Word: wgbh
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WITHIN the last few years the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has created an audience of dedicated viewers in the United States. One of the major contributors to the growing popularity of public TV is WGBH (Channel 2) in Boston. Situated on Harvard-owned land just south of the Business School, WGBH produces "The Advocates," "ZOOM," "Evening at the Pops," "The French Chef," and distributes nationally the BBC production, "Masterpiece Theater." The station itself is a massive operation turning out not only national PBS shows but also local ones such as "The Reporters," "Catch 44" and "Louis Lyons News and Comment...
...WGBH is acutely affected by recent CPB decisions. On February 8 CPB announced its funding decisions for the coming season. Out of the nine program proposals submitted by WGBH, CPB agreed to partially fund "Science" and to supply half the necessary funds for "The Advocates." "ZOOM," a nationally popular children's show, was totally ignored along with the other unfinanced WGBH proposals. As Michael Rice, WGBH program director, noted at the time, CBP "cut right into the heart and guts of our current national program production, mainly "ZOOM" and "The Advocates"...both shows are funded so minimally that they...
...cutback in Channel 2's national programming production directly damages local programming, which enjoys the benefits of WGBH's large facility and resources. Rice warns, "We will lose both ways. Every time one of our national series goes unfunded, one more way of providing programming for our community is lost...Most of the national series we offer grow out of the Boston community. In a large sense, the programs we produce are a reflection of the cultural richness and intellectual resources of this area. So in an ultimate way everything we do is a community service...
...assure its production next season. Yet, in all three cases, no more than one half of the required funds were allocated by CPB. The rest of the money will have to come from private sources, principally from the Ford Foundation. Ford has yet to allot any money to WGBH, hinting that it will continue to refuse such money until the public stations are assured of programming independence from...
What can result in WGBH's case is a downward spiral of activity. If the station is forced to cut back on its production of any national PBS programs, it will lose income and resources that will directly affect its local programming. Eventually, Rice contends, "We'd just disintegrate. Right now we're at a point where much of a somewhat fragile structure between public and private financing has been put together. But this peculiarly balanced economy of national and local programming could, with lack of funding, just fall apart...