PBS Fighting for Funding Again
It’s another budgetary season and, once again, PBS is reaching out to its fans to help public media keep its doors open. But, this year, there’s some potential PBS will end up, at least partially, on the chopping block.
In the most recent budget bill, there’s a proposal to end all federal funding for public broadcasting. If Congress gives that line item the go-ahead, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting CEO Patricia Harrison said the move would, “…cause the collapse of the public media system itself and the end of this essential national service…”
While there is some debate on, exactly, the necessity of public broadcasting, there’s little argument as to the damage the proposed cuts could do to the programming. And it is programming that many families say they depend on. Educational, children’s, and historical programming that may not be produced outside of this forum.
Currently, the federal government budgets about $450 million to the CPB annually. The corporation uses that funding to provide grants for local TV and radio programming to produce news and entertainment. Republicans have been going after PBS and CPB for decades, trying each budget season to strip funding away. Now, they may just have the votes to make that happen.
PBS president Paula Kerger said her organization is ready to give Congress a strong word of caution before any funding votes. “PBS and our nearly 350 member stations, along with our viewers, continue to remind Congress of our strong support among Republican and Democratic voters, in rural and urban areas across every region of the country… We have always had support from both parties in Congress, and will again make clear what the public receives in return for federal funding for public broadcasting…”
But this is a fight that’s happened before and many times before that. So much so, that the messages are beginning to feel scripted. And that feeling of being scripted is something the pro-PBS side needs to steer clear of if they want to get public support for their cause. If this feels and sounds too much like business as usual, the public will take it as such. Most of them can’t remember a world without PBS, so they’re not apt to imagine one when presented with the same rhetoric they’ve heard countless times before.
This voter apathy could be a huge problem for PBS. If they can’t get people energized and out there calling their representatives and speaking out publicly on this issue, this is a fight they could lose … more easily now than in many recent years. Will that happen? It’s still too early to tell, but the clock is ticking.
William Doonan is a tax law and legal expert in New York.
