Well, I've always been one that is in favor for governmant support for the arts. Generally speaking, I think we spend way too much money "protecting" ourselves and medeling in other country's affairs rather than improving our own country and educating our constituency. I'd rather have a governmant that was supportive of education and the arts first, since I believe that is what is one of the cornerstone of a great country.

But, this is where I am most liberal.

The constant cuts to the PCE and other public cultural oranizations saddens me, not for the amount of money that will be lost but for the example the government sets for the rest of the nation. Our leadership is narrow minded and short sighted and I find it extremly sad.

You're quite correct and thanks. What I cannot figure out is that many people find paying for Howard Stern a more attractive option. But hey, that's just me PBS and NPR give me more bang for every buck I give them!

Donna

I'm leaning more and more left these days, mainly because the right seems to be moving even further right. I love NPR, but admit I don't watch PBS at all these days....although I would love my own kids to watch Sesame Street and the like. I realize that my reasons for wanting the gov't to support these services is because they are good for me, which is a very self-serving reason. I used to be against all kinds of gov't funded things. Let's face it, if Sesame Street were kicked out of public television, a bidding war would ensue and some network would snap it up.

I'm still conservative enough to notice a liberal bias in much of NPR's programming. It bugs me that they don't have enough balance. But that's an administrative matter - who decides what gets on the air? I'm not talking about getting a Bill O'Reilly type but someone who's a little more middle. Much of the bias I've seen is rather light, they do a pretty good job of tempering themselves, but it's obvious that a program like This American Life (which I adore) isn't exactly a centered one.

So yeah, I hope public TV gets support because I like listening to it...any more than that hurts my head. And if it doesn't get support we'll have to donate more money, I guess.

Well, this is my special interest – so I’m biased.

I really wish the market would support the kind of programming that the CPB funds, but looking at how radio has consolidated, how the gazillion channels of cable TV still manage to offer little in the way of diverse programming and I wonder how my niche will get filled.

This is cause I put my money behind, contributing as generously as I can, but I fear that still isn’t enough – when the bandwidth can generate more cash by providing still more of the same programming in a different package.

I guess there is the internet, but I think even there they are hamstrung by the arcane workings of copyright and market share.

I might be more comfortable with this if the FCC and other regulatory agencies were doing more to protect/ensure diversity of thought, free speech, and creativity – but recent trends have moved to restrict content, and yield to the market.

I believe in the market system and think it a tremendous tool, but I also believe that not everything can be reduced to a monetary value or popularity ranking. This one has me worried.

For the record, I give money every year to my local public radio station (KQED) because I enjoy the programming. I also pay for Sirius radio almost exclusively for Howard Stern. They're not mutually exclusive.

However, I ceased giving money to public tv years ago. With the exception of one or two shows, the programming doesn't do it for me. Perhaps when I have kids, I'll donate something to keep commercials out of Sesame Street.

Have you ever noticed that the great documentaries that they play on Public Television during the pledge drives are usually edited? The versions that you get on DVD in exchange for a pledge are almost always longer. That alone is enough to tick me off.

As I get older, I find that I am more of a social liberal and a fiscal conservative. Exactly like neither of the two parties.

This story makes me neither happy nor sad. I guess I'd be happy if the sweeping cuts were less biased. It just shows how ugly the government really is. Come to think of it, maybe I am sad. But not for the "right" reasons.

I contribute to NPR (mostly for This American Life which is the best radio on the dial).

I just don't think the federal government should fund content creation and that what role it plays should be limited to ensuring the channel exists (reserving and licensing segments of the EM spectrum).

To the extent that government is involved in content creation it should be at the local level where it will be consumed. Though generally I don't support it there, either.

More specifically the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was a horrible idea that grew out of a specific moment in time (when there were only three networks on which to broadcast content and barriers to distribution were monumental) that doesn't exist any more and it should be done away with.

For those looking to label this left or right wing, for me it grows out of my libertarianism which I think of as neither left or right wing, though in this case it has a surface appearance of right wingism (just as my pro-drug legalization views tend to look left wing when viewed in isolation).

This, I'm not so sure about - certainly things are different that the days of 3 Networks. But the times when I cruise the gazzillion channels, I really don't find much that speaks to me in the same way as the publicly funded stuff. Maybe that's becasue that niche is already filled by them?

For the record, my support is mostly in terms of radio. I rarely watch TV (no judgement intended there, just a statement of my personal viewing facts) PBS or otherwise.

Taking what you said waaaay out of context...
I do fund public television, and NPR, and my local musuems, and I loved public broadcasting for my son when he was a wee one.
However, now with my nephew, we watch the other channels more. PLay with me Sesame is on Noggin, and they run the old Sesame street bits from when we were children.
Have you seen Sesame street recently? Its not the same as what you remember. (at least not the same as when I was a child) They seem to assume now that those of us the same as Sesame street had a longer attention span than the kiddies now.

My point... other networks do have part of it. Noggin airs the Play with me show.. and a lot of the other childrens programming that used to be delegated to PBS stations only.

I guess the other issue I have, is when someone cites an example of something potentially filling the void of publicly funded programming, it's almost always of the "pay" and not "public/broadcast" variety.

The Big Bird thing is also inaccurate. According to Sesame Workshop's 2004 990 (the non-profit version of the 1040 individuals have to file) they receive little government money.

http://bbbnewyork.org/charityreports...s.aspx?id=1055

And it is difficult to claim too much poverty when you have at least 7 executives with salaries of more than a $250,000/year. I'm not saying they're not worth it, but not they're not poor. Also according to the same form, the direct production costs of 50 new episodes/year of Sesame Street are about $11 million. Somehow they find ways to be a non-profit on annual revenues of about $100 million (and another quarter billion in securities investments).

Again, I know that Sesame Workshop is hardly typical but it about the worst example you could use when arguing the poverty of public broadcasting.