"Aaaggh! Public television!" Topic

Well, looks like another pointless and endless pledge drive is on again on public television. How many is this so far this year? 20?!

Now, I don't really watch it very much, so I really don't have anything to complain about. Still, on some Saturday mornings I occasionally like to peek in and check out their smattering of cooking shows, which are fairly entertaining. They're certainly not the classics like The French Chef, Justin Wilson, or Martin Yan, but they're cooking shows nonetheless.

Oh well, there's always the Food Network.

I'm not familiar with the current proliferation of networks in the US, so i have to ask: is there also a Fast Food Network for people with little time?

If not, the idea is for sale.

Not a bad idea, Gungnir, but they do have one show where the host visits similar restaurants and other "holes-in-the-wall" (like roadside food shacks). Here's a link to the page:

link

Where I live, you can sometimes find the combination gas station/food mart that has a little grill tucked away in the back. I can tell you that some of them have some really good "on-the-go" food, which includes anything from breakfast items, to burritos and tortas, to hamburgers, to shish kabobs and, occasionally, Indian cuisine.

Personally, I'd like to see a local community channel visit these local "dives".

Well, it could be like in my area. We are loosing our Public TV station, and it broadcasts the "Create" channel which is all cooking and travel shows. When it goes, I will miss it very much. Economy is sinking deeper in my region, with no bottom in sight! Pledge drives would be a tolerable alternative to no PBS.

In Germany itīs illegal to own a TV (or a VCR, radio or even a computer because you can use it to watch TV) without paying 17 Euros a month to finance public TV. I would prever pledges I could ignore.

In the US we pay taxes to support public television AND they still have Pledge Drives. I've been ignoring PBS for years. They've had nothing worthwhile on in a decade or more and they only play the good shows during pledge time … and then interrupt them every 6 minutes to whine for money.

What I hate most about the pledge drives for one of our PBS stations is that for pledge weeks the schedule changes from the good programs I would actually support to ballroom dancing competitions and creepy self help lectures.

Yeah, programming during pledge weeks always takes a dive IMO… it becomes more like commercial television… kind of.
I'm not sure how much of our tax money goes to public television… or how much of their operating costs it covers.

One thing I know from our local NPR station is that the people managing it… running the fundraisers… get paid LARGE amounts of money… vs. the staff who are mostly volunteers. It always seemed to me that if you want to get rich you should work for a commercial company… rather than seeking to raid the coffers of a non-profit.

I'd be willing to pay higher taxes if I knew the money would support the programming… vs. the greed of the people running it.

What Jana said!

Yep!

Well, looks like another pointless and endless pledge drive is on again on public television. How many is this so far this year? 20?!

Our local one, Buffalo-Toronto, has also had a ton of drives this first third of the year too, including a new one starting tonight. My theory is that because they held so many so early, people either got upset and didn't pledge or made phoney pledges just to get them to stop, so they found that the more pledge drives didn't actually bring them more money. Now everyone's upset and won't be donating at all. And instead of accepting that they've pushed it too far, they're going to keep on extending pledging instead that will only make the problem worse.

And for Jana et alia, we pay higher taxes in Ontario and our "PBS" (TVO) still has pledge drives too! (Although they're not as annoying as the US ones as they don't do any on-screen advertising during the shows except for the end credits; and limit the begging to between shows only so it's only the 5-10 minutes.) But because our one began pledge driving, the local Buffalo PBS tries to run its pledge drives before or during the TVO ones, so there's no getting away from it.

In 2008 PBS got $400 USD million dollars. I get about 200 cable TV channels, I don't think we need PBS anymore. It's not like 40 years ago when some areas only had a few stations.

Mike "Bunkermeister" Creek
hystericalrightwing.blogspot.com

The only time I watched PBS was when they used to show Red Dwarf at midnight.

Man, I guess I just live in a different universe. I will go stark raving mad without PBS. What kind of WONDERFUL programing are you folks getting on your pay-for commercials cable? You like watching American Idol rejects on "reality" crap shows? PBS has consistently produced excellent drama programs, the news and science programing is top-notch, and I love the new "Create" side channel with featured cooking and travel shows. To each, his own, but there is no accounting for tastes!

TV? It isn't good enough to pay for. I quit watching even public TV last century….

Glen,

Which station is in trouble? Is it WGVU? I don't watch as regularly as you do but I'd miss it if it left. As to your comment on network TV: I DO NOT WATCH IT! Thank God for Cable otherwise I'd go nuts. I love the Discovery, Science, History and History International channels as well as the Military Channel, BBC America and the variuos news channels and the three C-SPAN channels from time to time. As for Reality TV, the only "reality" shows I'll watch are Ice Road truckers, Ax-Men, Deadliest Catch and Dirty Jobs. Sorry for the survivor fans out their these are real reality not fake reality.

Honestly, NPR fund drives annoy me more.

I wish they'd just get over it and admit they're already commercial stations, and go the rest of the way to normal radio funding.

It doesn't really matter if the 45 second commercial they run is for an "endowment sponsor", it's still a paid commercial advertisement. I'd rather have more of those, and less begging.
-Kle.

Tom, it is WUOM that is in on the chopping block. Who could have guessed that the big, fat rich U of M would let it's PBS station go under? I will get more reading finished, and maybe paint more figures, so I will try to look on it as a positive. (sigh)

The vast majority of cable TV programming is crap…
Most stations are showing reruns of 3rd string sitcoms, crap reality shows, infomercials, or bad science/history 'documentaries'…

Except for a small handful of stations everything is recycled and loaded with commercials… you pay for it AND still have to watch the damn commercials anyway.

Do any of the channels show Nova or Masterpiece Theater or Austin City Limits? Without commercial breaks?

If it wasn't for TCM, CSPAN, and the Cartoon Network I would happily cancel the cable and never shed a tear.

I too think that PBS should just admit the truth that "sponsorship announcements" are in fact simply bare-bones commercials, and simply sell the ad time and be done with the "public funding" nonsense. Most of the kids shows make millions in product sales and DVD sales as it is, and the "grown up" shows could easily allow for "limited commercial interruption." There are plenty of advertisers who would support the good stuff. As for the garbage, I don't see why my tax dollars should be sucked into that hole in the first place. If it's good, it will attract an audience and therefore sponsors/advertisers. If it can't attract an audience, it's not good. (My only caveat is that they would need intelligent programming executives who understand the time and consistent scheduling are crucial to audience building. In other words, they can't hire people from Fox.)

Vis a vis the increased number of pledge drives, CPR (Colorado Public Radio) has stated that corporate sponsorships are down and that therefore they need more money from their individual supporters.