Training Wheels Come Off PBS

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
It was one of the most human moments in the
history of the US Congress. May one, nineteen sixty nine,
Vietnam was raging, a new president went on a cost
cutting tour. A collection of East Coast broadcasters got a
bill written peeling off some tax money to start a
new national television network. To convince tax hawk Rhode Island

(00:21):
Democrat John Pastory, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Commerce,
the executives dispatched their most convincing figure, a nerdy Presbyterian
minister from Pittsburgh, son of a wealthy industrialist, who hosted
a popular local daily children's program two times a week.
Thought kids across the country would love it too. It

(00:43):
was the first time we met mister Rogers, who softened
the steely Pastori.

Speaker 2 (00:48):
I end the program by saying, you've made this day
a special day by just your being you. There's no
person in the whole world like you, and I like
you just the way you are. And I feel that
if we in public television can only make it clear

(01:10):
that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done
a great service for mental health.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
I think it's wonderful.

Speaker 2 (01:20):
I think it's wonderful looks like you just doned the
twenty million.

Speaker 1 (01:26):
Dollars that day to days PBS was born. The twenty
million seemed like a pretty good deal to get Fred
Mister Mcpheeley, King Friday, Lady Aberlin, and Daniel the Stripe
of Tiger two times a week, How to make a
paper airplane, feed the fish, play a violin, Very Friendly Neighborhood,
and all of the other good stuff on public television.

(01:48):
His Neighborhood never got big ratings, but it and the
other shows were the essence of PBS good for us,
if not a winner commercially, PBS grew and grew, added
an action radio network NPR. The twenty million turned into
five hundred and thirty million, and couple that with donation, sponsorships, grants,

(02:09):
state tax money, and public broadcasting became a gigantic mouth
in the media landscape, which was never the plan. With
the budget, content expanded too, they went from educational programming
to public affairs, politics, culture advocacy. That was the wrong turn,

(02:30):
so wrong. The two year, one billion dollar subsidy was
cut to nothing last night, part of a nine billion
dollar clawback by the Senate budget hawks, trying to slow
down debt. We're up to thirty seven trillion in red
ink and congressional Republicans have had it with a clear
liberal lean coming from NPR and PBS content. They remember

(02:52):
how NPR simply blew it on Russia Gate, Hunter's laptop,
the lab leak, origin of COVID, the riots from George
Floyd's murder. Like the major networks and newspapers, they never
came clean, never apologized nomia kopis, just pretended like none
of it ever happened. Their talk shows are openly biased.
Conservatives will assuredly cite numbers that make it clear. Fifteen

(03:14):
years ago, NPR's audience was twenty six percent conservative, thirty
seven percent liberal, and twenty three percent in the middle.
Today it's eleven percent conservative, twenty one percent in the middle,
and sixty seven percent liberal. Yet a lot of the
five hundred and thirty million comes from conservative taxpayers. They've
grown tired of subsidizing content that criticizes their businesses, their religion,

(03:38):
their politics, even the food that they eat. Today, we
have seventeen hundred commercial talk stations attracting US sixth of
the country as listeners. There are hundreds of TV channels
on cable and streaming services. We have four full time
all news TV networks. President Trump says, look at his room,
reporters everywhere that need has been fit. Nebraska Public Media

(04:02):
spends twenty five million a year. Our taxes fund half
of that. I'd hate to see it all go away,
but it may be time to take the taxpayer training
wheels off, compete in the marketplace, go all in on sponsorships, grants,
and viewer support. They're doing it now, to the tune
of nine million of their twenty five million dollar budget.
Make your case. If ten hours of coverage every day

(04:24):
from the floor of the unicamer is valuable, sell it.
From the very origins of radio and television, content was,
has been, and always will be. King It's a performance business.
You perform, you draw an audience, you stay. If not,
we try somebody else, and somebody other than the government
must pay for it.