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Where is the Public in Public Television?
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by
If you've channeled surfed lately, it's easy to sail-on past your local public broadcasting station. Chances are you'll mistake a corporate underwriting spot for a commercial. Since the mid 1980s Public Television has become commercialized, and it's not just the enhanced underwriting that makes PBS distributed programming look and feel more commercial. There is a lot more going on behind the scenes than you think.
After working five years (1995 - 2000) as an associate producer for one of the most popular public stations in the nation, Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB), I often found myself pondering over the following question: Does OPB stand for Oregon Profit Bureaucracy? This sounds a little bitter, I know. I'm not out to burst anybody's PBS bubble, but for those of you who think your giving dollars goes toward the production of your favorite shows, there are a few things you should understand about how the system works. If you're a public broadcasting fan, I'll be the first person to tell you: "Public Broadcasting Needs YOU: More than ever".
Back in the 1960s, The Carnegie Commission of New York financed and published a landmark study on educational television: Public Television: A Program for Action. The study concluded that educational programming was not economical or suitable for commercial sponsorship and called for concerted efforts at the federal, state and local levels to provide support for educational television stations. As a result, the study inspired Congress to formulate the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was born.
The intent of the CPB was to help bring quality, educational television and radio programming to the public free from the influence of corporate advertising dollars. The CPB exists to serve local public broadcasting stations and to help give a voice to local communities that might otherwise go unheard.
When signing the Public Television Act, President Lyndon B. Johnson referenced public television as a way to enlighten our nation. "It announces to the world that our Nation wants more than just material wealth," the President stated. "While we work every day to produce new goods and to create new wealth, we want most of all to enrich man's spirit. That is the purpose of this act.It will get part of its support from our Government. But it will be carefully guarded from Government or from party control. It will be free, and it will be independent--and it will belong to all of our people." http://www.cpb.org/about/history/johnsonspeech.html
Today the reality behind the operation of public broadcasting stations is very different than the intent of the Public Broadcasting Act. Without question public broadcasting provides a plethora of uninterrupted, educational programming. But it's far from free and independent. In fact, in many cases, it's more commercial than its less coy prime-time sister.
It's widely misunderstood among giving viewers that their contributing dollars go to the production budgets of documentaries and local programming. In reality when you give to your local station, your dollars go to the stations' operating budget. Your money helps to pay the handsome salaries of administrators, and it enables your station to purchase programs from the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), such as American Experience or NOVA.
PBS is not a network. It's a membership organization and its primary function is to commission, acquire and distribute programming to 347 member stations. Therefore PBS does not produce programming. The majority of programs produced for public television are developed with dollars that come from corporate sponsorships and strategic co-production partnerships with commercial and cable networks like NBC, HBO, and The Learning Channel.
While PBS does receive some public money from viewers and the CPB to commission programs, it also receives funds from commercial media conglomerates to distribute programs not only for PBS, but for commercial television as well. Why should viewers care? As a 1997 article in The Nation points out, "PBS has developed so many deals with international media firms that public television has begun to look like a marketing arm for commercial media companies."
Case in point is the commercial deal PBS struck with Turner Home Entertainment to market and distribute PBS Home Video. In the deal Turner agreed to match PBS's investment in new programming for air on PBS stations and marketed under PBS Home Video. As a result of the PBS deal, Turner Home Entertainment (now a division of Time Warner) was able to fund its own video distribution business by helping create programs on public television.
Even more alarming, strategic co-production partnerships with commercial networks leave ample room for corporate media to influence the content of public broadcasting programs. Commercial and cable networks have a vested interest in content because the programming that pub stations develop as a result of these relationships often air on commercial networks.
A perfect example is the alliance OPB developed with HBO in the mid 1990s. The deal centered around HBO funding an OPB documentary about kids who had committed murder and were sent to the MacLaren School's Secure Intensive Treatment Program to be rehabilitated in Salem, Oregon. A local independent producer brought the idea for the documentary to OPB. OPB pitched the idea to HBO, and HBO bought the project. In return the final program would air on HBO's "America Undercover" and OPB. It was the first OPB creation to appear on a premium cable channel, and it was the first program HBO had bought from a public broadcasting station.
For OPB it was an exciting time. OPB producers, videographers and editors were presented with the opportunity to work on a HBO program. As HBO was buying the final product, they had plenty to say about the program's content and final cut. After months of shooting and editing OPB sent a rough cut to HBO. HBO was not satisfied. HBO fired OPB's editors, hired their own and produced a final cut of the show entitled: "Kids Who Kill"
HBO's half-hour adaptation of the program was a far cry from the one-hour OPB version. The OPB version, entitled "Teen Killers: A Second Chance?" focused mainly on the MacLaren program and less on the kids who committed the murders. It was a tasteful piece using no crime photos and brought to light questions about whether are not a child who kills can be rehabilitated through programs such as MacLaren's Intensive Treatment program.
The HBO version painted a very different picture. The final HBO program looked a lot like an "America's Most Wanted" episode, focusing mainly on the high profile murder of Mary Jane Holmes, the mother of MacLaren inmate Jonathan Dominic Holmes. Dominic, a South Salem High School student stabbed his mother to death in 1994. He was 16 when he committed the crime. HBO's "Kids Who Kill," is filled with eerie music combined with excessive video and photos from the crime scene. Throughout the piece audiences also hear the troubled voice and thoughts of Mary Jane Holmes as sections of her diary are read.
To OPB's credit, it did air its own version of the show on OPB followed by a half-hour discussion. Both HBO and OPB won for "Outstanding Investigative Journalism Programs" at the Emmy News and Documentary Awards. However, it was a lesson to OPB that if the station were to continue producing programs with HBO, clearly the station would have to adhere to HBO's rules.
With more commercial co-production relationships, public stations are less likely to receive local programming despite public television's mandate to support local communities. Commercial networks have little interest in local issues. I doubt HBO would have been interested in Oregon's MacLaren School if it didn't have a national or sensationalist appeal.
Since the 1980s, congressional Republicans have fought to lessen the amount of federal subsidies administered to public broadcasting. As if reflecting Washington's attitude, many states have greatly reduced the amount of money allotted to local stations like Oregon's OPB. Oregon is the first state to completely cut funding for public broadcasting all together, leaving a $2 million budget shortfall. As a result, Oregon's only local public affairs television program, "Seven Days," has been canceled.
With a continuous lack of non-commercial funding, public stations have to rely on corporate relationships more than ever. Without public funds we will continue to see less local programming and an increase of corporate influence over the programs on public television. Despite OPB's corporate alliances and profitable interests, public broadcasting still offers a great variety of uninterrupted quality programming. While OPB attempts to insulate itself from its dependence on government funds and build its own revenue, the viewer is loosing. Ask your local Congressman to support government funding for public broadcasting, and demand that your station give more of your money to production. We don't want a Corporate Profit Bureaucracy. We want the public back in public broadcasting.
writes for pleasure and makes a buck selling technology b2b.
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