Public Television vs. Corporate America

August 23, 2008 by Curt Siters

I remember the early days of public television. I enjoyed watching the shows as they were almost always non-political, non-advertising, informative and very interesting. While watching a show today with my girlfriend we discussed a bit about how things have changed.

Some of the shows still hold to the original way and some have changed. The news hour is still unbiased, the Nightly Business Report is well, business information. For the most part NOW is as well, however, I have noticed a gradual shift toward a more pro-corporate format.

While we were living in Seattle we noticed some things and thought it was weird but didn't think too much of it. After we moved to Asheville we noticed a few more things and are beginning to get turned off of public television.

Some of the changes we noticed are:

• The growth of commercial like "sponsorships";
• The growth of industy centered programming;
• The growth of blatant product programming.

Public television receives about half of its funding from the citizens of America by way of some of our tax dollars through our government. The rest is generated through donations from those who watch it, grants from foundations and sponsorships.

Donations are usually taken through what used to be annual fundraising but has become at least semi-annual. In Seattle they do a quarterly fundraising.

Grants are usually received from foundations that believe in what public television can do.

Sponsorships have been around since the early days of public television. They helped to defray the costs of major programs such as MYSTERY and MASTERPIECE THEATER which are major productions.

Commercial Sponsorships

I remember how the "advertising" used to be. A brief word about the major sponsor (usually a corporation) at the beginning of the show and some brief words about  the major sponsor and other big sponsors (usually foundations) at the end. One voice spoke all of the words and lasted maybe a minute.

Today I see more and more network TV style ads. You see cars, medication and more. It lasts for well over a minute. This, I feel, goes against what public television is about, which is about providing quality television paid for by American citizens without all the commercial hype.

Just now, The Piano Guy is on. When we were in Seattle he did a special as a fundraiser for Public Television. Now he has a show. He also sells a piano learning system he developed.

The show that started my thoughts for this article was about kids and depression. Seemingly benign. However, after watching it for a bit we discovered that a lot of the questions and discussion centered around medications and in particular one brand name of medication. It used to be that we were blue or melancholy or sad or bored to tears. Today everyone is depressed and needs to be medicated.

Industry Centered Programming

 The programming on the public broadcasting system used to vary greatly. Over the past decade or so there has been an increase in single topic blocks of programming. While watching prior to writing this article I noticed that there was a block of three programs dealing with health and all three had as a major portion of the show discussion on specific medications to deal with health problems.

This is also occurring with other topics such as arts and crafts. 

Blatant Product Programming

One of my favorite shows was Bob Ross, the painter. I still enjoy watching the reruns. His attitude was gentle and he had a way of making painting available to everyone with his technique. You never new what paint he was using, or the canvas, or the paint brushes.

Nowadays the arts and craft shows "feature" specific products for doing crafts. All around the sets you can see, prominently displayed easily identifiable product.

As I was typing this article the show changed to a show about sportfishing in North Carolina. Near the end was a brief segment about cooking fish with a sauce. The segment was short - they showed how to flour the fish but didn't show how to make the sauce. At the very end of the segment was a shot of the finished product and right behind the plate was one of the sponsors product.

Personally I am really not liking where this trend is heading. It will soon be not the Public Broadcasting System but the Product Broadcasting System featuring nothing but infomercials.

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Curt Siters is an Independent Associate for Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. He is also aYoung Living Essential Oils Independent distributor and publishes articles on YourWebReference and at TheVeryEssence. He also does web work such as website design, website maintenance and SEO for websites.

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