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Leave the Belts
Public broadcasting is circling the drain. Their ratings are a shadow of what they once were. Anyone who looks at today’s political realities knows that it’s only a matter of time before NPR and PBS get some very bad news. In pro wrestling, when your contract is up, whether you’ve got a job elsewhere or not, it’s understood by all that you’ll “leave the belt”– lose the championship (and its ornate belt) before going out the door.
When funding is cut for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a near-certainty, NPR and PBS should be allowed out the door to re-organize themselves as non-public private foundations and keep themselves on the air with their own money, if they can. But they irrevocably lose “the belts”– the names, trademarks, and above all, any lingering claim to be operating in the name of the US public.
It didn’t start this way, and it didn’t have to be this way. When I was a kid, there was no political tone to broadcasting the local chamber orchestra on Sunday afternoon, or morning lectures by irascible old Prof. Bowman. The Ford Foundation made an offer the stations didn’t refuse: videotape machines, costing $70,000 each, equivalent to $757,000 today. Now the stations could exchange tapes. That was the primitive origin of a public television network, what a later generation would call “sneaker net”.
Surprisingly, much of the Congressional support for paying for a “real” network via AT&T long lines and then satellites came from conservative rural states, who saw possible virtues in putting a teacher wherever there was a television set. LBJ’s Democrats repackaged the loosely knit NET as centralized PBS, gave it a self-perpetuating staff, did a similar deal with educational radio, created NPR, and established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as their permanent funding agency.
But this happened at about the same time as a cultural “hinge event,” the election of Richard Nixon. Nixon hated PBS, and the feeling was mutual. To the horror of PBS’s founding generation, CPB sought and got corporate funding that moderated the programs of public broadcasting. The largest single new 70s funder was Mobil Oil, sponsor of Masterpiece Theater, setting the tone for PBS for decades to come. Their programming, much of it classical and British, wasn’t conservative but mostly apolitical. That compromise was acceptable to the institutional GOP, and that balance held for a long time. PBS became known for cooking shows and wildlife documentaries.
By the time of the Carter administration, public TV’s fondest gift list was a book called Keeping P.A.C.E. with the New Television. At a time when cable systems were still rare and had very restricted capacity, this book proposed that the country should have national, taxpayer-supported channels for news, history, and culture, all run by PBS. That would be the future of TV—no privately run, competing viewpoints from, say, the History or Learning channels; no A&E, Discovery, Bravo, or Nickelodeon. It would all be handed to public broadcasting on a platter, by Congress and the FCC. Didn’t happen.
The Nineties began with PBS’s most influential television hit, Ken Burns’s The Civil War. That was the high point of American public television in ratings and cultural relevance. In 1990—thirty-five years ago and counting–this was as good as it got.
In the hands of PBS, every subsequent progressive domestic political movement tends to have its own distinctive, authentic characteristics molten down so it can be recast as Selma or Freedom Summer 1964. Feminism, ethnicity and gay rights were issues that local station fundraisers either found helpful (mostly in coastal states, the industrial Midwest, and college towns everywhere), or unhelpful (most of the rest of the country).
They chose a side. It had short-term marketing benefits but long-term political drawbacks. In the years after 9/11, CPB force-fed a little bit of genuine diversity to PBS, commissioning projects from conservatives. It was called America at a Crossroads. The shows were fresh, different, and popular. Naturally, the institutional blob smothered Crossroads as quickly and discreetly as it could. Today, PBS’s ratings have plunged far below even the anemic numbers of twenty years ago.
While TV’s PBS flatlined, radio’s NPR thrived for a long time. It became one of the popular brand names of progressives, in effect their Harley-Davidson, Smith and Wesson, or the Black Rifle Coffee of the tote bag-and-pledge-drive ladies. It began to look like PBS would have been better off rebranding itself as “NPR Video”. But then NPR lost its showroom shine. Changes in radio listening habits, the rise of wokeness, and the rise of revulsion to wokeness, have all resulted in historic audience losses. When insider Uri Berliner published a damning essay last year about how political bias brought NPR low, they fired him.
Nearly seven years ago, when Australia was debating changes to its own public TV, Sydney’s Daily Telegraph quoted Ricochet:
Public broadcasting was born in a 1950s world of limited information, limited bandwidth, and narrow choices. It dreamed of a world where you could be in Tupelo, Utica or Provo and still be able to see “Macbeth” on TV. In that world it had a real purpose.
Today, you could be in Tupelo’s outer fringes and see virtually any version of Shakespeare ever filmed, on your phone, at any time of the day or night. PBS struggles with that new world. Wouldn’t it be wiser for them to declare victory over cultural deprivation, mission accomplished! – and then fold their tents for good?
Time to fold those tents, fellas. On the way out, make sure to leave the belts.
Published in General
In case someone here says, “McVey, can you back any of this up, or is it all mere fantasy, uninformed speculation?”
Yeah, that’s us, all right.
On page A6, “Hollywood Right’s reply to CPB overture isn’t entirely polite”. That headline annoys me to this day. We were polite, more polite than they deserved.
In 63 years, the only things I’ve watched on PBS were Tom Baker Doctor Who, and I, Claudius, both in the 70s. I’ve heard NPR in a couple of NYC cabs.
Can’t say I’d miss it.
So easy to slide from “bringing culture to the plebs” to “bringing enlightenment”.
I, Claudius had the first topless women in American broadcast television. That’s a significant historical milestone, no doubt. They were, IIRC, supposedly African dancers from the edges of the Roman Empire.
EDIT: Judging by the accents, from the British Empire, about 20 years after Suez.
They did give us Monty Python’s Flying Circus, and……..
Good work!
The reason the system was so hard for conservatives to take down is that it’s (relatively) cleverly structured. The money doesn’t go directly to left wing PBS or NPR; it goes to local stations, many of them college affiliates, that are grant-worthy all over the country. They turn around and decide that the best thing they can do with the money, by gosh, is buy PBS programming.
You can’t really go after the center; you have to go after Sympathetic State College and its brave little radio station, which is merely relaying info from a trusted source.
But sometimes the scheme doesn’t work. KCET, the PBS station in Los Angeles, quit the system, figuring that if all they were going to get from national PBS was European and Asian culture and cooking shows, then they could go directly to the source, cut out the middlewoman, and strike an independent course. Not a crazy idea. It didn’t succeed, though. KCET’s sometimes interesting re-invention of educational TV came along right before the PBS system’s second-biggest hit, Britain’s Downton Abbey, which momentarily reinvigorated PBS like a steroid shot.
With KCET 28 gone, PBS was forced to affiliate with their second-string choice, KOCE 50 in Orange County. This had the complication that the channel is owned by a religious broadcaster, excruciating cultural torment for PBS.
Eventually, all sides are so broke and exhausted that 28 and 50 are now under (shaky) joint control.
An eternal problem with human nature.
An irony here is modern day PBS/NPR, and the modern-day educational/cultural “blob” in general, is comically two-faced about it. They wistfully claim, “Isn’t every child entitled to the thrill of encountering the Magna Carta, the Constitution, William Shakespeare, and Beethoven?”
While simultaneously radiating from every pore, “Isn’t it disgustingly horrible that every helpless child within reach of a TV is forced to embrace the myth of the Magna Carta, the Constitution, William Shakespeare, and Beethoven?”
Strictly as a practical matter, this was not going to hold together for long.
I remember hearing – including from James Lileks – that PBS/NPR have/had some very lavish studios etc. At least around Minneapolis, and probably elsewhere too. Maybe those could be turned to more productive use by private enterprise.
Commercial radio is shrinking, not growing, so they don’t need NPR facilities. Those studios were never nearly as lavish as Sirius FMs.
Almost all trends in talk-show audio lead towards web production. There’s not a whole lot of actual public property wrapped into the fate of 1967-era public broadcasting. Sorry, that dog won’t hunt, Monsignor.
Where government-provided facilities are used by present-day NPR/PBS, the new org or orgs should lease them at market rates, starting Day One, ending in either a rapid buyout (reimbursement) of Fed-provided land and equipment, or rapid liquidation. I don’t consider this to be a punitive or unfair deal. If enough of the US public really wants them around, they have an opportunity to open their wallets and prove it.
PBS recently did a documentary on the history of Funk. It was pretty good. A lot of footage of James Brown and all the outrageous costumes George Clinton used to wear. The problem with these docs is they are sort of a cliff notes version of the subject and there’s always omissions. Barely anything about the Ohio players or Earth, Wind and Fire and nothing about Herbie Hancock. He got super funky in the 70’s. Funk at its’ highest levels IMHO. His funk wasn’t for the faint of heart. Your a$$ is going to move if you put it on your wifi.
I felt the same way about Ken Burns Jazz series. I’d rather see an in depth 10 part series on Louis Armstrong than a 10 part series that encompasses 100 years of music. These docs always seem to bite off more than they can chew.
90.9 WRCJ is the local Classical and Jazz station. Not a NPR station, funded by PBS and the Detroit Symphony Orchestra. Weather and Traffic is about as political as they get. 89.1 WEMU has Jazz, Funk,Soul, (edit: Blues Also), & Roots, but as a NPR station they think AOC and Bernie are way too conservative. Too much of WEMU is lefty talk programming, too little music.
Monty Python’s Flying Circus was on PBS, I think pre-dating I, Claudius. But it might be close. The interwebs says I, Claudius was 1976. I think I saw my first episode of MPFC somewhere in that era…
Back in the day I was reliably informed by Those In The Know that PBS couldn’t be left-wing because they broadcast WFB’s Firing Line, and Wall Street Week.
There’s an Episode of Cheers where Sam is visiting Frasier and Lilith’s house. Frasier tells Sam that he has every episode of I, Claudius on Video Tape, and Sam replies “Great, I love gladiator films!”
I used to watch Firing Line when Buckley was the host. As for NPR, I avoid it like the plague.
A couple of thoughts after reading the OP.
(1) I was a regular listener to Diane Rehm in the early 2000s. Over the years she’d “take my call” perhaps a dozen times. And then she didn’t.
(2) I think Gary should get that book written, the sooner the better. Perhaps the best format is to make it a collection of essays. An intro and a conclusion could tie the package up with a nice bow.
In Cincinnati, public radio had mainly two stations, WVXU out of Xavier U., and WGUC, produced by the other urban university: University of Cincinnati.
In the 80’s I was an enthusiastic daily listener of both. Morning Edition (Bob Edwards), All Things Considered (Susan Stamberg), and other verbal programming; and classical and jazz music content were integral parts of my life.
The two stations merged at some point. By that time, the institutional Blob had engulfed and digested Morning Edition and All Things Considered. Both of them went to WVXU, along with all the jazz programming. With the two flagship non-musical features delivering mostly infuriating collectivist propaganda, I decided I could live without jazz, so WVXU got scratched from my routine.
I’ve often wondered if it was a deliberate marketing decision to deliver one product that would satisfy both proggy elites and conservative intellectuals with apolitical classical music, and a second station with pure leftist content that would soothe NPR’s corporate religious conscience and keep the popular brand-name talk-products alive.
WGUC was now liberated completely from the ideological crap, and had marvelous classical DJs both local and rented. I can’t remember the names. The only non-musical show I recall was 90 Second Naturalist, which was fun.*
* * *
*There was one insufferable proggy music feature–Composers’ Datebook. It started with a hook, involving “on this day, in 17xx/18xx” historical bit referencing a beloved classical composer, and playing a snippet of his or her music. Then the payload: some story about a decadent, superficially related 20th century composer. And then a sample of the screeching and banging noises for whose creation he accepted the blame. The show ended every day with the same sniffy condescending sermonette to emphasize what we knuckle-draggers who still wanted to hear actual music were supposed to have learned: “This is John Berge, reminding you that all music was once new.” Meaning,
Could the rights to the names and trademarks be sold?
There has been some great stuff broadcast on PBS, a lot of it purchased from BBC. I doubt they will go down the tubes without financial support from the government, but I still think they do not deserve that support. Their political leanings have always been to the left, and in a country that is pretty close to 50/50 that is inappropriate for public money. If the big corporate entities want to continue their support, they are free to do so. If you object to this you can let them know and stop doing business with companies that feed the left. If the Trump revolution actually works out it may happen naturally. CEOs seeing the direction that the public is moving will adjust their sails, as it was, to the changing winds. The left has had its time in the sun. As with all such things it has grown and thrived in a friendly environment and now needs to be pruned back severely. I am unconvinced that given such a friendly environment that the right might not overgrow and need pruning at some time in the future. That seems to be the nature of political movements and swings of a pendulum. I doubt I will still be around when the Right reaches its apogee. However, I am looking forward to my declining years being spend in the sun of a more balanced and sane political climate.
I’m still blown away at the audacity of the Left in almost every area. Maybe they feel obligated to “educate” us; I call it brainwashing, and it’s insulting. I don’t watch PBS at all anymore in FL, and in the car we usually listen to a couple of shows on NPR: Snap Judgment and It’s Been a Minute. The first used to have non-political themes, but no more. The second one is blatantly left. So sad. Great piece, Gary.
For me it started with Monty Python’s Flying Circus, where the local college station broadcast it frequently enough that me and my best friend were able to memorize the episodes. And it did peak with The Civil War, which gave me war dreams. But since then, just irrelevant.
The new All Creatures Great and Small was a brief high point but it faded.
My first exposure to NPR came in 1989 when I moved from Wilmington, DE to western Massachusetts. I was first surprised, then taken aback and eventually offended by the pro-leftist and especially the pro-gay programming. So I stopped listening to “National Pubic Radio” on my way to work. I still tune in now and then during an ad block on my local right wing talk radio just so that I can hear what the opposition is up to.
I second the idea of Gary publishing a collection of essays. I would buy a copy.
Monty Python was the only reason I watched our PBS station
The mission to bring quality films, documentaries and other positive things to every community, things that commercial TV was not really equipped or designed to provide somehow morphed into a mission to either enlighten the rubes (if they tuned in) or celebrate the wonderfulness of the enlightened. Trying to figure out what people might want or enjoy versus what they should be made to want are different missions.
An acquaintance who had some business there said that the high-design, fancy space at PBS HQ in Arlington successfully transmits the notion of entitlement and detachment from normal Americans. That is harsh but maybe not entirely wrong.
Dad and I watch The Lawrence Welk Show Saturday and Sunday nights on the Indiana PBS station. The Chicago station is a complete waste of bandwidth.