Romney: Cut PBS Funding, Allow Commercials

[TheBigA]

Here we go again:

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mitt-romney-pbs-big-bird-sesame-street-276555

Because we all see the great job commercial broadcasting has done with children's TV.

As in, they've killed local children's shows, and limited it to a few hours Saturday morning.

Plus, it has been reported that advertising in children's programming is bad. Kids see products and pester their parents to buy those products. Parents don't like it. Parents vote. So parents don't want over-commercialization of children's TV programming.

I guess no one told Romney this. How old are Romney's kids?

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I live in what is touted to be the SECOND MOST REPUBLICAN county in the nation. (And one of the top ten growth counties for the last decade.) The Republicans who serve as county commissioners are rather aggressive at building new parks with plenty of athletic fields where children can play baseball and soccer. I think their budgeting for these facilities is prudent or somewhere close to prudent. But it is government money.

If we are going to follow the same thinking when it comes to having a place for junior high and high school kids to play sports as Republicans are expressing about the funding of PBS, then they should withdraw all funds from building and maintaining parks with athletic fields. Let the ticket sales and concession sales and advertising billboards pay for the sports program. Why should it be a government funded process?

We don't make these decisions in America based on logic. We decide on emotions.

 

[listener-in]

This is a blatant pander to far-right primary voters. I don't think he's aware that many moderate Republicans (who still exist in the electorate, if not in Washington) like public broadcasting the way it is.

My guess is that if he's the nominee it will cost him in the general election, and if he understands this early enough in the campaign he will either pretend to have never said it, or to have meant the opposite of what he said. Which would be par for the Romney course.

 

[TheBigA]

The thing is that he's talking about something that requires multiple steps, made by multiple organizations, including the Congress.

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 was written in such a way that it can't simply get defunded by Congress. It creates a federal agency, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That agency is made up of Presidential appointees. Defunding CPB doesn't eliminate it. It just eliminates its funding. They'd have to repeal the PBA, or amend it. Amending an Act of Congress needs a 2/3rds majority. Then they'd need to change the FCC Rules that prevent commercials in non-commercial band. That requires a majority of the FCC to agree. And all of this assumes public interest groups like Action for Children's Television, and various other parent's groups. I think these groups are going to find there's a reason things are the way they are, and it's not as easy to get rid of government programs as they think.

 

[ellenparks]

Ok, fair enough then lets amend the rules to allow stations below 92.1 to sell commercials like everyone else! What say you commercial station owners?

 

[w9wi]

Personally I don't think the FCC rules are a significant impediment to doing this. If Romney is elected, he'll be able to appoint members to the Commission, and can be counted on to create a Republican majority. Even if Obama does fill the current openings on the Commission before leaving office, past experience suggests at least one currently Democratic seat will open for the new President to fill.

"ellenparks" brings up something that would likely torpedo this, if nothing else does: opposition from commercial stations. They REALLY don't want the additional competition.

 

[TheBigA]

Personally I don't think the FCC rules are a significant impediment to doing this. If Romney is elected, he'll be able to appoint members to the Commission, and can be counted on to create a Republican majority.

Doesn't matter. As I said on another page, Bush had a Republican majority during his administration, and neither Chairmen Powell nor Martin could enact further ownership de-regulation. They tried several times, and were over-ruled by the courts. One time, Congress even voted a resolution of disapproval.

 

[Joecassara]

Ok, fair enough then lets amend the rules to allow stations below 92.1 to sell commercials like everyone else! What say you commercial station owners?

As quite possibly the only public radio broadcaster that would like to see the CPB completely disconnected from tax revenue, yes -- I'm in favor. Some of us actually know what we're doing, as professionals, and would welcome the dissolution of underwriting limitations while not alienating our core audience.

Constantly having to kowtow to the financial (and policy) whims of politicians from both sides of the isle is the biggest impediment to growth in public broadcasting.

 

[TheBigA]

Constantly having to kowtow to the financial (and policy) whims of politicians from both sides of the isle is the biggest impediment to growth in public broadcasting.

BS. Politicians respond to someone. In the case of broadcasting, they kowtow to the whims of media corporations and the NAB. The media corporations love public broadcasting, because they do the heavy lifting of providing educational programming, and don't compete with them for advertising. No commercial broadcaster wants to be required to broadcast childrens programming, classical music, or other education. They want to continue to provide lowest common denominator programming that serves the stockholders and investors. Public broadcasting isn't part of that system. They get their money from the public. The biggest impediment to getting commercials on public broadcasting isn't the government. It's the NAB. They have fought against commercialization of public broadcasting. They are the reason underwriting rules exist. They are the reason why LPFM is non-commercial. So don't invent a lot of mythology about politicians. They do what they do because of corporations who support their election campaigns. And it's THAT system that needs to be changed. Not the public broadcasting system.

 

[aaronread]

As quite possibly the only public radio broadcaster that would like to see the CPB completely disconnected from tax revenue, yes -- I'm in favor. Some of us actually know what we're doing, as professionals, and would welcome the dissolution of underwriting limitations while not alienating our core audience.

Yes, I'm here to buy a small piece of your soul. And get you a little bit pregnant while I'm at it. ;D

Tempting as it might be, there is no way that allowing non-comm stations air commercials will end in anything but "failure" in the eyes of public radio professionals. Two reasons:

• Even if your station was managed well enough to avoid corrupting itself, many stations would not be. The erosion of the public's trust in the overall brand of "public radio" would be widespread and devastating. Donations would plummet and the whole thing would death spiral in a matter of months, maybe a year. Faster if it's an election season, as there will be hordes of campaign advertisers trying to cash on public broadcasting's credibility before it disappears, and they'll offer so much money that sooner or later, someone won't be able to afford to say "no" anymore. Once that happens, it all falls apart from there.
• Allowing these licenses to air commercials will - overnight - add at least one, if not two or three decimal points to their sale value. A large number of cash-strapped colleges and foundations that hold these licenses would almost certainly sell them. Odds are very good they'd go to buyers who would not maintain the public radio format.

Constantly having to kowtow to the financial (and policy) whims of politicians from both sides of the isle is the biggest impediment to growth in public broadcasting.

So you believe that public broadcasting is kowtowing to politicians? That's your station management strategy? This does not give me hope that you could be trusted to safely do the impossible and integrate commercial sponsorship into a non-commercial broadcasting platform.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

I find that a pretty funny statement considering his connection to Bain Capital. Bain used to have ownership in Cumulus and still have ownership in Clear Channel. Considering what they've done to the broadcast industry (slash and burn comes to mind), I wouldn't take his advice about broadcasting at all. I sincerly hope that he's not the only other option other than Obama because it's going to be EXTREMELY hard for me to choose who's worse.

 

[Ai4i]

Some of us actually know what we're doing, as professionals, and would welcome the dissolution of underwriting limitations while not alienating our core audience.

I believe that what you say applies to you because you run a gr8 station, but one with a non-competitive signal.
I am skeptical about the outfits who run the full class C's from the centers of their markets.

 

[johnbasalla]

I'm in favor of getting public broadcasting away from government money. In order to make the underwriting spots attractive enough to most businesses, stations have been allowed to make them more like commercials. How many public stations have sales staff, even if they don't call them that, who hit the streets, much like any other station?

 

[Ai4i]

On the other hand, hearing more and more of what sounds to me like the proverbial commercial duck from my local pubcasters is sending me more and more to alternative media and every time I see another deduction on my bank statements, I ask "why am I still doing this?".

 

[PTBoardOp94]

ai4i: Like the underwriting from "Sit4Less" that reads:

"Support for NPR comes from Sit4Less. A proud sponsor of NPR since 2003, selling all colors of the Herman Miller Aeron chair online at Sit4Less.com"

 

[raccoonradio]

>>I'm in favor of getting public broadcasting away from government money. In order to make the underwriting spots attractive enough to most businesses, stations have been allowed to make them more like commercials. How many public stations have sales staff, even if they don't call them that, who hit the streets, much like any other station?

I agree--and now a court decision is allowing public TV & radio to run candidate or issues ads.
Fine by me--let them make money that way, not through taxpayer funding.

 

[TheBigA]

I agree--and now a court decision is allowing public TV & radio to run candidate or issues ads.
Fine by me--let them make money that way, not through taxpayer funding.

First of all, the court decision came from Republican judges, so the FCC will likely challenge the decision.

Second, as we've said many times, these stations get money from lots of places. Not just the government. This one source will not replace taxpayer funding, nor was it intended to. The court case just deals with the role of the FCC. The broadcasters themselves can set their own standards for these ads, or could decide not to run them at all, given that their content is typically negative and inappropriate for airing on their stations. Also, according to Inside Radio, the decision only applies to 7 western states, including Hawaii and Alaska.