-profit/non-profit distinction.
And again, without knowing the specifics of your situation, I'd note that public broadcasters are providing public services these days that commercial broadcasters (in general) are no longer willing or able to offer. A small but significant portion of the budget where I work is spent on a radio reading service that supplies daily newspapers and magazine readings to the area's blind population. Would any commercial broadcaster today give up subcarrier space and pay the staff to provide that service? Would any commercial TV station give up half an hour of daily airtime at 5:30 PM to take homework questions from schoolchildren on the air?
These are not services that will ever be supported entirely (or even significantly) by their end-users or by underwriters - and to the extent that there's still any government subsidy being provided directly to public broadcasting, it is to those services that the money is directed, not to the "big-ticket" PBS primetime or NPR newsmagazine content that makes up what most people think of when they think of "public TV" or "public radio."
There's an old saying that government cannot give anything to anyone without taking something from someone else. I guess the question is whether or not non-profit broadcasters deserve life support in perpetuity or as simply a method to incubate.
My vote is to pull the plug, but I don't think that surprises anyone.
Good discussion...
Indeed - and there's one question I'm still waiting for you to answer, Jeff, if you don't mind: how much of your federal/state tax dollar do you think goes toward that "life support"?
[/quote]
J
JimmyJames
Guest
I'd also like to point out that the alleged "anti-capitalist" programming mentioned seems to attract significant corporate underwriting, especially in the case of business oriented news and programming such as Marketplace. Studies have also shown that politically, the NPR audience is fairly evenly split between Republicans, Democrats and Independents.
If NPR has an overwhelming "bias", it seems to me as though that "bias" is towards higher income listeners with educations.
If NPR has an overwhelming "bias", it seems to me as though that "bias" is towards higher income listeners with educations.
JimmyJames said:
The needs and interests of CORPORATE America (as in publicly traded companies) are often quite different than the needs and interests of SMALL business.... entrepreneurial business.
When I hung up the headset, turned off the mic, and left the broadcast industry, I found myself working for some very Conservative, entrepreneurial small business folks. The enterprises (plural) were doing well, multiplying, and growing. Health Insurance, Workers Comp (as in On-the-Job injuries) were a big issue, along with OSHA compliance. I was handed the the whole ball-of-wax in the area of insurance and safety and told to get it organized and under control. I'm working for guys who routinely grumble about government interference in their business and all these "big brother" rules and regulations. I was told to seek out seminars and training. Learn the secrets. Learn what other people are doing.
You know what the great surprise to me was? It wasn't government pushing itself upon business. It was the personnel department professionals, the HR people who had been trained at the college level on how to make programs for and about employees function who would through their chamber of commerce type organizations LOBBY for improved legislation and rules, which ended up being ADDED legislation and rules.
Yes, the same companies who show up and strong supporters of public broadcasting may be the same people down asking your state legislature to make the rules on employee injuries more fair, more understandable, more adequate in dollar amounts. The folks at the big companies may be conservative and vote Republican, but their definition of conservative policy will be much different than the definition of the guy down on main street with the independent tire store, or the home town pharmacy or the locally owned ready-mix plant.
NPR type radio is where all these different mind-sets come together in some kind of compromise on how to do broadcasting that back-fills the voids and chasms left behind by traditional commercial broadcasting who focus on the more populist issues which produce maximum audience.... and revenue.
Forgive my impersonal mass response...
As to the actual dollar amount of my taxes that flow to NPR and its ilk, my feeling is that any amount is too much. Probably much like Ford now feels about its tax dollars going in the back door of General Motors. Significant or not, the direct subsidy of a competitor leaves a bit of a bad taste.
The transmitter site issue was pretty black and white. For-profit enterprises were not welcome...not even for a fee. I was informed of this as my application was rejected out of hand. The other radio station that applied (and received) permission to locate there is now using that location to seek out the same dollars that I was chasing. Pardon me while I hurl...
I understand the concept of dollars flowing from the community to a corporate headquarters in Podunk, but when we buy a box of Tide, do we not send at least some of our money to P&G headquarters? When we agitate, do we not suds? Sorry... I'd venture that the vast majority of the 'local' money never makes it too far out of the community in the case of radio...particularly lately (!).
As to this comment via JimmyJames, "If NPR has an overwhelming "bias", it seems to me as though that "bias" is towards higher income listeners with educations." Okay, we get it. You are really, really, really smart. Your socks are probably all in the same drawer and everything. I, for one, greatly admire you. Good enough?
Corporate America certainly does have needs and goals that differ wildly from Mom & Pop type outfits. At its worst, Corporate America resembles government, where departments and divisions seem to make their ultimate goal their own existence. "Use all of that budget or it'll get cut next year!" That sort of thing. Smaller business tends to be more enterprise goal oriented. "Get the widgets out the door!" And the like.
A final thought: If public radio seems ready, willing and able to eschew taxpayer financing (even to the point of emphasizing how little of it they actually get), why not give it up entirely? Why the prickly reaction when someone DARES to suggest that such a thing is twisted at best and corrupt at worst? Why the rush to point out the massive intellectual superiority of those who partake of public broadcasts? Okay, I think I answered that one in other post, but still...
If public broadcasting is really THAT good, why not level the playing field? Let those with the massive brains dig a little deeper to keep Nina Totenberg spewing her hatred of George Bush...even now. Call advertising ADVERTISING and either swear off it or operate for profit.
I would think the change would be refreshing...and liberating, if you'll pardon the term.
I have no problem with competition. I just don't want the government providing selected opponents with taxpayer-funded sledgehammers while I must pay for my own weapons. Competition is good. Fair competition is even better.
As to the actual dollar amount of my taxes that flow to NPR and its ilk, my feeling is that any amount is too much. Probably much like Ford now feels about its tax dollars going in the back door of General Motors. Significant or not, the direct subsidy of a competitor leaves a bit of a bad taste.
The transmitter site issue was pretty black and white. For-profit enterprises were not welcome...not even for a fee. I was informed of this as my application was rejected out of hand. The other radio station that applied (and received) permission to locate there is now using that location to seek out the same dollars that I was chasing. Pardon me while I hurl...
I understand the concept of dollars flowing from the community to a corporate headquarters in Podunk, but when we buy a box of Tide, do we not send at least some of our money to P&G headquarters? When we agitate, do we not suds? Sorry... I'd venture that the vast majority of the 'local' money never makes it too far out of the community in the case of radio...particularly lately (!).
As to this comment via JimmyJames, "If NPR has an overwhelming "bias", it seems to me as though that "bias" is towards higher income listeners with educations." Okay, we get it. You are really, really, really smart. Your socks are probably all in the same drawer and everything. I, for one, greatly admire you. Good enough?
Corporate America certainly does have needs and goals that differ wildly from Mom & Pop type outfits. At its worst, Corporate America resembles government, where departments and divisions seem to make their ultimate goal their own existence. "Use all of that budget or it'll get cut next year!" That sort of thing. Smaller business tends to be more enterprise goal oriented. "Get the widgets out the door!" And the like.
A final thought: If public radio seems ready, willing and able to eschew taxpayer financing (even to the point of emphasizing how little of it they actually get), why not give it up entirely? Why the prickly reaction when someone DARES to suggest that such a thing is twisted at best and corrupt at worst? Why the rush to point out the massive intellectual superiority of those who partake of public broadcasts? Okay, I think I answered that one in other post, but still...
If public broadcasting is really THAT good, why not level the playing field? Let those with the massive brains dig a little deeper to keep Nina Totenberg spewing her hatred of George Bush...even now. Call advertising ADVERTISING and either swear off it or operate for profit.
I would think the change would be refreshing...and liberating, if you'll pardon the term.
I have no problem with competition. I just don't want the government providing selected opponents with taxpayer-funded sledgehammers while I must pay for my own weapons. Competition is good. Fair competition is even better.
J
JimmyJames
Guest
My point wasn't about trying to say NPR had a "superior" audience. I was saying the target is different. People who utilize NPR are from our best studies, shown to be evenly split between political viewpoints, but the commonality is that NPR attracts people with higher educations.
This is a sales point to me. NPR is sellable to that type of audience. It has nothing to do with my personal opinion.
This is a sales point to me. NPR is sellable to that type of audience. It has nothing to do with my personal opinion.
My apologies if I misunderstood.
If your contention is correct, then that audience should be yet another reason why public stations should be able to stand on their own. Jettison the 'limited' amount of taxpayer support received and remove all appearance of bias or favoritism. Even Nina's shrill voice can easily be balanced by someone, well, balanced. If General Electric sees fit to 'underwrite' NPR because they see the audience as ripe for a spiel on windmills, that's a plus.
All the reasons that are given for the need for public radio and its programming prowess also seem to be reasons as to why it doesn't need taxpayer funding (or the accompanying 'non-profit' perks) at all.
If your contention is correct, then that audience should be yet another reason why public stations should be able to stand on their own. Jettison the 'limited' amount of taxpayer support received and remove all appearance of bias or favoritism. Even Nina's shrill voice can easily be balanced by someone, well, balanced. If General Electric sees fit to 'underwrite' NPR because they see the audience as ripe for a spiel on windmills, that's a plus.
All the reasons that are given for the need for public radio and its programming prowess also seem to be reasons as to why it doesn't need taxpayer funding (or the accompanying 'non-profit' perks) at all.
jeffwoehrle said:
I'd ask you, Jeff, to go back and read my most recent response in greater detail, when you get a minute.
What the limited amount of taxpayer funding provides for these days, at least up here north of the border, is the stuff that the commercial market will never fund on its own: the reading service for the blind, the daytime commercial-free educational programming, and so on. It's these services that need some sort of public funding if they're going to survive.
At least at the station where I work (and for which I do not speak in an official capacity), there is no - zero, zip, nada - government money paying operational expenses for the NPR network news programming we carry, either at NPR's end or at our end. Again, I am not sufficiently familiar with the details of WVIA's finances to say if the situation is the same at their end.
And there's a "be careful what you wish for" aspect here. Let's say public radio did what you suggest, giving up the last threads of government financing and what you see as "non-profit perks." Remember that those are also "non-profit limitations" that take the noncomm stations out of the mix when it comes to the ever-shrinking pie of commercial advertising revenue.
I used to work in Boston, where public station WBUR has owned afternoon drive - that's #1, 12+ and 25-54 - with "All Things Considered" for almost two decades now. Right now, all WBUR can sell to underwriting clients are a grand total of about three minutes an hour, in the form of underwriting credits that are extremely restricted in both time and content. The commercial station where I worked was able to also claim #1 status, and the revenue that went with it, because it didn't have to include WBUR's numbers in the ratings it showed to clients...and because for most of its clients, it was effectively the #1 station for being able to buy time to freely communicate their messages. The last thing my old station would have wanted was WBUR competing freely against it, further dividing that pie that keeps shrinking to begin with.
To put it another way - the revenue that public stations generate from underwriting right now is far smaller, proportional to their ratings, than the revenue commercial stations generate from ad sales. Putting my commercial broadcaster hat on for a moment, I'm thinking that's a balance I'd be rather loath to upset, especially in today's economic conditions.
B
berniek
Guest
It is interesting that the bulk of the conversation is centered on radio, perhaps a function of this being a radio board, but what about the television side of this question? The radio spectrum has note seen the diversity of programming that has beset TV with cable and satellite so the choices of NPR like programming are limited.
On the TV side of question, Discovery, History, A&E, Food Network, Travel Channel, NICK and others have seemingly carved out the niche programming that PBS provide all those years ago. What is left for PBS to provide?
On the TV side of question, Discovery, History, A&E, Food Network, Travel Channel, NICK and others have seemingly carved out the niche programming that PBS provide all those years ago. What is left for PBS to provide?
Scott Fybush said:
Scott,
In all the conversations I've had with radio execs over the years regarding commercial/non-commercial competition, I've yet to meet one who wouldn't prefer to compete head to head on a level playing field with public radio. I think a big part of the feeling centers around the current situation being similar to competing with a church: You may have more folks in your pews, but there is still that aura about it that makes the comparison less than clear. To be sure, many a large 'advertiser' sees the benefit in presenting the 'public' audience with a picture of that advertiser being good, sweet and kind for 'supporting' public broadcasting. That's all well and good, and perhaps the average public audience is more pliable than most for being snookered by that line, but in the end it's all about the dollars.
erniek's comment about television is interesting. For all the homogenization of radio, television stands in stark contrast for fragmentation of format/program offerings. To that end, there is probably a better case to be made for public television being less and less important in the broadcasting landscape.
J
JimmyJames
Guest
But most of those TV channels cited have gone far off their original remit, which makes those sort of programs on PBS valid parts of the broadcast landscape once again.
jeffwoehrle said:
Thanks for the link. A significant part of the unrest people have about Public Broadcasting revolves around the handling of political views. Does PBS or NPR have a political view that is contrary to that of people who support the stations, either through tax money or through direct viewer pledges.
Possibly more volatile in the long run is the question: Does PBS and/or NPR have a religious point of view or agenda, and does MY particular station in my area have a religious agenda. Since a lot less time is spent on religious program material than is spent on political talk, news and historical documentaries, the public has not focused on their likes and dislikes of the programming that addresses issues of faith and religion. But there is enough that it will result in a new thread on Radio-Info one of these days. ;D
Though the people who give voice to some of the historical documentaries on archeological discoveries regarding religious history are sometimes "actors in the faith controversiers".... these programs are one reason PBS/NPR are still an important... or significant part of the broadcasting landscape. What other channels, outlets or organizations are doing anything in that area.
That brings us back to the question I know troubles you, Jeff.... who should be funding such broadcasts?
I don't feel that I have any particular dog in the race regarding religious views...or broadcasts, for that matter. I'm not a religious person, and I really don't care what religion other folks want to practice. I've not been inside a church in decades. As far as I'm concerned, people can worship any being they choose, elected or otherwise. Have a ball! Out of respect for your username, however, I will draw the line at goat sacrifices.
As to your question about who should be funding such broadcasts, my answer is simple: Whomever wants to.
Which is, actually, the root of my objection to public financing of non-commercial radio/television: All of us pay, no matter if we want to or not.
Now, I have been reminded that the amount is incredibly small...particularly in light of some of the recent deficit numbers floating out of Washington. If that is truly the case, then the non-comms should simply reject that small token out of principle...if not the desire to be, and appear, completely non-partisan.
If the public stations wish to steer clear of religion, that's okay with me. But, I would venture to say that such a policy would allow claims that run counter to religious beliefs to stand unchallenged. Again, okay with me. In fact, it may be entirely okay with a majority of the audience of such stations.
What's not okay is that any of my tax money supports that policy. No matter how small that amount may be.
As to your question about who should be funding such broadcasts, my answer is simple: Whomever wants to.
Which is, actually, the root of my objection to public financing of non-commercial radio/television: All of us pay, no matter if we want to or not.
Now, I have been reminded that the amount is incredibly small...particularly in light of some of the recent deficit numbers floating out of Washington. If that is truly the case, then the non-comms should simply reject that small token out of principle...if not the desire to be, and appear, completely non-partisan.
If the public stations wish to steer clear of religion, that's okay with me. But, I would venture to say that such a policy would allow claims that run counter to religious beliefs to stand unchallenged. Again, okay with me. In fact, it may be entirely okay with a majority of the audience of such stations.
What's not okay is that any of my tax money supports that policy. No matter how small that amount may be.
Kevin Fitzgerald said:
Just to make sure we're all clear on the terminology here (sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine):
Nobody's "listening to PBS," unless they have the TV on and they're in the other room. PBS = TV, with at least some remaining level of government funding. NPR = radio, where government funding has been nil, or effectively close to it, for some years now. There is no direct federal subsidy to NPR on the national level, and it's my understanding that the state of Pennsylvania has zeroed out state funding to public broadcasters including WHYY.
So, again, I think there's a strawman being tossed around here: "taxpayer" funding of public radio is already essentially where Jeff wants it, at zero. And as I've noted in earlier posts, the funding that goes to public TV, at least as I understand it, is in areas that do not compete with commercial broadcasters - and that commercial broadcasting today won't touch: commercial-free educational programming for children, reading services for the blind, etc.
Once more - these are not functions commercial broadcasters have any interest in fulfilling these days. Would WNEP or WBRE or WYOU give up half an hour of daily airtime at 5:30 PM so schoolkids could call in and get their homework questions answered on the air, or pay staffers to read the Times-Tribune so blind people could have access to the daily paper? These are not commercially-sustainable activities, and to me, at least, they seem worthy of some sort of public subsidy.
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