PBS, NPR have outlived need for taxpayer funding

Public television played a huge role in my educational development as a young child. My parents say I taught myself to read at the age of four by following along with “Sesame Street” books read aloud on 45s that I could play on my little Fisher-Price Big Bird record player.

Sesame Street became a part of the lives of millions of kids and families because it was first brought to life in part by public broadcasting grants and distributed by public television stations. I’ll always be grateful for its existence, just as I will for Lavar Burton and “Reading Rainbow,” episodes of which my elementary teachers showed once a week back when cassette tapes and filmstrips were the only way to watch a video.

A lot has changed in the decades since then – the way we interact, the media we consume and the manner in which we consume it. Undoubtedly our politics have changed. And so has our sense of urgency for publicly-funded broadcasting. As sad as it feels to admit it, I cannot justify spending hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars on it. And my feelings on that are not just because I am politically conservative.

Congress yanks over $1 billion from NPR, PBS

Conservatives soon get to cross another item off their political wishlist: the elimination of taxpayer funding for public broadcasting. The U.S. Congress signed off late Thursday on rescinding $9 billion in previously allocated federal spending for foreign aid and public broadcasting, including $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), a key funding source for local affiliates of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR).

As of this column’s deadline Friday morning, the bill awaits the signature of President Donald Trump. The cut equals the CPB’s entire federal allocation for the next two fiscal years, no doubt triggering top-to-bottom changes in the public broadcasting universe.

Politics in play

The decision to yank public broadcasting funding unquestionably involves politics, as NPR and PBS (especially the former) have long been criticized for having a “liberal bent.” NPR didn’t make it any easier to push back on the perception of left-leaning bias when it hired as its CEO Katherine Maher, who has publicly claimed that the United States is “addicted to white supremacy,” and that President Trump is a “deranged racist sociopath.”

Call the funding claw back punishment, even, for arguably biased newsroom decisions. Such punishment would not be entirely undeserved, given NPR’s unconscionable choice to tell readers and listeners only weeks before the 2020 presidential election that it was a “waste” of their time to cover a damming story about a laptop abandoned at a repair shop by Hunter Biden, son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden. The laptop, which was alleged to contain evidence of criminal activity was later acknowledged by the younger Biden as his property in 2023 court filings.

Maher, who was not employed by NPR at the time, acknowledged in March that NPR was “mistaken in failing to cover the Hunter Biden laptop story more aggressively and sooner.”

We can’t ignore the political overtones to the public broadcasting funding debate. But even if we could, reasons remain for public broadcasting outlets to bid adieu to taxpayer funds. Simply put, public broadcasting is no longer the only outlet available for the cultural and educational programming it was created to provide.

THEN: Little infrastructure, big barriers to new programming

At the time the CPB was created, television and radio were broadcast entirely over the air, predominantly through analog signals with few channels. There was no cable or satellite; no Internet, therefore no streaming. We didn't have smartphones and tablets and home computers. Only 16% of households even had color TV.

Production equipment was large and expensive. The infrastructure to create and pitch quality programming was virtually nonexistent outside of existing commercial venues. If viewers craved cultural or educational programming, that meant relying on local affiliates to produce shows like “The Dr. Max Show” on WMT-TV or “Captain Jet” on KWWL. Or local stations could air syndicated shows like “Bozo’s Big Top.” (You can decide how “educational” that was, but I loved it.) Nationwide, adding more cultural and educational programming likely would meant dethroning popular national shows such as “The Andy Griffith Show” or “Gunsmoke.”

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Time Machine: Mombo the Clown

The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to ensure that quality cultural and educational content for television or radio did not have to face the same barriers to air as commercial programming funded by ad revenue and forged by cutthroat competition. It recognized the narrow avenue for new and unique programming and created a safe lane for it to exist, available to all, purposely ad-free, and at no extra cost. From that, we got programs such as The French Chef, A Prairie Home Companion, Schickele Mix, Car Talk, The New Yankee Workshop, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, Sesame Street and Reading Rainbow, all created specifically for public broadcasting.

NOW: Multiple platforms, infinite content

Today, there is so much content available that it’s difficult to keep track of all of the available platforms that offer it, let alone the programming itself. Americans can watch all the cultural and educational content they can possibly stand – for free, and without a TV, even. It’s so abundant that subscriptions for cable television, with its dozens and even hundreds of dedicated channels, decreased by over 20 million just between 2021 and 2023. Streaming services offer even more content and more variety for less cost – and on demand, with no set schedule dictating your viewing habits.

At no cost and with minimal ads I can frequently skip, I can stream YouTube on my smartphone, my computer or my TV at home and view content similar to what I might have seen on IPTV in the 1990s – but in high definition. In less than one minute, I can locate, select and begin viewing a full performance of Swan Lake by the American Ballet Theatre. Or a woodworking expert cutting and binding Japanese dovetail joints. I can check out new techniques for piping frosting onto a cake, learn to knit, and follow a tourist around the Turkmenistan capital of Ashgabat, where he’s filming an impressive documentary using relatively inexpensive equipment that fits in his backpack.

Thanks to podcast streaming, I can also listen to folk music and recordings of live performances and up-to-the-minute news updates. For political commentary, I can listen to the Ruthless or Pod Save America, each of which are hosted by former high-ranking Republican or Democrat campaign staffers. And for Iowa-based political analysis, I can tune in weekly to this genius little podcast called On Iowa Politics, which is available every Friday morning on multiple listening platforms. (Of course that’s a plug.)

Significant changes, including to public broadcasting

Technology has advanced. Media has evolved. Traditional TV and radio consumption will only continue to decline. Sadly, that includes NPR and PBS affiliates. The taxpayer nevertheless continued (until recently) to shell out half a million dollars a year to fund content for which the audience is not only shrinking in size, but diversity – especially diversity of viewpoint. Public radio and public television aren’t so much a service anymore as much as a genre. It boils down not to need but to personal preference.

Despite the original CPB mission of providing cultural and educational programming free of cost, NPR and PBS have begun charging for some content as they follow consumers to streaming services. Subscriptions for single shows such as NPR’s “Consider This+” cost $3.99/month. PBS Masterpiece, through which subscribers can view Masterpiece programming on demand, is $5.99/month.

Those are very reasonable prices. But as public broadcasting incorporates elements that mirror commercial media, subsidizing it makes less sense – especially if it leans on programming that isn’t necessarily in line with its original ad-free, no-cost intent. Masterpiece programs such as Grantchester and Downton Abbey, its most popular show of all time (and my favorite), were co-produced for commercial networks in the United Kingdom, where they aired with ads. “Miss Scarlet” airs in the U.K. on Alibi, a premium channel similar to HBO in the U.S. New episodes of “Sesame Street” briefly moved to HBO’s streaming platform, with plans to hold new episodes from PBS until nine months after they aired on the premium service. (Sesame Street has since inked a deal with Netflix to run new episodes on both it and PBS simultaneously.)

End of an era

Halting public funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting marks the end of an era in American media. It’s time to move onto the next, and for cultural programming to stand on its own.

I’ll always be grateful for Reading Rainbow, Sesame Street and Red Green. I’ll be grateful as well if we can face the future of programming in America.

Comments: 319-398-8266; althea.cole@thegazette.com