Several reasons why to defund public broadcasting

[The Voice of Reason]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100...6663789314074.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_emailed

A very good article as to why the federal government needs to defund public broadcasting.

 

[TheBigA]

Senator DeMint needs to take a look at the comparitive salaries of all non-profit CEOs, many of which also receive taxpayer funding. This is a selective focus on a handful of extremely large public broadcasters.

 

[TheBigA]

Let me add that it would be wise for our Congressmen to hold hearings on the funding of public broadcasting. I think the public would support such hearings. It;s very clear that a lot of people have no clue about public funding of broadcasting, including people like Sen. DeMint. The simple and easy way to answer these questions is to hold hearings, ask people to bring in their financials, demonstrate clearly to everyone how the public benefits from this funding, and at the end, hold a vote based on real facts rather than politics or personal beliefs. I'm confident that when the public gets the full story, they will support continued funding. But Sen. DeMint won't let that happen. Because he might lose.

 

[recto101]

Public Broadcasting is good.

 

[musichead1029]

I'm confident that when the public gets the full story, they will support continued funding. But Sen. DeMint won't let that happen. Because he might lose.

I don't follow. Sen DeMint and supporters of independently-funded media are currently on the losing side of this equation. The status quo is that, like it or not, the public is still taxed to pay for a portion of public media's operations. Hearings have been held over and over, arguments have been made. If public media have made a compelling case, the public should lobby their representatives to vote to continue tax support. That has always been the result in the past.

We just happen to be broker now as a nation, and without the acceptance of budget cuts, that won't change. Public media won't make or break any budget on its own. But it provides a high profile example of the choices that have to be made on funding priorities.

I argue (exhaustively!) the case for independent funding here.

 

[listener-in]

We just happen to be broker now as a nation, and without the acceptance of budget cuts, that won't change.

At the risk of getting this TiOd, I would suggest that we, as a nation, are NOT broke, and also that sweeping budget cuts are not necessary. The concept of "broke" is a convenient nonsense put about to disguise the massive upward redistribution of wealth and income that occurred, stealthily at first, over the last three decades. It's a FACT that certain sections of our economy are stuffed to the gills with money while others are starved of funds. Translation: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer not only in cash terms but, more importantly, in the services available to them.

Consider this. In an average day's trading on Wall Street, roughly $70 billion worth of stocks change hands. Assuming 250 trading days each year, the total annual value of trades comes to about $17.5 trillion. By comparison, the gross domestic product of the US is "only" about $14 trillion annually. Wall Street obviously has a valuable function of providing capital to support the attainment of our GDP - but it's preposterous to imagine that a level of trades exceeding the GDP by 25% either represents or stimulates productive activity; as a mathematical proposition it just doesn't work. Most of these paper transactions are simply means of shuffling other people's money around, each trade lining somebody's pocket. Our budget woes would largely disappear if a levy of, say, 0.25% were applied to each trade.

But no, let's just cut to the bone and watch America's public infrastructure and amenities (including education and public broadcasting) decay to third world levels.

 

[musichead1029]

Listener-in advocates increasing government revenue by raising taxes. That will certainly be part of the equation, but history teaches us that as more revenue is brought in (through increased taxes), more is sent out in even more government spending. That equation can't work forever at the levels we're currently at.

Cuts in spending have to be made under any scenario, and non-essential services like public media will (and, I believe, should) be among the first to be considered for the chopping block. There are likely billions of dollars of similarly non-essential and non-sustainable spending that can be curtailed or shifted to the private sector, enlivening the economy and the infrastructure in the process while also generating increased tax revenue. Enabling more people to support public media should they desire to do so.

Encouraging public media to become self-supporting will make it more responsive to its current and future potential audiences, and won't negatively affect public infrastructure.

 

[listener-in]

Listener-in advocates increasing government revenue by raising taxes. That will certainly be part of the equation, but history teaches us that as more revenue is brought in (through increased taxes), more is sent out in even more government spending. That equation can't work forever at the levels we're currently at.

That's not quite borne out by the facts. Historically, the spending has nearly always come first, and then either paid for by taxation or more usually by borrowing. That's why we have deficits.

I don't wish to suggest that each and every dollar spent by the government is sacred. Clearly there is room for scrutiny, and that should be true in good times as well as bad. However, there's now a push for lower taxes and lower spending for purely ideological reasons and we shouldn't fall for it. "There's not enough money"? Oh yes there is, and the source is in the unproductive part of the financial sector that I described previously. When public infrastructure decays in front of our eyes, and valuable public services and institutions are being vandalized, it's time to increase the revenue side.

 

[TheBigA]

Encouraging public media to become self-supporting will make it more responsive to its current and future potential audiences, and won't negatively affect public infrastructure.

All that's fine, but that is not what's being done. What a small group of Republicans are trying to do is simply defund CPB without discussing any other changes in the rules and laws under which these broadcasters work. That is avoiding actual due process, which is against the law. It's like telling the President "We don't like your policy, so we aren't going to fund it." That's not the way the democratic process is supposed to work. Let's have Congressional hearings on public broadcasting before we pull the rug out from under it.

 

[board_manager]

Some posts have been relocated to Take It Outside

http://boards.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=186467.0

 

[musichead1029]

Encouraging public media to become self-supporting will make it more responsive to its current and future potential audiences, and won't negatively affect public infrastructure.

All that's fine, but that is not what's being done. What a small group of Republicans are trying to do is simply defund CPB without discussing any other changes in the rules and laws under which these broadcasters work.

Not sure what you're getting at here. All broadcasters are subject to FCC rules. What connection does that have to public funding?

That is avoiding actual due process, which is against the law. It's like telling the President "We don't like your policy, so we aren't going to fund it." That's not the way the democratic process is supposed to work. Let's have Congressional hearings on public broadcasting before we pull the rug out from under it.

NPR funding is the responsibility of Congress - funding legislation starts in the House. As for democratic process, if the public disagrees with funding legislation, they should communicate with their representatives. If they don't like the outcome, they can vote against the incumbent. It's happened before. Recently.

 

[TheBigA]

Not sure what you're getting at here. All broadcasters are subject to FCC rules. What connection does that have to public funding?

There are rules for commercial broadcasters and rules for non-commercial broadcasters. They don't operate on all of the same rules. There are very strict rules on how non-commercial broadcasters can raise money outside of public funding. Those rules are not being discussed in the context of the defunding debate. All that's being discussed is pulling the plug, not replacing that money with other options.

NPR funding is the responsibility of Congress - funding legislation starts in the House.

Not correct. CPB funding is the responsibility of Congress. But yes, the House appropriations committees discuss the various funding systems that go to CPB every year. The most recent approriation was approved, and CPB is funded through 2014.

As for democratic process, if the public disagrees with funding legislation, they should communicate with their representatives. If they don't like the outcome, they can vote against the incumbent. It's happened before. Recently.

Just defunding something doesn't address the issue. These folks are circumventing the real issue, which is the existence of non-commercial, non-profit public broadcasting. The Public Broadcasting Act is still a law that Congress must work with. CPB is still an agency Congress must work with. So defunding it ignores the real conversation which the public deserves to hear. It is the role of Congress to present these issues to the American public, and it's something they haven't done. They just want to pull funding on things. That's sidestepping the proper process.

 

[musichead1029]

Not sure what you're getting at here. All broadcasters are subject to FCC rules. What connection does that have to public funding?

There are very strict rules on how non-commercial broadcasters can raise money outside of public funding.

All noncommercial broadcasters are subject to the same FCC rules. The majority of noncommercial broadcasters aren't publicly funded by a tax. I'm still missing the connection.

Just defunding something doesn't address the issue. These folks are circumventing the real issue, which is the existence of non-commercial, non-profit public broadcasting.

Not at all. Public media will continue to exist without being funded through a tax.

The Public Broadcasting Act is still a law that Congress must work with. CPB is still an agency Congress must work with. So defunding it ignores the real conversation which the public deserves to hear.

The public hears the conversation every time public media funding comes up for review. CPB files appeals with congress and the FCC all the time. All congress is proposing is to adjust the current tax funding allocation to $0. That doesn't dissolve CPB nor does it prevent CPB from appealing.

 

[TheBigA]

All noncommercial broadcasters are subject to the same FCC rules. The majority of noncommercial broadcasters aren't publicly funded by a tax. I'm still missing the connection.

Depends on which public funding you're talking about. There are dozens of federal programs that fund non-commercial broadcasting in addition to CPB. All of them are being cut under the House bill. So this addresses more than simply CPB funding.

Public media will continue to exist without being funded through a tax.

My point is it's unfair and undemocratic to simply cut the funding without discussing the law they are defunding. There were lengthy discussions that led to the funding. But the defunding is a backroom, closed door decision that isn't being presented in a line-by-line way to the public.

All congress is proposing is to adjust the current tax funding allocation to $0. That doesn't dissolve CPB nor does it prevent CPB from appealing.

Which is why I saw the process is undemocratic. If the issue is the law, then deal with the law. Don't simply pull the funding in some back room meeting. Do it in the light of day, in front of the public.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Everyone run for cover! I've been thinking..... about the flip side of "why to defund public broadcasting".

How is traditional, commercial broadcasting financed in America? Advertising. And who pays for advertising? Business enterprises that we can do business with. And how do they come up with the funds to pay for this advertising? Every time we buy something a tiny part of that purchase price we pay goes for the cost of advertising.

Follow closely. Here it comes. Media purchases are for practical purposes are ONLY for demographics age 45 or younger, or maybe age 55 or younger. So those of us OVER the target demo are helping pay for the broadcasting system and the newspaper system, but to compete for the ad revenue they MUST target young audience.

Thus, in the case of radio and tv, the government has created a system that forces the entire broadcast industry to program ONLY to young people.

Defund public broadcasting? No, some mechanism must exist that provides broadcasting suitable for consumption by people above the target demo. That is one of the justifications for Federal Funding of public broadcasting. Mature people (a.k.a. old geezers) have helped pay the cost of advertising revenue, but the system denies commercial advertising revenue for stations that have a demographic including mature people.

 

[DudeFan]

My position is this: if you want to defund public broadcasting, then you must relieve non-comm stations of the underwriting restrictions.

 

[musichead1029]

My position is this: if you want to defund public broadcasting, then you must relieve non-comm stations of the underwriting restrictions.

Why? To quote myself from above, All noncommercial broadcasters are subject to the same FCC rules. The majority of noncommercial broadcasters aren't publicly funded by a tax. Most noncomms, despite being subject to the underwriting rules, don't rely on a tax for funding. It doesn't appear that the two have any connection.

The underwriting rules aren't that onerous. You just have to approach advertising with a gentler, less obtrusive touch. The underwriting rules are part of the deal a noncomm makes when it secures a slot in the reserved noncomm band.

 

[TheBigA]

The majority of noncommercial broadcasters aren't publicly funded by a tax. Most noncomms, despite being subject to the underwriting rules, don't rely on a tax for funding. It doesn't appear that the two have any connection.

That's their choice. Pacifica stations have chosen not to accept government or corporate funding. But it means they operate in non-stop poverty.

Getting back to why this system was set up this way, the goal was to create a quality alternative to commercial broadcasting. Not just throw anything on the air. The fact was that commercial broadcasting in the 60s wasn't very good. It hasn't gotten much better. The consolidation and budget cuts have made public service programming impossible to find. I regularly read threads on this board of listeners complaining about the lack of emergency coverage during snow storms. So the Congress decided they wanted a PROFESSIONAL system of non-commercial radio, with minimum staffing and budget requirements. This is all in the Public Broadcasting Act. So yes, some NCE stations didn't want to play by these rules. Many of them still receive SOME government funding from agencies other than CPB. Some of them utilize the government-funded satellite interconnection system and other government funded resources. Pacifica stations feed Democracy Now on the NPR satellite even though they aren't part of NPR. So your assumption that a defunding of public broadcasting won't affect non-CPB stations is wrong. And the House budget bill wasn't limited to defunding CPB but just about all domestic spending, including NEA, NEH, and other national arts and educational spending.

 

[PTBoardOp94]

The majority of noncommercial broadcasters aren't publicly funded by a tax. Most noncomms, despite being subject to the underwriting rules, don't rely on a tax for funding. It doesn't appear that the two have any connection.

Source? It seems to me that the majority of non-commercial broadcasters are owned by some sort of entity receiving tax money. I haven't looked at this nationally or even regionally, but looking at the list of non-commercial stations in Indianapolis, as provided by Radio-Locator:
Religious Organizations: WJCF, WHCN, WSPM, WQRA,
Private Universities: WICR
Community Broadcasters: WIRE, WITT
Total Non-Comms Not Receiving Tax Money: 7.

Public Universities/Schools: WJEL, WRGF, WKPW, WBDG, WEDM, WHJE, WEEM, WFIU, WBAA
Public Broadcasters: WFYI
Total Non-Comms Receiving Tax Money: 10

It is worth noting that there are at least 5 high school stations in the "receiving tax money" list. I don't believe that is typical.

 

[musichead1029]

It seems to me that the majority of non-commercial broadcasters are owned by some sort of entity receiving tax money.

Are the parent schools receiving tax dollars specifically to fund their broadcasting operations, or are they taxpayer supported institutions that choose to operate media as part of their educational programs? Two different beasts.