In the New York Times (3/19/12), Elizabeth Jensen reports on some unusual scheduling decisions at PBS that are diminishing the audience for some of the best stuff you’re likely to see on public television–the acclaimed documentary series Independent Lens and POV:
After being bumped from Tuesday nights to a hodgepodge of time slots, Independent Lens has lost 39 percent of its average audience for new episodes this season, compared with a year ago, according to Nielsen ratings provided by ITVS, which produces the series.
Jensen’s report–which expanded on news first reported by the public broadcasting newspaper Current–noted that many prominent filmmakers and journalists, including Bill Moyers and Alex Gibney, have signed a letter protesting the PBS decision.
That letter points out that “democracy needs more than commercial media’s business models can provide”–part of the rationale for PBS in the first place.
One interesting reaction noted in the Times piece:
Pat Aufderheide, director of American University’s Center for Social Media and board member of Kartemquin Films and a former ITVS board member, said in a telephone interview that she did not understand “why PBS wants to be seen as effectively throwing these series under the bus” when some in Congress are questioning public broadcasting’s federal financing.
The series, she said, “scream validation of taxpayer dollars,” by engaging local communities and respectfully exploring underreported issues.
It seems to me that Aufderheide’s pointing to the real problem. These series deliver consistently excellent programming that fulfills the very mission of public broadcasting. They do so by providing a national platform for films that often challenge the status quo and feature voices that are often omitted.
But the politicians most critical of public broadcasting don’t believe the system should much concern itself with “underreported issues” and the like. They don’t like PBS‘s mission, and object to programming that carries it out.
It seems likely that what PBS is doing is hoping that the politicians who want their funding zeroed out will see a decision like this, attempting to marginalize the independent work that ought to be the heart of public TV programming, as a step in the right direction. That strategy–a familiar one by now–never seems to work.
What a shame.
“PBS” has done nothing – PEOPLE at PBS have made these decisions and I am disappointed that they were not personally brought to account in either the NYT piece or this FAIR story. Just as in the recent anti-Planned Parenthood decision at Komen, the people responsible need to be outed. If corporations are not people, we need to stop speaking of corporate decisions and start talking about the individuals making them.
Dear PBS,
Bill Moyers, and “Independent producers, journalists and filmmakers deserve the best possible platform on public television.”
Why in the world is Bill Moyers’ new show on at 6:00 pm on Sundays??? POV and Independent Lens time slots moved. We are senior citizens who have supported PBS for years. We would be happy to continue to support PBS, but, feel you have lost your focus. Now, more than any time I can remember, the media needs to be asking the hard questions we require to think our way out of the political morass we are in. You can’t con us. We know you are no longer speaking from your mission.
“We are deeply concerned that PBS’ poorly-considered decision could jeopardize both the meeting of public broadcasting’s mission and also stifle the innovation that is crucial to the future of public broadcasting.”
Please rethink your scheduling!
“That strategy (of hoping to shrink themselves as the politicians’ bull’s eye) … never seems to work” because of the give-them-an-inch princple… When will we learn to stand up to bullies?
PBS dropped Bill Moyers from the Raleigh-Durham, NC broadcasts and I will never send them a dime unless he is brought back. I suppose they do not appreciate the many wonderful people and programs he presented, but I was addicted. All local newscasters give one-liners, local murders and car crashes, nothing that compares in any way, nothing I would miss if they did not continue to present news.
The only real news on TV is at bbc.
But “Antiques Roadshow” gets two hours every Monday evening. And there’s plenty of other hard-hitting journalism like “Downton Abbey” and “Washington Week in Review by Mainstream Media Twits and Apologists.” Move along, folks, nuthin’ to see here.
I have lost my trust in PBS.
I am disappointed with Masterpiece Theater as it now exists. “Downtown Abbey” was said to be very popular with the viewing audience but it just seemed like a water-downed soap opera to me. It did not present the quality and depth of performance that Masterpiece Theater had in the past. I watched thinking it would get better but it did not.
I could not even watch the Sherlock Holmes series for more than a few minutes. It was silly, pretentious and nonsensical. It is as if Masterpiece Theater is deliberately dumbing down its programming thinking its audience can not handle quality performances.
google: “The Real News Network” to find alternative sources of news and information. I worry that the BBC has also been dumbed down and underfunded, or will be soon. Real News is independently funded, and does not take money from government OR corporations!
“The only real news on TV is at bbc.”
One of the comments. May I suggest the channels that offer Current TV and also Democracy Now! And Al Jazeera?
I asked the local newspaper in the Upper Valley of NH why their TV Guide didn’t mention those channels and was told huffily “we can’t list ALL channels.” That was not what I was asking for. Thus there may be those who do not want progressive channels to be watched. Dream on…. progressive does not preclude balance and depth.
Anyway, those channels are a good counter weight to the increasingly staid,
narrow, often unbalanced and shallow news reports of PBS….which obviously I watch some in order to make that claim. It is quiet and polite and establishment – not sins for sure.
This after the extraordinary civil rights histories that ran during February? And I still haven’t gotten over the loss of Bill Moyers Journal. What’s left? Doo Wop – over and over and over and over again?
Gloria, email, call, or show up at RDU PBS. Is it true of Chapel Hill too? I emailed Channel 13 here in NYC I wasn’t giving them any more money until Moyers returned. He has, though they sling him from one time slot to another. The same night he retired,( if that’s what happened), Now, which covered demos all around the US, not covered by anyone else, and World Focus, which had the only live coverage of the Gaza War from Gaza via Al Jazeera. The BBC was only in Israel watching not as many bombs coming in, no shots of IDF tanks rolling over muslim graves, and much worse shelling. PBS tries to be Fox Lite, buys everything from the BBC. I’d like more American Experience, Frontline, Independent Lens at hours when I’m still awake, old lady that I am.
PBC, NPR, etc will never appease the right. They view public television and radio as somehow inherently communist. NPR brought on all those right wing commentators and even that couldn’t stave off the assault.
At the Boston affiliate WGBH, they run sappy upper middle class comforting Wayne Dyers feel good shows and similar in the late evening, they’re trying to bust their union, and one of the Koch brothers is on the board. At one point there was at least a pretense of public service broadcasting but since the mid-1970’s the trend right across the public broadcasting spectrum has been to cater to their funders, Mobil, the Koch’s and people with enough money to be anxious about losing it and who are comforted by bland fix up your house or strike it rich with you Aunt Minnie’s spitoon programming.
I started being disappointed in PBS when it used propaganda to get us into the war against Iraq and am still disappointed much of the time. But what can we do?
PBS will not take $$$ from unions, as program sponsors. And this has been their policy for over 20 years. They are, and have been corporate shills for too long, at tax payers expense.
leftbank
Russ says:
03/23/2012 at 7:48 pm
“PBS” has done nothing
Russ says:
03/23/2012 at 7:48 pm
“PBS” has done nothing ”“ PEOPLE at PBS have made these decisions and I am disappointed that they were not personally brought to account in either the NYT piece or this FAIR story. Just as in the recent anti-Planned Parenthood decision at Komen, the people responsible need to be outed. If corporations are not people, we need to stop speaking of corporate decisions and start talking about the individuals making them.
—————————————–
Russ has this exactly right. We do this all the time, letting the people who have the least concept of truth and reality frame the context of the argument. And though they might distort reality, they are by no means stupid in the way they do it. So long as they can get us to debate them using their lexicon, their focus, their Frank Luntz doublespeak they will prevail in their true intent.
Take the contraception-insurance debate. They have us arguing between the right of the woman and the right of the employer. They use the word “employer” to make it sound like it is a person whose right we are subverting by making them cover women in this way. One individual’s right measured against an opposing individual’s right. That is a lie. The “employer” is a business, a corporation, and specifically a financial priority that has little to do with religion and everything to do with profit. The individual right belongs to the woman, but because we debate the issue using their focus, it becomes complicated when it really should be simple.
Are you listening FAIR?
Be weary, very, very weary of any so-called public broadcasting forum – be it teevee or radio – that takes…ahem! corporate donations.
pbs stands for the PETROLEUM BROADCASTING SYSTEM. until its taken back
by us this will continue. BREAKING NEWS pbs just announced that pro wrestling
will take bill moyers spot and bill’s show is going on “hiatus” until further notice.
i moved from d.c. and live in france now so i don’t have to suffer through what the people in the states are going through on all levels. as for news, thank goodness for al jazeera and democracy now, i feel like i know what’s happening in the world. Occupy the Media!
I “retired” from TV a year and a half ago. Why? It wasn’t worth the $30 a month I was paying. PBS was OK but not wonderful anymore. Too much that I’ve enjoyed in the past – Bill Moyers, the best of Masterpiece, etc. – was gone. That and Comedy Central being axed by our local leaving me with basically nothing.
Downton Abby was obviously geared to a “larger” audience as such a variety of people were watching it and it was the talk of knitting groups, etc. My friends who fondly remember “Upstairs; Downstairs” said it was a poor second rate version. I don’t think I missed much. Clearly, PBS has become in league with the rest of TV as the major source of dumming down America.
Fortunately, the Internet and Neflicks are available and have so very many possibilities. So sad that PBS can’t realize that there are many people out here who appreciate quality.
Elizabeth — your local PBS affiliate showed Comedy Central? Did that include The Daily Show?
Is there still a right-winger at the helm of PBS? I think I heard that she’s still there. Why can’t she be canned? Didn’t she get her job during the Bush administration when right-wingers controlled the Corporation for Public Broadcasting? Don’t those who lead the CPB get tossed when a different party gets the White House? I don’t know how all that works. But PBS started to take a turn for the worse during the Bush admin., and it seems that we should have expected it to get better with Obama in the WH.
Totally agree. I came across Independent Lens this Saturday morning or early afternoon by chance. Usually it’s too late for this 66 year old. Shows like that, along with Frontline should be in primetime rather than toooo many British soaps, mysteries and comedies, the latter of which I do sometimes enjoy. More Moyers and bring back Now and World Focus. BBC World America – annoyed my brother in Greece when he turned on a TV and got BBC World America – itself gets more like the PBS News Hour all the time, which is now more Fox Lite. If the “members choices” they run during their interminable fundraisers are representative of their audience, they won’t last long. (Alex, you’ll get old too, so stop bashing old ladies, – old men’s turn to be the most worthless thing on the planet.) Too bad, since American Masters, American Experience are often good to great. I don’t like Ken Burns’ series. His music choice drives me bonkers. The 12 Part one on NYC was sooo elegiac – “Never again would New York – the droning voice goes on and on, the music so dreary… I looked for captions. Not available. More documentaries by others, please. Get some new blood. Bring in some young indie film makers and renew PBS. (They might be cheap.) It should be a national treasure and it would be terrible to let the Republicans destroy it. Or for it to destroy itself trying to please them. I’ll only watch so long an “ObamaScare” Debate between a representative of insurance companies and the American Enterprise Institute. Oil Co ads don’t bother me as corporate ads go. Most of you writing comments use oil, right? Only the rich can afford Priuses? What bothers me is Boeing keeping us safe by blowing up the world with our interminable Military Industrial Complex.
My local PBS station, broadcasting from Delta Community College, tends to show programs that might offend the right only on their latenight schedule–and the latenight schedule isn’t included in the printed schedules they mail out each month, only on their Internet website. As a result, I’ve gotten into the habit of checking the latenight schedule on the Internet regularly in order to find programs my local PBS station has decided to exclude from the evening schedule. Fortunately, two other PBS stations are included on my cable, so it is possible to catch other programs too liberal for Delta’s broadcasting staff.
Public broadcasting has been around for ages, and I never remember it being labeled as “liberal” or “leftist” until relatively recently (last few years). What I will never understand is why outlets like PBS and NPR (probably even BBC) even bother to concern themselves with being labeled that way. So what that some hard-righters call them leftist. Big deal. The fact that they capitulate to the Right by removing quality educational programming and true investigate reporting is a huge disgrace, and they will not see another dime from me until they reverse course to what they were before all this political labeling nonsense.
The reason that it’s a big deal is that NPR and PBS receive some money from the federal government through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Although PBS only costs American taxpayers about $1.35 per person per year, some people, thanks to right-wing lies and propaganda, believe that big bucks from their tax dollars are going to an un-American, leftist organization. Not only that, but they think it is anti-free-market to have a government subsidized TV station that competes with “real” American stations (I know it doesn’t make sense, but that’s what some people think.) Unfortunately PBS and NPR can’t just ignore this labeling because those on the right keep trying to de-fund them on the basis of their being unnecessary as well as too partisan. The money that comes from the federal government, while only about 20% of the total PBS budget for all stations, is critical. Another problem is that at least one recent heads of the CPB was right-wing himmself and thus brought pressure in how the money that does still come from government got used. You’re blaming those working in public broadcasting for a situation that is largely beyond their control in this era of “take no prisoners” right-wing ideology.
Chris I am that Right wing person.For a long time we had to listen to what WE considered left leaning programing without a counterpart on public airwaves.Whenever that template changed it was attacked by the left.Soon we realized the whole argument was wrong.Why were we paying at all, in these days of media over load?Quality?That is debatable.I think these days when so many shows are turning right instead of left- we see the paradigm has really changed.It is a far more evenly distributed than it was 15 years ago.As always the left does not want to compete and achieve or die.They want to be subsidized and live, no matter their contribution.Times change
Thanks, Chris. That makes sense. So, maybe it’s time to eliminate their government funding. If their revenues came solely from contributions from individuals and foundations, they would be free to return to what they once were. Hence, the GOP War on Public Broadcasting might be a blessing in disguise.
If we do not act to reform Public Media it will continue marching toward oblivion:
1-Will some member of Congress introduce a bill to put a check box on tax forms to mark $5 toward CPB/PBS/NPR. We can shut up the right wing by letting taxpayers vote on supporting public broadcasting.
2-PBS needs to set up a mechanism to allow viewers to contribute to support SPECIFIC programs instead of handing money over to local ‘member stations’ that waste it on crap programming.
3-Someone needs to remind PBS that it was created to provide an alternative to and a refuge from commercial media and it’s values. It was not designed to compete against them.
POV and Independent Lens are critical vehicles for independent films and independent voices from outside the establishment (including the PBS establishment and family of member stations). Our film The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers reached more than a million viewers in its initial broadcast (2010), largely because it was in a solid prime-time time slot. Good time-slots are critical.
As readers of Extra! are well aware, PBS has a history filled with opposition to the 1967 Congressional mandate of public broadcasting in America, which was to give independent voices and non-traditional and poorly represented points of view a place in our airwaves. Business-oriented and centrist and right-wing-leaning programming get priority and support. Contrary to conventional wisdom, left- and progressive-leaning programs are poorly represented on PBS, and the current re-scheduling only continues this atrocious history. It is time– no, well past time– for this trend to cease. Don’t marginalize the independents!
After Moyers left PBS, I stopped watching except to tune in now and then to watch Nova, Frontline, or its Nature series.. When I want news and analysis that covers issues and events of interest to me, I turn to Democracy Now, an independent global news hour and the best news hour I can find.
Just to clarify my comment. The only way I can get any TV where I live is with cable or a dish. It was cable that dropped Comedy Central on basic cable, leaving me with re-runs of law and order, the various “news” programs on the networks (blah,blah,blah) and whatever the Atlanta PBS deemed worthy. Sorry for the confusion.
David Gregory makes the most sense, and actually has a plan. We should listen.
I’m sorry friends, but public broadcasting became politicized when the boomer generation took the helm and wanted to “make a difference”. They try to justify their agenda by giving equal voice to the opposition. It’s a nice open minded gesture, but it still pollutes the medium with politics. Politics is about tribalism, criticism and propaganda. PBS is about art, science, history, education and higher thinking. Making PBS a platform for activism is wrong. If you back down, you invalidate the main point of your adversaries. Please stop with the agenda. Sesame Street is at stake here, folks.