Word: pbs
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WHEN EXECUTIVES REPRESENTing 88 public-TV stations gathered in Washington last week to talk about the Republican-led campaign to end federal funding for the Public Broadcasting Service, they came not to praise high-toned PBS shows like Masterpiece Theatre and Live From Lincoln Center. Instead speaker after speaker trooped up to the microphone to tell stories of poor viewers in rural areas for whom PBS is a treasured companion; of fire fighters and police officers who take classes via local public-TV outlets; of children whose lives would be made joyless if such familiar PBS friends as Big Bird...
There is posturing on both sides. Popular kids' shows like Sesame Street and Barney & Friends, for one thing, are well enough established to weather any federal funding cuts. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting -- the federal agency that Gingrich and his supporters want to "defund" -- supplies only about 14% of PBS's annual income, with the rest coming from corporations, member donations and other sources. If the $285.6 million the CPB is handing out this year were wiped out, public TV would still survive, though in a hobbled condition...
...some of the Republican arguments have been misleading as well. The charge of elitism, for example, is exaggerated. A 1994 Nielsen study revealed that 56.5% of PBS-viewing households have incomes below $40,000, not much less than the national average of 59.9%. "Elitism" is really a code word for a more virulent complaint made by conservative critics: that PBS programming has a liberal bias. It is bad enough, say right-wingers, that Bill Moyers and Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City have to be on television; but why do taxpayers have to support them...
Nationwide, 6.7% of Americans pledge money to public broadcasting -- about $280 million last year, or one-seventh of PBS's budget. The majority of donors are concentrated in a handful of big cities and retirement communities...
Nevertheless, Gingrich may very well have his way, blustering and babbling until PBS becomes part of network history. Move over, Democrats--Big Bird and Grover are joining you on the unemployment line. That is, if they can qualify for benefits under the new system...