The Value Of Public Television
An editorial today in the Des Moines Register rebutted a recently published column by George Will.
Will
argued that Public Television is an idea whose time has past – given
the abundence of the free market available on cable and satellite
services:
The
Public Broadcasting Service recently 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 now 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?
Will goes on to argue that children's programming sponsored by public institutions is (seemingly) wholly unnecessary.
The
recent spat about Buster, PBS' 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?
Writing in rebuttal, Dan Miller (the executive director of IPTV) had this to say:
Take
the size of our audience. PBS' is larger than any cable channel's on
any night. More than twice as many people choose to watch PBS over
Discovery or the History Channel, and over six times more than Bravo.
Nearly 90 million people watch public television each week, up 10
percent from the same time last year – a fact that speaks loudly about
the increasing relevance of our programming.
Our
children's programs are the top choice of parents, and are, most
important, offered commercial-free. Many target an audience of younger
children ill-served everywhere else.
And
their value? A number of independent studies have concluded that
educational, literacy-based television programs like those public
television provides make significant improvements in school readiness.
Public television is the No. 1 source of educational media in Iowa's
and America's classrooms, and is a major resource for free lesson
plans, teachers' guides, home-schooling guidance and other resourceful
activities.
But
that must not matter much to Will. Public television is a “preposterous
relic,” he argues, made so by today's multi-channel television
environment, where the five-channel world of our birth has been
replaced by 500 channels delivered by cable or direct broadcast
satellite.
What's
really preposterous here is Will's argument that the value of
television can be found solely in the number of channels it provides.
Any viewer knows that it's not the number of channels that matters – it's what's on them.
Even
Will must have understood that a few years back, when he wrote of the
PBS documentary on the Civil War, “If better use has ever been made of
television, I have not seen it.”
Arguing
from just the point of view of children's programming, evidently Mr.
Will is not familar with the “breadth” of hyper-violent and
over-commercialized programming available for children.
IPTV in particular is also the home to programming that is absolutely unavailable from other outlets, in particular Iowa Press and Living in Iowa, which give airtime to local politics and concerns in a format completely unavailable from other outlets.
As a
taxpayer, paying less than a dollar per year to fund grants for
original programming (like the Ken Burns documentaries Mr. Will is so
fond of) is an absolute bargain.
As a final aside – it is “Festival” time at IPTV. I donate because IPTV does give me programming that is unavailable anywhere else. From news shows like Frontline and Now to unique programming like the always incredible Christmas at Luther, commercial outlets never air programming of that quality.
I will admit to not watching Tucker Carlson Unfiltered, but c'mon… it's Tucker Carlson. Does anyone actually watch that guy?
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