I get it. You resent any tax money ending up in the hands of public broadcasters. You think it’s unfair competition, that public radio and television get their funding guaranteed from people who may not even watch or listen, while you, the commercial broadcaster, have to battle for every dollar against infinite competition. The government shouldn’t be involved in media ownership, you believe (although many prominent public media entities aren’t owned by their state or city). Directing the CPB not to fund “biased” public broadcasting seems like a logical move to you.
Let’s look at it another way. If the argument is that, format aside, every share point collected by a non-commercial station is a point taken away from commercial radio, who’s to say that those listeners would ever listen to commercial radio if public broadcasting didn’t exist? What Morning Edition listener is likely to switch to Buck and Clay (or Clay and Buck, I never get that right)? Did Dan Bongino’s listeners flock to Fresh Air when he joined the Department of Defense?
Arguing that public radio and television are competing for the same audience assumes that there’s some crossover between the two. You’re doing different things. And since you would never, ever do public radio-style programming on your commercially-licensed FM, or devote a commercial TV operation to educational programming for a niche audience, public broadcasters are providing a service you won’t do.
Should they get funding, even indirect and relatively small amounts, from the government? There’s the argument that without that support, public broadcasting and the distinct style of content that they air would not be able to exist, and if so, they don’t have any more right to government protection than commercial operations.
But if society has decided that it wants that content, and the ratings indicate that there’s a large-enough segment of the population that does, it makes sense for the government to make sure it’s part of the regulated broadcasting system by throwing a relatively microscopic portion of the federal budget towards PBS, NPR, and the other public broadcasting entities. (There’s more money in adverti… er, “underwriting,” of course, but the tax money doesn’t hurt, especially in funding regional newsrooms, some of our last, best hopes for journalism.)
If you’re still not seeing a good reason for the U.S. to offer any funding for public broadcasting (or, for that matter, any cultural entities), look outside the States. Canada has the CBC on radio and television, plus TV Ontario. The U.K. has the BBC (and a mandatory license fee – a tax!– to fund it). Australia has ABC (not that ABC) and SBS. Japan has NHK, Germany has ARD and ZDF, Ireland has RTÉ… there are a lot more, but the common thread is that most of the countries on Earth have determined that there’s a benefit to publicly-funded broadcasting.
Of course, some of them do it because they want state media to unfailingly support the regime in power, but a lot of them are at least attempting to be neutral or even critical of the government. In the U.S., the plethora of broadcasting (and podcasting, and streaming) voices from across the political and social spectrum makes the “state media” possibility unlikely. (And the current networks that have been accused of being “state media” tend to be commercial entities anyway.)
I don’t listen to much public radio – I live in what must be the largest market without its own full-market NPR affiliate, depending on a rimshot from Miami and a translator – and I don’t watch much PBS. I don’t mind, however, that some pennies of my tax payments go to WLRN or South Florida PBS. Public broadcasting is part of a strong, diverse media landscape. We’d miss it if it was gone. Besides, there are only so many tote bags you can offer for donations. Do they still give tote bags to donors?
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Perry Michael Simon is a weekly news media columnist for Barrett Media. He previously served as VP and Editor/News-Talk-Sports/Podcast for AllAccess.com. Prior to joining the industry trade publication, Perry spent years in radio working as a Program Director and Operations Manager for KLSX and KLYY in Los Angeles and New Jersey 101.5 in Trenton. He can be found on X (formerly Twitter) @PMSimon.
