PBS 'non-commercial television' claim-Is it a fraud?
It started with the sponsorship ads at the front and back of programs. But now, no longer is just a mention of the foundation's name sufficient; now it's a full-blown 15 or 20 second image ad for Coca-Cola or any of another 100 entities. Clearly they are indeed running advertisements. The ads are just a symptom of a VERY commercial PBS system. Then they started airing seminars with authors during pledge time. They'd run 1/2 of the seminar then take a break and ask for memberships, and if you added in $20, they'd send along a copy of this author's book. Innocent enough. But now, all day long they are running nothing but infomercials -- long seminars with Dr. Wayne Dyer, or Rich Dad Poor Dad author Robert Kiyosaki (the PRINCE if not the KING of infomercials on "regular" TV), this concert or that concert. Not aired as content with an incidental request for money, but actually aired with the specific intent on raising funds by selling over-priced packages of products or services. $100 for a DVD, $365 for the "whole enchilada" of CDs and books. I haven't checked into it yet, but do you think that the lecturers get money from the sales of the products (their books and CDs and very expensive seminars sold as "thank yous" on PBS)? I assume that they do, and if I'm right then PBS can no longer legitimately say that they are non-commercial as everyone is profiting. It absolutely disgusts me to see what PBS has become, and to hear them use the phrase "Non commercial television" in the midst of these infomercials makes my blood boil. Clearly they are fully commercial, they just fund their programs a little bit differently than other stations, but not radically so anymore. Up until very recently, I supported public funding of PBS even though their programming's political agenda bias was obvious. I agree with the bias in some cases and don't in others, but I like to hear the whole story and make up my own mind, I don't want to be spoon-fed my opinions. I could live with that even though I feel that they should have at least a few programs that show there is more than one side to a debate. But now, I cannot support any further public funding of a commercial enterprise such as PBS. I think their advertisers (and their members) can pick up the slack. Perhaps the Federal Government could become the primary sponsor for a few shows like Sesame Street and pay to have no commercials aired during that show. That might be appropriate. Just Food for Thought. |
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| Ron I have to agree with you fully. I just posted a reply but before I registered. So I'm not sure that it posted or not. I'm out here in Seattle and the liberal Democrat that I am, completely believe the government should stop funding "Commercial PBS". Thanks for your post, Denny |
| WOW, I have been looking for this forum, or should I say this topic is public discussion for 4-5yrs now. I live in the Seattle area and have been totally disgusted with the local PBS station for that long. I happened to be as liberal as any other Democrat in our area but enough is enough. I completely feel that PBS should be Federally de-funded. My displeasure began several years ago when the local PBS station (KCTS) began airing Vme the Spanish network on it's sub-channel(9.2). Let me be clear that the ethnicity of the station was not the issue, although we have several other languages spoken around here in Seattle that don't get their own public broadcasting station. The issue was that I was seeing comercials on this channel. I'm talking about full 30sec+ commercials for companies like Toyota, Hartford Ins,Ford etc. I called the station and was informed that they merely pay a license fee to broadcast and don't have control over the content. WHAT! "You're telling me that your spending the support money from "viewers like you" myself and the federal government to broadcast a fully commercial channel. Vme has its own Spanish programs similar to Access Hollywood,soap operas reality shows etc. I will say they have some children's programing and a couple of nature shows that are better than KCTS. KCTS never seems to run any of it's fund raising programs on this channel. KCTS seldom runs quality PBS programming during prime time viewing unless it's of infomercial nature, ie music collections, concerts that they can interrupt for 10-15min to sell the series at an overinflated price. An example, PBS is carrying the series Downton Abbey. Their recent drive to save their ability to continue to carry the program makes the series available to supporters for $75 one season or $250 for all 5 past. (all 5 available on Amazon $135-$155) We see regularly, just to mention a few, Rick Steves travels, Suzi Orman, Dr Wayne Dwyer, all millionaires I believe PBS helped to create. In the real world these individuals would be forced to BUY air time, show their infomercial on TV, hope they could sell their wares at an acceptable price and hope to sell enough to make a profit. These would also probably be shown in the middle of the night and not what most people consider prime time. I miss the days when I would once a year send my annual membership in and look forward to another year of quality broadcasting instead today we get 4hr segments of KCTS COOKS, a station produced cooking program they interrupt every 30 mins or less to sell you the overpriced DVDs. With all respect to the Big Bird fans, Big Bird is owner by the Sesame Street workshop, recently valued at about $356,000,000.00. I don't think PBS or its stations are going to change their false pretense of being "Non-comercial". I also don't think Sesame street is going away, nor will Big Bird starve. I think it's time to discontinue funding PBS. Thank you for the opportunity to express my views on this subject without feeling like I was closing down every food bank and shelter in the state. D.S. |
| The ads are pretty bad, especially for shows like Hometime and This Old House. The ads for Home Depot, State Farm, and GMC eat up about 5 minutes of air time per half hour. Awful. |
| PBS went to the Dark Side when they canned Bob Vila. Seriously. That's the last time I went our of my way to watch anything on it. Thankfully Discover and the DIY networks came along when they did. At least they're not pretending to be something they clearly aren't. I am glad that I can still find the Hometime series on various cable channels too. At least on Cable, you still expect the three or four ad breaks. The only thing even close to watching on PBS is Austin City Limits and even that has gotten to be a crap shoot in the last five or six years. Vance |
| I wrote this 6 years ago, and it has just gotten worse and worse. I recently wrote about it on fb (I think) a 3 hour infomercial had twice the level of commercials that are on commercial TV. As opposed to 6 years ago, now many of the shows have full blown 30 second ads; even the foundations sponsors announce what their mission is. But they still say "Thank you" after viewers like you.  PBS acts as a news organization and as such should not be funded by the government that the 4th estate is supposedly charged with over-seeing. Seeing as how PBS clearly has a political slant, I like to ask PBS supporters if the Federal Government should be giving 50 or 100 million a year to Fox News Channel to allow them to develop some educational children's programming too. |
| I am not familiar with PBS, but my understanding when some organization claims to be non-commercial, it should mean not-for-profit. I don't know about PBS specifically. |
| So if they are "not for profit" does that mean that they should be subsidized by the government? |
| Totally agree! Not commercial......ha! And then they take public tax dollars as they pat themselves on the back. Long ago I quit watching any of the talking heads, we don't agree on a lot of issues. Got tired of what animal is eating what animal this week programing. Now rare visit......just the operas and once in awhile a This Old House program on home repairs, not the remodels. Wow Vance, not since Bob Vila! I'm impressed! No, haven't sent them money in ages!! |
Ron wrote: So if they are "not for profit" does that mean that they should be subsidized by the government? I dunno, there are plenty of not for profit operations out there that do not receive government funding, there are plenty that do, I have no opinion either way in this case. |
| I've always thought of pbs as "all commercial" lol (different meaning, same idea) |
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