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.