Cut Buster Loose

In 1967 Lyndon Johnson added yet another piece to the jigsaw puzzle of national perfection: The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was born. Public television was a dubious idea even when concocted as a filigree on the Great Society. Why should government subsidize the production and distribution of entertainment and, even worse, journalism? Even if there were — has there ever been? — a shortage of either in America, is it government's duty to address all cultural shortages?

Today, with iPod earphone cords dangling from millions of heads, and movies flooding into homes where they jostle for plasma screen time with video games, Americans are entertaining themselves into inanition. Furthermore, journalism and imitations of it have become social smog. Even in airport concourses you are bombarded by televised human volcanoes verbally assaulting each other about the "news," broadly — very broadly — defined to include Kobe Bryant's presence on Michael Jackson's witness list.

In 1967 public television did at least increase, for many, the basic television choices from three — CBS, NBC, ABC — to four. Not that achieving some supposedly essential minimum was, or is, the government's business. In today's 500-channel environment, public television is a preposterous relic.

Not too long ago the Public Broadcasting Service tried an amazingly obtuse and arrogant slogan: "If PBS doesn't do it, who will?" What was the antecedent of the pronoun "it"? Presumably "culture" or "seriousness" or "relevance." Or something. But in a television universe that includes the History Channel, Biography, A&E, Bravo, National Geographic, Disney, TNT, BBC America, Animal Planet, the Learning Channel, the Outdoor Channel, Noggin, Nickelodeon, and scads of other cultural and information channels, what is the antecedent?

Now PBS is airing some HBO films. There is a nifty use of tax dollars — showing HBO reruns. Which contribute how to "diversity"?

In 1967 public television's enthusiasts were ahead of the curve of cultural inanity, making frequent use of the d-word, which required decades more to become the great signifier of cultural correctness. The chairman of the Federal Communications Commission hailed public television's promise of "more diversity," and a Carnegie report foresaw increased "diversities." Thirty-eight years later, 500 channels mock public television as crucial to diversity.

The recent spat about Buster, PBS's cartoon rabbit, visiting two lesbian parents quickly became a second spat about the Education Department's threat to stop financing Buster. But a third spat should have been about why the Education Department (a fourth spat: Is that department necessary?) is paying for any of Buster's adventures. Is there a desperate shortage of television cartoons? Is Buster to other cartoons as Beethoven is to Bon Jovi?

Public television, its supporters say, is especially important for people who cannot afford cable or satellite television. But 62 percent of poor households have cable or satellite television, and 78 percent have a VCR or DVD player.

Public television is akin to the body politic's appendix: It is vestigial, purposeless and occasionally troublesome. Of the two arguments for it, one is impervious to refutation and the other refutes itself.

The impervious argument is: The small size of the audiences for most of public television's programming proves how necessary public television is. The big networks gather big audiences by catering to vulgar cultural tastes, leaving the refined minority an orphan, because any demand the private market satisfies must be tacky.

The self-refuting argument is: Big Bird. Never mind that the average age of PBS viewers is 58. "Sesame Street" — see how its merchandise sells, and Barney's, too — supposedly proves that public television can find mass audiences.

But the refined minority, as it sees itself, now has ample television choices for the rare moments when it is not rereading Proust. And successes such as "Sesame Street" could easily find private, taxpaying broadcast entities to sell them.

President Johnson, no slouch at the "progressive" rhetoric of platitudinous gush, said the prospect of public television should fill Americans with "the same awe and wonderment" that caused Samuel Morse, when he successfully tested his telegraph, to exclaim, "What hath G-d wrought?" But by 2002 PBS President Pat Mitchell was warning: "We are dangerously close in our overall prime-time numbers to falling below the relevance quotient."

Public television's survival, with no remaining rationale, should fill students of government with awe, wonderment and melancholy. Would it vanish without the 15 percent of its revenue it gets from government? Let's find out.

Pat Mitchell’s Response to George Will Column – March 3, 2005

In a recent column in your pages, George Will once again cites a familiar litany of cable channels to recycle the argument that public television has been replicated and is no longer necessary. A random check of his own local listings on the very day his column appeared would quickly suggest there are serious holes in that theory.

On the night that his column ran, Mr. Will could have tuned into his local PBS station for a special report on evolving technologies and treatments for cancer, the most serious health crisis in America. If he thought he could get more intelligent, in-depth programming on one of the cable channel options he listed, his choices would have included the following:

On A&E, he could have watched “Presumed Dead,” the true story of a woman’s body hidden in a refrigerator. The Discovery Channel offered “Human Cannonballs,” revealing that the most common cause of death for human cannonballs is landing outside the net. Bravo would have given him “Celebrity Poker Showdown,” while The History Channel offered the history of “Engineering Disasters.” All of this was in addition to the networks’ offerings of “Extreme Makeover” and yet another version of “Survivor.”

Beyond his premise, which is undermined by the actual comparison of programming between PBS and cable channels on any day or night, Mr. Will relies on several inaccuracies to argue against the federal funding that makes up about one-fifth of public television's budgets. The first is about the size of our audience- PBS' is larger than any cable channel on any night, making PBS the only broadcaster whose ratings are actually rising, not falling.

Next, our children’s programs are the number one choice of parents anywhere, and are, most importantly, the only free children’s programs outside of the few that are still offered on Saturday mornings. And those programs are offered commercial free, with many targeting the underserved audience of younger children.

While Mr. Will rightly notes that 62% of poor households have cable, that statistic begs the question of the remaining almost 40%. Many of those homes have children at a crucial developmental stage when educational, literacy-based television like PBS can make significant improvements in school readiness.

Finally, Mr. Will dramatically implies that the public may no longer value PBS. A Roper poll conducted just last month tells us emphatically that they do. Americans cited PBS as the most trusted national institution in the country, and ranked public television as the second best value for their tax dollars, behind only military activities.

Of course we don't always disagree with Mr. Will. A few years ago, he wrote of Ken Burns’ landmark documentary Civil War which appeared on PBS, “If better use has ever been made of television, I have not seen it.” Spend more time with us, George. There's more where that came from, every day of the week.

Sincerely Pat Mitchell

An Open Letter From Ken Burns February 18, 2005

The reports of PBS’ demise have been greatly exaggerated.

Happily, we are alive and kicking and writing, creating and producing the thousands of programs now in our pipeline. I am honored to be a part of it, but I am equally disturbed by the pure schadenfreude with which seemingly sympathetic reporters have written about a recent event involving the president of the enterprise, Pat Mitchell.

After five years at the helm, Pat told a group of PBS station managers gathered in Washington last week that she would not renew her contract for another three year term. She also told them she will certainly complete the remainder of her current contract through June of 2006.

Since her announcement, there has been a great deal of speculation that Pat is leaving under some sort of pressure. As a friend and colleague of Pat Mitchell’s, I can say that nothing could be further from the truth. Pat has the full support of the PBS Board, and of course, of producers like me who have been fortunate enough to work with her.

In her speech to PBS station executives, Mitchell said she wanted to spend her remaining fifteen months in her position making the case for public service media, its independence, its respect for the audience, its mandate to inform and engage, not debate and enrage, its commitment to getting it right instead of getting it first. Ironically, seeing some of the mainstream media’s frenzied behavior surrounding her announcement, shouting with headlines, looking for conspiracies where none exist, makes the case for the critical need for robust independent public broadcasting better than anyone’s words ever could.

I hear the sincere lamentations of fellow media professionals who worry about the current and future state of media, broadcasting and journalism. Media consolidation, a chase for ratings and a race for revenues have all put independent media, including PBS, at its most fragile state in my lifetime. Certainly the answer is to strengthen its foundation, not to use its relatively few weak points to damage it further.

PBS has the unenviable task of trying to be all things to all people. Inevitably, it will fall short. But the important thing is that it tries. And in so doing, it gives the American people programs that are entirely different and yes, entirely better than the cookie-cutter cable fare they’re served everywhere else. In a media landscape of obscenities, vulgarities and inanities, has it ever been more important to have PBS?

As an educational filmmaker, I am grateful to play even a small part in a critical but under-funded broadcasting entity with one foot tenuously and in the marketplace and the other decidedly and proudly out of it, which, among dozens of fabulously wealthy networks, just happens to produce--on shoestring budgets--the best news and public affairs programming on television, the best science and nature programming on television, the best arts on television, the best children's shows on television, and, some say, the best history on television.

Pat Mitchell has kept PBS operating at a level few could imagine with the resources she’s allocated. She’s done a remarkable job leading this deliberately decentralized organization, and her leadership will be missed. But over the next 15 months, we will still benefit from her take-no-prisoners advocacy for our institution and dogged determination to strengthen this system, no matter the odds.

It is my wholehearted belief that anything that threatens this institution weakens our country, and anyone who works on its behalf, as Pat Mitchell does, works for us all. It is as simple as that.

New National Roper Poll Ranks PBS As Leader In Public Trust
Poll Also Finds PBS Programming an Excellent Use of Tax Dollars

Alexandria, Va., Feb. 16, 2005 — For the second consecutive year, a Roper Public Affairs & Media poll shows Americans consider PBS the nation’s most trusted institution among nationally known organizations.  The non-partisan, international research company released the comprehensive results from its national opinion survey, which was conducted to gauge the attitudes of Americans towards PBS and other major national institutions, including courts of law and commercial broadcast television networks.

According to the study’s 1,001 randomly selected participants from across the country, Americans also believe PBS provides the second best use of tax dollars, following military defense; rank PBS programming most important, compared with commercial and cable television; and consider PBS news and public affairs series the most trustworthy.

“Results from this comprehensive survey help to demonstrate the importance of PBS programming among Americans as well as its institutional value to supporters of the public television service,” said Roper Senior Vice President Ed Bergstein. 

“The results of this survey affirm the American public’s trust and value in PBS in an age of exponentially growing media choices,” said PBS President and CEO Pat Mitchell.  “It is gratifying to see the success of the rigorous standards to which we hold our programming.  Clearly, we have achieved our goal of striving to positively impact the lives of our more than 100 million users through the power of media.”

Additional survey highlights:

• PBS is the second most valuable service taxpayers receive, outranked only by military defense by two percentage points.  Twenty-three percent stated PBS was an “excellent” use of their tax dollars.  
• Americans are more satisfied with programming on PBS compared to cable and commercial broadcasters.  Thirty-eight percent of respondents are “very satisfied” with current PBS programs, compared to 21 percent for cable and 16 percent for commercial broadcasters.
• Forty-one percent of Americans rank PBS as the most trusted source for news and public affairs programs, compared with other network broadcasters.
• Sixty-two percent of those polled believe the availability of PBS is “very important.”  By contrast, commercial broadcasting and cable networks were considered very important by 42 percent and 35 percent of respondents, respectively.
• The majority of the public (51%) believe the amount of federal funding PBS receives is “too little.”
• Most Americans (82%) believe that public and private funding given to PBS from government, corporations and individuals is “money well spent.”
• For both children and adults, Americans believe PBS programs address various issues “very well,” including: arts and culture (58%), American history (51%), literacy (47%), ethnic and cultural diversity (45%) and political and social issues (38%).

Commissioned by PBS, Roper Public Affairs & Media administered the annual telephone survey to 1,001 adults between the ages of 25 to 75 years old during January 2004 and February 2005.  To receive a complete copy of this survey, contact Jan McNamara at PBS (703-739-5028 or jmcnamara@pbs.org).  

About PBS

PBS is a private, nonprofit media enterprise that serves the nation’s 349 public noncommercial television stations, reaching nearly 90 million people each week through on-air and online content.  Bringing diverse viewpoints to television and the Internet, PBS provides high-quality documentary and dramatic entertainment, and consistently dominates the most prestigious award competitions.  PBS is the leading provider of educational materials for K-12 teachers, and offers a broad array of educational services for adult learners.  PBS’ premier kids’ TV programming and Web site, PBS KIDS Online (pbskids.org), continue to be parents’ and teachers’ most trusted learning environments for children.  More information about PBS is available at pbs.org, one of the leading dot-org Web sites on the Internet, averaging more than 30 million unique visits and 380 million page views per month in 2004.  PBS is headquartered in Alexandria, Va.