Will we finally defund Public Broadcasting?
By Ward Smythe | Friday, December 17th, 2010 | Policy
Governor McDonnell is set to release his full list of proposed budget amendments today. Among them, for the second time he will recommend phasing out funding for public broadcast service. This will save an estimated $4 million by 2013.
And, doesn’t that make sense?
Recent outcries over the liberal bias of National Public Radio and public broadcasting in general have renewed the cry to eliminate federal funding. After all, why should their be a state owned media when we’ve still got CBS?
And why can’t public broadcasting be self-supporting with profit from some of the billions of dollars of licensed Sesame Street products?
When budgets are tight, we’re called to make difficult choices.
This seems like an easy one.
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Ward Smythe is a pseudonymous aspiring freelance writer from Central Virginia. Until late 2007 Ward blogged at the now defunct "Ward View" and was active in Virginia and national politics. Ward's signature style of snarkery gained him a unique following that he hopes to regain here at Bearing Drift. Ward uses humor, satire and sometimes photoshop to make his point. Ward is proud to be an equal opportunity offender.
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13 Responses to "Will we finally defund Public Broadcasting?"
If public broadcasting was as right wing as can be, I’d still think it’s time to pull the plug. At a time where television was three networks, it had a role. Now there are 500 channels and for a few bucks you can own dvd/blue-ray discs or order instant OnDemand entertainment of whatever quality you wish.
Let’s be clear. This isn’t about Sesame Street. The non-profit org that runs it makes 145 million dollars per year, and would easily find a home on any network.
And don’t tell me about local programming, either. 99% of public broadcasting is syndicated programming.
I think there is a value to what public broadcasting provides. I think there’s a value to A&E, the History Channel, American Movie Classics and the Discovery Channel – and I don’t what them subsidized by taxpayers either.
We also have to be clear as to what is public broadcasting and what isn’t. Who receives funds and who doesn’t. For a good primer, listen to my podcast last year with Fred Echols:
http://www.bearingdrift.com/2009/12/24/vpod-85-fred-echols-all-things-considered-and-weekend-virginia/
Can you at least be honest about the scale of savings here? You’re talking about money on the scale of one one-hundredth of one percent of the state budget. (That’s “0.0001″.)
For people on the Right to be always so gung-ho about gutting public broadcasting for this kind of a pittance in real savings, the issue is plainly ideological (as Kirwin, to his credit, acknowledges). To me it is plain that public broadcasting provides, or can provide, a public good. It is simply true that there is valuable programming that will not be profitable for any of the balkanized cable channels (like the so-called “History” channel, a/k/a “Hitler 24/7″). The fragmentation of the media marketplace is not a fact that militates purely against public funding of public broadcasting. I think it cuts both ways.
Ideology aside, the issue is whether or not public broadcasting provides any benefit commensurate with the taxpayer funding that it receives. As far as I can tell, the only time the PBS stations have anything on that is remotely interesting is when they are running a fund raiser. Then, you have to suffer through 20-minute begging commercials every hour unless you DVR it.
I don’t care what percentage of the state budget it is. If we are pissing away $4M a year on something that provides no tangible benefit to the taxpayers, then cut it. BK is right–there is plenty of quality programming on the cable channels that don’t receive a nickel of public financing.
I can’t see any reason that the government needs to subsidize PBS.
but a bigger issue in the governor’s budget proposals is that he’s not paying back the more than $600 milllion that he and the legislature raided from the VRS last year and promised to pay back.
Instead, he’s making state employees pick up part of their retirement costs for the first time since 1983, in effect making them pay for the raide on their pension plan.
Uh, yeah, I’d much rather give millions to Steven Spielberg and a bunch of wine merchants than continue to invest in an initiative that has proven benefits.
Hands off PBS.
@Jim, Hands off my wallet.
Jim,
Can you enlarge on your comment? The only money that is going to promote the Virginia wine industry is a portion of the state taxes that the industry already pays. Formerly, these taxes went into the general revenue fund without providing any benefit whatsoever to the wine industry. McDonnell campaigned on a promise to set aside a portion of these taxes to promote Virginia wines, whose industry is currently the sixth largest producer in the US. In doing so, we will increase the size of the industry, thereby providing more jobs and increasing the taxes the state collects. How is that a problem?
Also, I would like to hear more about the “proven benefits” that public broadcasting has provided in Virginia.
The “proven benefits” of public broadcasting that Jim mentions without elaboration are precisely this; well paid sinecures for leftists and Dems in hiding or waiting. Believe me I know. I have no problem with them going to a private foundation while they bemoan their loss of office but they want the Treasury to support them in style forever. They are entitled you see. They also want a place to spout all things considered from a left wing point of view.
valentinus,
While I agree with your assessment of the political bias of public broadcasting, that is besides the point. Even if they carried Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck 24/7, I would still oppose taxpayer funding. (Actually, I would probably oppose it even more in those circumstances since I consider Rush and Glenn to be rather tasteless entertainment and not serious political commentary.)
Pardon me for being one of the old men here, but I remember when public broadcasting began back in the mid 20th Century. It was called Educational TV in those days and carried informative programming that the three commercial networks wouldn’t touch. Since it accepted no advertising in order to preserve its intellectual freedom, public funding was necessary.
As BK pointed out, with 300 cable channels, alternate content channels ranging from pay-per-view to podcasts, and web streaming video, spending taxpayer money on public broadcasting is about as obsolete as the telegram.
Kill it.
HR-My point as well. With 10 varieties of the History Channel, Discovery Channel, Science Channel, Animal Planet, etc, etc……and as many kids channels…including Sprout on Demand, which carries all PBS’s kids programs including Seasame St. there’s not really any point in PBS anymore.
On the one hand, conservative talk radio is big business.
On the other hand, Air America was a flop and PBS only survives on subsidies.
Very simply, there’s no market demand for liberal ideas.
Opinion here seems to be pretty unanimous in that nobody listens to NPR Radio or watches PBS much, if at all. Virginia Currents is one example the type of local programming you just won’t find anywhere else. In the car, I’ll listen NPR if they aren’t playing classical music. Should it be publicly funded? That’as a good and fair question. $4M is not and it could certainly be replaced elsewhere, but to simply say it is a horrible programming vehicle is not true.
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