Keep the 'public' in PBS:
Donahue, Hugh Carter
REPORT ON CONGRESS KEEP THE 'PUBLIC IN PBS OUR LYCEUM OF THE AIRWAVES Congressional Republican claims that budget cutting and "privatization" are the proper future course for the nation's public...
...Second, the income from a one-shot infusion of cash from the sale of some licenses will be insufficient for remaining noncommercial broadcasters to meet needed equipment-upgrade and replacement costs in the future, to rent adequate satellite time, or to sustain professional staffs...
...White, to operate as a public service for citizens, will be lost to the unrelenting pressures of the market...
...With market share as the driving force, programming in the future will likely become even more consumer-oriented than it is now...
...Press, 1989...
...But there is no guarantee that the broad public access now provided by public broadcasting will endure should the present system be scuttled...
...To correct commercial broadcasting's failure to provide quality programming, Congress chartered the Public Broadcasting Service...
...As much as anyone, E.B...
...By forcing a fire sale of the broadcasting frequencies hitherto reserved for nonprofit educational uses, privatization proponents are paving the way for the cable industry, Hollywood studios, and telephone companies to commercialize segments of what has been public broadcasting...
...If public broadcasting facilities are forced to sell their frequencies because of a lack of congressional financial support, a number of deleterious effects will follow...
...Up until now, in order to recoup their investments in equipment and production, commercial ventures have committed themselves to mass-market ventures (pay-per-view movies, home shopping, music videos, etc...
...But will the public's needs, particularly its informational needs, be adequately met if all these technologies are under commercial control...
...Citizens should beware and sound the alarm...
...Entertainment, laced with hard-sell commercials, will take on an even more exaggerated role over public education...
...It is true that broadcast, television, satellite, and telephone technologies have opened up hundreds of new channels of communication...
...NPR produces programming, acquires programming from other NPR member stations and independent programmers, and then distributes the programs nationally...
...NPR also maintains the Public Radio Satellite system, which interconnects public radio stations...
...Republican members of the 104th Congress are now advocating severe cuts in funding for public broadcasting while at the same time promoting what they call the "privatization" of public broadcast services...
...The opponents of public broadcasting mistake choice for quality...
...Several PBS stations (in New York, Washington, and Boston) have state-of-the-art facilities and produce nationally syndicated series...
...At present, only scenarios exist...
...Setting up e-mail nodes for Congress and federal agencies may prove to be a step toward greater citizen participation, but it should not be seen as an information-age substitute for mass media public broadcasting...
...Those who would eviscerate the present system insist that an information infrastructure will remain, and that it will be egalitarian and open...
...In a separate action, the Federal Communications Commission could authorize the non-profits to sell their channels for commercial use in the event enough public broadcasters request the commission to do so...
...They claim that today's communication technologies can correct the previous market failure to provide quality radio and television programming, and that today's abundant communications facilities enable citizens to make a variety of choices to meet their needs...
...He called for a public broadcasting system that would be "our Lyceum, our Chautauqua, our Minsky's, and our Camelot...
...The original vision of a public system, a la E.B...
...First, the public will permanently lose the use of these valued resources...
...The "privatization" of "public" broadcasting now being proposed in Congress is a concept worthy of Orwellian doublespeak...
...But those broadcasters would face extinction and are not likely to adopt such a course in the near term, given ongoing, though reduced, federal funding through 1997...
...HUGH CARTER DONAHUE Hugh Carter Donahue is the author of The Battle to Control Broadcast News (MIT Press, 1989...
...Similarly, National Public Radio is a private, nonprofit system of 520 public radio stations...
...It should restate and clarify our social dilemma and the political pickle...
...White articulated public broadcasting's civic commitment...
...Over time, variety on the remaining stations will shrivel and innovation will wither, for with fewer public-service broadcasters, the capacity to provide a variety of local programming will be diminished...
...For example, congressional legislation is anticipated next year enabling commercial exploitation of channels hitherto reserved for noncommercial, educational use...
...The approximately 350 local public television broadcasters are, in fact, already private, but they are nonprofit corporations which are licensed to meet the public need for noncommercial, educational services...
...REPORT ON CONGRESS KEEP THE 'PUBLIC IN PBS OUR LYCEUM OF THE AIRWAVES Congressional Republican claims that budget cutting and "privatization" are the proper future course for the nation's public broadcasting system are shortsighted...
...Finally, a smaller, underfunded public system will constitute but one more competitive programmer in the information marketplace, one forced to seek more and more commercial backing and thus more subject to the same market forces that already assail programming quality in general...
...Public broadcasting came into existence as a Great Society initiative in 1967...
...They argue that the public would be better served with diminished tax-funded support of public broadcasting, and that, ideally, none should be necessary in the future...
...They belie a mistaken philosophy that sees Americans as consumers first and citizens second...
...The mechanics of privatization have not been well thought-out...
...The present Corporation for Public Broadcasting is not a commercial network...
...These stations thus constitute a national distribution network under the banner of the well-known Public Broadcasting Service logo...
...In the hands of congressional Republicans, budget cutting and privatization constitute a double-barreled shotgun aimed at the heart of public broadcasting...
...It is an administrative clearing house that oversees the distribution of public funds to local stations and programmers, but owns neither...
Vol. 122 • July 1995 • No. 13
