A multitude of cable channels has encroached on what used to be the PBS preserve. But have you tried watching the superficial filler that passes for documentaries on The History Channel?
Where is “Live From Lincoln Center” on cable? Or a journalistic equivalent to “The NewsHour”? Cable is fine for recycled BBC offerings, but A&E and Bravo don’t pretend to rise to the level of PBS culture programming. And forget kids’ shows. Nick is nice as far as it goes, but cable won’t put the money into the hundreds of hours of programming that a franchise like “Sesame Street” produces every year.
PBS is a special resource, valuable in a democracy that depends on well-informed citizens … well, you know the rap.
That said, public TV needs an extreme makeover.
PBS has bungled at every turn. The system still can’t decide whether to embrace commercials (“enhanced underwriting” is the euphemism). The convoluted bureaucracy doesn’t work. While preaching “localism,” the service has kept a few strong stations in charge (Boston, New York, Los Angeles) while others idle.
The built-in tension between the quasi-network PBS, the federally chartered Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the more than 350 stations is designed to keep the system stagnant. Even agreeing on a schedule – running “NOVA” or “American Experience” at the same time nationally – has proved impossible.
PBS displays arrogance toward broadcast business basics. They failed to make money on “Barney” merchandise and rights when they had the chance. They lost Mobil as Masterpiece Theatre underwriter and haven’t found a replacement. They pride themselves on being difficult business partners.
A group of “anarchists”
PBS failed to stand up to political pressure in the ridiculous censoring of “Postcards From Buster,” could not protect Bill Moyers from conservative enemies, and bowed to a CPB request to launch “The Journal Editorial Report,” a forum for the editor of The Wall Street Journal’s conservative editorial page.
The fat-and-happy commercial broadcasters work hand-in-glove with regulators to keep public TV frail.
“PBS has been placed in a perfectly untenable position,” said Wick Rowland, general manager of KBDI-Channel 12.
“It’s an association of anarchists,” said James Morgese, general manager of Rocky Mountain PBS, KRMA-Channel 6.
It is a mess that must be straightened out.
To allow PBS to reclaim its mission, we need to tax broadcast and cable, give public TV the resources to do what we say we want it to do, and get out of the way. A hybrid supported by “members like you,” tax-based money, license fees and underwriting/advertising is the way to go.
Multiple battle fronts
Per capita, Britons pay $200 a year to support the BBC, while Americans pay $1.35 a year to support PBS. The BBC’s annual budget is $10 billion; PBS’s is $2.3 billion.
“They complain about it all the time but even in their worst Thatcherite moments the Brits don’t want to get rid of the BBC,” Rowland said.
If PBS had to rely on fundraising from members, we could expect more John Tesh specials. If they had to rely on corporate underwriting, we could say goodbye to “Frontline.” If the government proposes to tax broadcast licenses, the broadcast lobby will revolt, but commercial broadcasters are poised to make billions on extra spectrum space. It is time to talk hybrids.
Every few years PBS is declared irrelevant. This time, given the GOP right pressuring CPB, the opponents of public funding of arts and culture, plus the cost of the Iraq war, it really is on the brink.
“There’s a perfect storm brewing,” Rowland said.
“I’m cautioning my board to get ready for an organization that’s ‘not your father’s PBS,”‘ Morgese said. “We will survive, but we’ll have to get into a more entrepreneurial emphasis.”
A savior in bandwidth?
Morgese thinks digital data-casting may save PBS: Homeland Security needs the extra channel space, as an alternative to the existing communications grid. Leasing spectrum space or selling off bandwidth could bring in billions of dollars and free PBS from government meddling. They must convince those legislators who would rather auction off the extra spectrum space to help reduce the deficit.
At meetings in San Francisco last week, PBS insiders recalled previous efforts to stop federal funding (currently about 15 percent of total funding) by Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich. None was successful, it was observed, in large part because of the outcry from PBS supporters. The problem: The most loyal PBS viewers are the World War II generation, which is dying off.
This time, PBS can’t depend on goodwill.
It would be a shame to lose the educational efforts of public TV, the journalistic purity of “Frontline” and “The NewsHour,” the arts programming that helps define a civilization.
Moreover, fans of opera and Jane Austen can pay for alternatives. It’s those who can’t afford cable who would suffer most without public TV.
TV critic Joanne Ostrow can be reached at 303-820-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com.
