States slashing public media money

By Rod Dreher • November 16, 2011, 8:08 AM

The Atlantic has a chart showing how harsh budget cutting at the state level has been on public broadcasting. I could be wrong about this, but I’m not troubled overmuch by the cuts to public television. There’s so much good programming available now, of the sort only public television used to do. But I am bothered by cuts to public radio. There is nothing like it. Like many people who love public radio, I grinch about this or that aspect of its programming, but boy, would my life be poorer without public radio. We who love public radio should support it with our contributions. I do believe, though, that there is a role for public funding of this community institution, just as there is a role for public funding of museums.

I understand if you disagree, as many, maybe most, conservatives do. There is a principled argument to be made against taxpayer subsidies for public broadcasting. But if you support, or have supported, giving tax abatements to sports team owners to build new stadiums or to keep your team in your city — benefits so generous ($9 billion over the past 10 years) that they dwarf public broadcasting funding cuts (an estimated $202 million since 2008)– you don’t really have much room to complain.

22 Responses to States slashing public media money

CDK says:

November 16, 2011 at 9:20 am

I could wish our public television was more like the BBC, which remains, for me, the model of how to do it. I think public tv has more ability to slow down and present a more judicious treatment of issues; the six-o-clock “we’re coming at ya with the latest scandal” approach of the networks repulses me. I no longer have the aversion to public funding of certain institutions as I once did, mostly because I see how easily we take them for granted while ignoring how much effort was exerted by our grandparents in establishing them in the first place. Or maybe it’s just that I don’t have some pressing theoretical need to reduce our social life to whatever would sell in a shopping mall, having grown up with malls and knowing exactly what their limitations are.
Mitchell Young says:

November 16, 2011 at 9:28 am

” There’s so much good programming available now, of the sort only public television used to do.”

I only have basic cable — but I have seen a deterioration in what were once promising “middlebrow’ typic broadcasters. History channel’s programming is only tangentially related to history (American Pickers anyone), TLC (formerly ‘The Learning Channel’) is pretty much a freakshow 24/7. Bravo is great if you want a homosexual man’s version of America. MTV is no longer Music Television, and even VH1 has abandoned music to become a sort of second BET

Of course, these companies are all responding to ‘market demand’. It’s ironic, however, that the current Brit import ‘hit’ for PBS –Downton Abbey — was produced not by the BBC, but by the commercial ITV.
tmatt says:

November 16, 2011 at 9:46 am

So is the Soros funding stream to NPR a reason TO support the network (since that might completely hand NPR to the cultural left) or to refuse to support public radio?

I ask in all sincerity, since I am someone who detests knee-jerk rejections of mainstream media.
MWorrell says:

November 16, 2011 at 9:47 am

I listen to NPR podcasts every day and have listened to the local affiliate every morning in the shower since college. But I do not believe they need tax dollars when the country is broke, and that people of means will take up the slack. State subsidized news is a concept better suited to Cuba.
Rod Dreher says:

November 16, 2011 at 9:49 am

Or England. Those BBC ponces, why I oughta…
CDK says:

November 16, 2011 at 9:52 am

I think this issue can be summed up as “culture matters”, as in that the Brits still have some and we abandoned whatever we had or were trying to get years ago. TV vs. radio vs. internet vs. print vs. public vs. private–these dichotomies seem to miss the point to me.

I don’t think basic cable is what is used to be, either. If anything, there seems to be race to the bottom in terms of sensory overload and attention-getting-by-any-means. Commericialism results when a part of social life i.e. commerce is taken for the whole, distorting both society and commerce beyond recognition.
CDK says:

November 16, 2011 at 9:59 am

I’ll take the BBC over Fox any day of the week and twice on Sundays. I used to think the major networks were liberally biased, and then I saw the conservative version. But it’s not really the bias (which every network has in one way or another), but rather the way Fox presents news the same way they televise a football game. Maybe they should have Terry Bradshaw and Howie Long give us the evening headlines; as it is, I can hardly tell the difference. Private enterprise is supposed to give the consumer a choice–so why do I feel like my choices are between dumb and dumber?
Polichinello says:

November 16, 2011 at 10:25 am

I only have basic cable — but I have seen a deterioration in what were once promising “middlebrow’ typic broadcasters.

Look at the secondary channels: H2, Animal Planet, NatGeo, and the Military Channel and the Science Channel. They all still run quite good shows. There’s a lot of chaff, yes, but there’s solid interesting documentaries.
Polichinello says:

November 16, 2011 at 10:31 am

But if you support, or have supported, giving tax abatements to sports team owners to build new stadiums or to keep your team in your city — benefits so generous ($9 billion over the past 10 years) that they dwarf public broadcasting funding cuts (an estimated $202 million since 2008)– you don’t really have much room to complain.

I don’t know of any serious conservative who supports these things. I certainly don’t. Even so, these are local decisions, and if a city has the bank to hand out the money, that’s up to its voters. The federal government does not have that sort of money, so even “small” expenses need to be looked at.

Look, if you’re going to raise taxes and cut back on benefits–both of which will be necessary in the coming years–then we can’t afford to subsidize radio programs for SWPLs, who could just as easily get the same stuff off the web.
Ryan D says:

November 16, 2011 at 11:01 am

I agree that public radio is excellent and hope it survives. I think most of its listeners are affluent enough to keep it going if government funding ever stops, since it’s relatively cheap to operate.

Public TV is different (and very expensive). The marketplace offers a lot of comparable programming and there are other ways to distribute good shows like Frontline, NOVA, American Experience, etc. besides broadcasting. The only thing that gives me pause about eliminating public TV is the children’s programming. It’s quality is so much better than competition and it’s used by people with a wide range of incomes, especially those who can’t afford cable or internet access.
PeterK says:

November 16, 2011 at 11:05 am

“my life be poorer without public radio” don’t disagree that public radio provides some good programming especially the non-news/opinion stuff. but that has been slowly disappearing. public radio needs to stand up on its own two feet. in Dallas the city owns a radio station WRR which believe it or not actually turns a profit, as part of its programming it broadcasts the city council circus er-uh meetings i mean.

years ago when there was a dearth of options public radio filled the void, but now there is as you state a wide variety of programming available
Rod Dreher says:

November 16, 2011 at 11:10 am

No, Peter, that’s not my point. My point is that there is not much of a void in television programming of the sort that PBS used to fill. That’s not the case with radio. I have no alternatives here in Philly to public radio programming (which is generally excellent, though the local news broadcast gets on my nerves).
Charles Cosimano says:

November 16, 2011 at 11:25 am

The idea of Public Television is one that should have been buried at the crossroads with a stake in its heart as soon as it was created. It has rarely been anything more than bunch of really bad British comedies that are only funny because of the way they talk and even worse British dramas with maybe a couple of exceptions.

And their damned childrens shows gave us a generation of little morons shouting numbers at every opportunity and a fervent desire to see a large bird being roasted on a spit.

If PBS dies, and unfortunately it won’t, I will cheerfully dance at its funeral.
Mitchell Young says:

November 16, 2011 at 11:51 am

“Look at the secondary channels: H2, Animal Planet, NatGeo, and the Military Channel and the Science Channel. They all still run quite good shows”

You’re cable provider must offer a really good basic package! I don’t get any of those.
John E says:

November 16, 2011 at 12:03 pm

I’m told during every pledge drive that if everyone who listened to Public Radio sent in ten dollars a month, they wouldn’t have funding problems.
Lord Karth says:

November 16, 2011 at 12:18 pm

Of course, we could all do something really subversive: turn the TV and the radio off and pick up a book.

Your servant,

Lord Karth
Ryan D says:

November 16, 2011 at 1:04 pm

Charles, when was the last time you watched public TV? 30 years ago? It’s not really close to what you describe. As for children, I’d much rather hear them shout out things they heard on Sesame Street than SpongeBob or Jerry Springer.
Bill H says:

November 16, 2011 at 2:01 pm

I’m more or less on the same page as you, Rod. I like PBS, and their children’s programming is about the only thing that I let my kids watch on TV, but I feel confident enough that Sesame Street would survive PBS’s dissolution.

And actually, while I do like a lot of NPR’s news and talk programs, I could probably survive without them. However, the big hit for me is that ETV Radio (South Carolina’s public radio broadcaster) has the only classical music station in the market.
JustMe says:

November 16, 2011 at 4:46 pm

The idea of Public Television is one that should have been buried at the crossroads with a stake in its heart as soon as it was created.

Public spectrum is a limited resource and is the property of the public, and shouldn’t be held captive by a private entity. While this isn’t a practical way to deal with all of the spectrum, it makes sense to reserve a small part of the broadcast spectrum for public purposes and to never, never let it fall into the hands of a private entity.
Geoff G. says:

November 16, 2011 at 5:13 pm

I heartily agree on funding for NPR, though not so much for its news coverage (although Wait, Wait Don’t Tell Me is a lot of fun for a news junkie like myself).

As far as I’m concerned, killing NPR would basically kill broadcasts of classical music pretty much everywhere in the country outside of New York and maybe LA. Politics be damned, it’s the music stations that keep me sane.
Thomas O. Meehan says:

November 16, 2011 at 11:43 pm

Mitchell Young wrote, “It’s ironic, however, that the current Brit import ‘hit’ for PBS –Downton Abbey — was produced not by the BBC, but by the commercial ITV.” If you check back, the majority of programming we cherish from Great Britain was from ITN.
Thomas O. Meehan says:

November 17, 2011 at 12:18 am

Rod, I’m in the Philly media market and find that NPR is my default station for news. And yet, I don’t really believe a thing they report. I listen to get an impression of what the Democratic National Committee wants me to be concerned about today. The commercial stations available are so awful that I can’t bear to listen to them. Thankfully there are two public stations that play classical music, one changing to decent jazz after 6PM.

But seriously I wouldn’t give any public broadcasting station the dandruff off my comb. They are relentlessly middlebrow kitsch posing as serious programming. They cater to the pretensions of the hordes of public school teachers, bureaucrats, and drones of all kinds. They exist so that soccer moms can know what to think.

Given the poor quality of all broadcasting I get my news from the internet. I suggest that we all just go on to the Drudge Report every day and, ignoring the Drudge content at the top of the page, just scan all the wire services. It’s where the silly newspapers get most of “their” news anyway. Of course CSPAN is invaluable as well. Also the various foreign stations like DW, France24 and NHK are really good. Avoid RT Russian Television at all costs unless you miss the old cold war Radio Moscow.

In the end It’s pointless to complain either commercial or public broadcasting. All mass markets must inevitably descend to the level of the audience. As a culture in decline it’s pointless to pine for quality in a medium serving masses of asses.