They want to kill off Public Broadcasting in America

of course, the fact that PBS runs things like Frontline & Now that are critical of the currently Administration is a totally unrelated and irrelevant fact. No possible connection, whatsoever.

(Marcello obviously OTM about the countless number of other far more worthless or actively nasty govt programs where money could be saved)

Making assumptions about my "self-obsessed prejudices" makes you look clueless Markelby, but it doesn't surprise me since all you have here is a shallow emotional argument based on your personal taste--what you think is "great TV and radio" is widely ignored by the public in the marketplace. Further, the vast majority of programming on public television in the United States would exist without federal funding.

And FWIW, I Tivo "Frontline", "The American Experience", and a handful of PBS cartoons for my kids on a weekly basis. I also contribute to my local PBS affiliate every year in amounts that exceed the "contributions" from my income tax. I'll do you a favor and assume that you do the same.

Ahahahaha.

Don, the UK has a thing called the BBC, for which each household with a television compulsorily pays somewhere in the region of US$987439834392423 per year to fund.

(at least, that was the setup 25 years ago when it was started; I'm not sure if things are different now. The other half of the setup was that if it made too much of a profit then the money had to be given back to the other TV stations, I think)

* comes back

OK, the UK has *three* publically-owned TV networks. One is the BBC's TV network, funded through the licence fee. Of the other two, one is partly funded by government subsidy; the other is *now* wholly funded from commercials, although I'm sure that when it was first started it was partially funded by levies on commercial broadcasters, as I said above.

Hi, I have an interview with NPR this morning and I also don't think there's any need for public broadcasting to be federally funded. I don't mind that it is, but there's no need for it. If is wasn't, the operators (which are mostly state universities) would probably make a more formal coalition to ensure survival of all viable channels/stations. Whatever.

I don't know much about public TV, but I think don is right in that it doesn't do terribly well ratings-wise. The value to advertisers is in the quality of the audience. Public radio, on the other hand, is frequently a top five station in its market where it's aired, and almost always owns the top slot for Time Spent Listening--and again the 'quality' of the audience ($$$) is untouchable.

My exact sentiments.

And Blount, I'm not sure why you ignore the "more or less" part of that post you refer to: the Constitution explicitly provides for a national defense--guns and tanks are modern, legitimate elements of this; that they are possibly used improperly is another argument for another thread entirely. I don't know where the Libertarians are against a "standing military" but since you know about that it'd be nice to see a link supporting that point.

If the audience of NPR or PBS is high quality (i.e. valuable to consumers), the market will support it without the intrusion of the federal government. There's no evidence anywhere to suggest otherwise. And there's the conflict of CBP supporters--they claim it's a negligible amount of federal support, but that it's somehow vital just the same.

Five.

Five.

Aren't more than 50% of the population on some sort of digital TV now? In which case, the number of free channels goes up to at least 15 or so, although several of those are only broadcast for a few hours per day.

John Tesh; Riverdance; nature specials; Kitaro; Sesame Street; Antiques Roadshow; news that's the same as all of the other news channels, but with much less yelling.

To don weiner: whatever ideological justifications and arguments are put forward to justify this action, the motivation and practical consequences are exactly as I stated above. When ideology purity is more important than practical effects, then it is deeply misguided. Ideology can only be tested by its practical effects and not the other way around.

Sure, you may be very happy with FOX News today, but if you fear big government, then remember that the exact same reasons apply to fearing monopolies. I would submit that even when there are several corporations presumably "competing", if the fundamental interests of their owners align in all but a few particulars, then a de facto monopoly condition prevails.

I'm writing that one down!

er yeah but i'd assume that the uk government is funded by the people, too. just like the us is. which is why it always amuses me to hear people like dubya say "don't trust the government with your money." we have met the enemy and he is us.

also, blount's right, don's not a republican. he has some weirdly formed ideas about what actually constitutes american law and governance, but hey, whatevs.

funding PBS by selling off its analog spectrum in two years...

meanwhile, more fun with Tomlinson:

Given these funding issues, yesterday's report by Stephen Labaton in the New York Times takes on added significance. Labaton writes that Tomlinson, in what looks to be an unprecedented move, paid $15,000 to two Republican lobbyists last year without disclosing it to the CPB's board. What's more, the lobbyists, at least according to the "corporation officials" Labaton spoke to, "provided strategic advice on handling a bill last year that would have given public radio and television stations more representation on the corporation's board." The measure died, despite the support of local TV and radio operators. On top of this, Tomlinson paid over $14,000 to a consultant in Indiana to monitor Bill Moyers' "Now" for "liberal bias." Again, all of this was off the books, making one wonder how confident Tomlinson really is in his contention that public broadcasting tilts to the left, and how concerned he is about the looming budget cuts...

then i reiterate it.

I'm not asserting ideaological justifications; I'm asserting Constitutional ones. To your argument, the law isn't subject to undesired outcomes--redressing those outcomes requires changing the Constitution in this case. As Tracer hinted above, our representative democracy allows this and the Constitution provides for it. And as I've noted time and time and again on this thread, the alternatives to public broadcasting are vast and quite sufficient to serve the citizenry. In this context, the motivation and practical effects of the Constitution are well served.

a - where does it say that again, hstence?
b - even if it said that, we can and have changed the Constitution. Which makes my point for me. You love PBS? Then either find Constitutional justification or change the Constitution. I'll be happy with whichever you choose.

Yes. But insofar as I can see, you have stopped at assertion and have not yet offered any particular arguments or justifications in favor of this assertion. If the presumed unconstitutionality of public television is your primary objection, you've done nothing to argue your position effectively in this thread.

IIRC, the only legitimate forum for deciding the constitutionality of Congressional actions is the Supreme Court, and they haven't agreed with you. So, either you are compelled to argue that the Supreme Court did not have valid jurisdiction (an ideological POV if ever there was one) or that they made the "wrong" ruling (another ideologically driven position) or else you must concede that the consitutionality of CPB is not an issue.

As for the vastness of the alternatives to public television, you've halted at assertion there, too. If you are forced to name these vast resources, I think it can soon be demonstrated that, for all the many names these entities go under, the great majority of them will be owned by a handful of media conglomerates, such as Time-Warner-AOL, Clear Channel or Rupert Murdoch.

i'm totally for cpb over cia. porter goss couldn't find the motherfucking cookie monster.

If the presumed unconstitutionality of public television is your primary objection, you've done nothing to argue your position effectively in this thread.

I don't see anything in the Constitution that says the federal government should provide public broadcasting or anything like it. Does that mean that agency authority or executive authority is invalid? No, and I'm not arguing it for the same reason that every governmental action isn't challenged by the Supreme Court.

As for the vastness of the alternatives to public television, you've halted at assertion there, too. If you are forced to name these vast resources, I think it can soon be demonstrated that, for all the many names these entities go under, the great majority of them will be owned by a handful of media conglomerates, such as Time-Warner-AOL, Clear Channel or Rupert Murdoch.

That's a hilarious conspiracy theory that doesn't begin to justify anything you've proposed, including your whimsical tribute to the practicality of founding the Constitution on ideology, Aimless. Really.

weiner, please. it wasn't a thesis, it was a joke at your sorry ass's expense. how many times do you need to be seriously pwned by every poster on this thread before you stop posting nonsense? oh, i know the answer's never, because you will still keep blabbing your bizarre spiel day-in and day-out, regardless of whether you're actually right or not. in a way it's kinda endearing and cute, but someday i hope you grow up and give it up, bub.

This is kind of like fundie Christians telling the ones who don't hate gays they just aren't reading the Bible right.

I'm just gonna avoid the slavery thing altogether.

And then it's on to calling me crazy, as if a significant amount of daily leftwing echo chamber posting on ILX isn't filled with half-truths and opinion posing as fact. If that's not enough, you have to declare yourself the mature guy in the crowd, the all knowing discerner of truth and consequence who can remind me that I just need to grow up and face your facts before I'm taken seriously. Sorry, but I don't need to appeal to your intellect to validate my own, and if you don't like my opinion or think I'm full of shit, then ignore me. Or make fun of me. Doesn't bug me a bit.

As to you Milo, you're probably half-right.

In other words, you can make a lot of arguments about the sensibility of how and how much the government should be involved in this sphere, but to pretend that being involved at all is somehow outside the Constitutional scope of government is not, I don't think, going to fly.

I agree that it is sensible to define the airwaves that way (which I think the SCOTUS has, actually) in the same sense that we can validate, say, environmental laws on exactly the same grounds. But I don't see regulation as authority to provide programming, even in the form of grants. As I've noted upthread, it made a lot more sense decades ago but now, given current market and economical conditions it seems much less harder to rationalize. It's fine that they divy up the airwaves just like they might pave interstate roads, but I don't see why they should fund a television or radio station. After all, they don't pave roads to then fund a national newspaper, do they? It's not that I'm saying the government has no right to govern a sphere that is reasonably of national interest, I'm saying that they don't need to fill that sphere either on Constitutional grounds or market/economic grounds.

wait, huh? Dude, we already are down to about half-a-dozen big companies owning like 95% of the channels/stations/broadcast venues as it is...

To your argument, the law isn't subject to undesired outcomes--redressing those outcomes requires changing the Constitution in this case.

But when I point out that you are wrong by any accepted measure of constitutional law, your position changes to this:

I don't see anything in the Constitution that says the federal government should provide public broadcasting or anything like it.

Excuse me for pointing this out, but you just waffled your position like crazy. Since doing this once is probably a good indicator that you'll do it again and again, I think I'll quit while you're behind. Thanks for all the fish.

nabisco, OTM and sorry to everyone whom I've confused by being batshit or not grown up enough to communicate clearly.

Don, do you feel that, in the face of all the socially conservative criticism and inqury coming from Congress and the Administration, the CPB and the various NPR and PBS stations around the country would end up with better content (more independence) if they just gave up the federal teat altogether?

anyhoo, back to your regularly-scheduled convo, already in progress...

don, caricaturing my positions is not the same as making an argument. Asserting your conclusions is not the same as making an argument. Arguments are built, not excreted.

When you find yourself shaping paragraphs that propose theses and then marshall supposrting evidence, drawing connections between antecedants and consequences, then you will know you are arguing your point. It feels qualitatively different than spouting off.

YES and I noted it way upthread after jblount made a comment about this. See my other comments upthread that relate to a Rove-ian public broadcasting world.

And to you Aimless--funny how I knew you weren't leaving without shooting a few more fish. Like hstencil, you've given me valuable advice on how to conduct myself and I promise to do as you say, even if you're reduced to hypocrisy in your lecturing.

the Red Green show.

The audience for NPR programming has doubled in the last ten years to 26 million weekly listeners. Since Spring 1999, the audience to NPR programming has added nearly 9 million listeners, an increase of 60 percent. In the early 1980s, about 2 million people listened to NPR.

This upward listener trend in the last two decades is in large part attributable to the astounding growth of NPR News, a national service anchored by hourly newscasts and two signature, award-winning newsmagazines Morning Edition and All Things Considered. These programs are currently the second and third most listened-to radio programs in America. NPR News saw significant audience growth and retention after each major news event from the 1991 Gulf War to the Sept. 11 attacks to recent events in Iraq.

But I think radio is different.

Personally, I probably wouldn't bother shelling out the serious cash my gf does to have all the cable gewgaws we have and KQED and KCSM are broadcast so I will have to make an old fashioned argument for keeping informative TV available to the poor. I will admit, however, that Discovery/National Geographic/BBC America/et al... have taken to broadcasting content that once was the mainstay of much of PBS, but if anything that should be a spur for PBS stations to further tailor their lineups to the tastes of the subscribers keeping them in business. If there is a Federally (under)funded corporation that helps to pool resources and provide a source of programming that is not entirely designed around the commercial model, that's more than fine with me. Our popular culture tends to get so easily degraded by consumerism, escapism, and sex/violence that a little gentle elitism isn't uncalled for. You are either conceding a political battle to social conservatives (a defeatism I will never allow myself) or an inherent antipathy toward 'big govt.', taxpayer funded programs has soured you on the value and utility of public broadcasting, but the 'totally' in total waste of taxpayer money seems like mere hyperbole to me.

Largest radio broadcasters merge

The two largest radio broadcasting companies in the United States, Westinghouse Electric Corporation and Infinity Broadcasting Corporation, merged. Federal communications law had recently lifted restrictions on the number of radio stations one company could own: Together, the combined firms ran eighty-three stations.

Note that this consultant defined "liberal bias" as "anti-Bush," which is NOT THE SAME THING.

I am glad that you have made the most credible argument for public broadcasting, which of course is for the poor. I am interested in knowing, in fact, how much the poor watch PBS or listen to NPR. I have suspicions given my knowledge of daypart television ratings, but will withold further assumptions on this particular issue until you or someone else can inform me. For if we supply the poor with "informational programming", it would greatly validate the cause if they were consumers of it. If they are not, then we have something to reconcile (and that still doesn't really reconcile the fact that it's much more informative to read the newspaper or books, and the fed doesn't play nearly the same role in that context.)

funding was saved, but at what cost?

Also Thursday, the corporation's board selected Patricia S. Harrison, a former Republican Party co-chairman, as president and chief executive.

so this is the deal they had to strike to save the funding.

Fuck.

Of course, there are plenty of other party hacks still at CPB, and his stepping down probably has something to do with this:

It's widely expected that the Corporation's Inspector General Kenneth Konz will deliver his long-anticipated report on "deficiencies in policies and procedures" at the CPB meeting today, although the contents of his investigation aren't likely to be made public for a couple of weeks. Konz has been working on his report for some time, initially acting on a request made in May by several members of Congress to explore whether CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson violated the Public Broadcasting Act by secretly hiring outside contractors to search for evidence of "liberal bias" in PBS' programs, and by bringing aboard a White House staffer to help write rules for two new ombudsmen to monitor public broadcasting's content...

Of course, as that article notes, they've brought in some State Dept folks with no shortage of experience in propaganda...