Media Groups Condemn PBS Decision to Resume Online Ads
Media advocacy groups chided PBS for its decision to resume online ads, with some calling for congressional intervention to stop the network from proceeding. PBS said it will start accepting ads in Oct. on PBS.org and its children’s site PBSkids.org and PBSkids Go! (CD Aug 24 p5). Instead of looking for commercial opportunities online, PBS should be raising money from viewers and foundations by pioneering new forms of noncommercial content, said Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy.
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With online, TV and mobile merging, Chester said it didn’t matter any more which platform content is delivered on: “What does matter is that PBS, and its stations, don’t attempt to replicate what commercial media companies are doing online and with mobile networks. It will be a U.S. media universe saturated with advertising.” To remain distinctive, he said, PBS has to “strictly adhere” to noncommercial formats. As for arguments that PBS needs the money because federal financing falls short, Chester said PBS can raise money from viewers and users only by creating “meaningful interactive noncommercial website.” Viewers and donors are more likely to support a fully noncommercial service, he said, calling on Congress to “step in to bar PBS from running any ads -- in any medium.”
“Marketing to children undermines PBS’s credibility as an educator,” said Jerry Starr, exec. dir. of the Citizens for Independent Public Bcstg. Accusing PBS officials of showing scant interest in working with organizations like his to address its money problem, he said a trust fund would free PBS from dependence on federal funding and “commercialism.” But PBS continues to use “their funding dilemma as an excuse for doing things that contradict their mission,” he said. Despite many meetings, PBS has “never really shown” any interest in pursing a legislative strategy for a trust fund, he said.
Free Press said it’s concerned about “encroaching advertising” on PBS. “We think the solutions to any funding issues at public broadcasting are significant long-term reforms that remove public broadcasting from the political whims in Washington,” said Communications Dir. Craig Aaron.
Calling PBS’s decision “terribly sad and troublesome,” Susan Lynn, co-founder of the Campaign for Commercial-Free Childhood, said it was one more step in the network’s “abandonment of children and family. There is less and less difference between PBS and any other commercial children’s station.” If PBS intends to take the advertising “route,” it should stop promoting itself as commercial-free, she said: “They should have done that a long time ago.”
PBS is getting “closer and closer” to indistinguishable from the commercial media, said Gary Ruskin, exec. dir. of Commercial Alert. For many years now, he said, PBS has been in a “downwardly commercial spiral,” and the decision to run ads on its websites is “just the latest in its insults to citizens, parents and to children across the country.” He said PBS has been raising money for many years saying it’s a noncommercial alternative and “it’s lying. Soon enough it’s going to catch up with it.”
PBS defended its decision. “Noncommercial does not mean non revenue generating,” said Kevin Dando, dir.-education & online communications. Noting that PBS currently has underwriting spots on air, he said the network “explored this move into the online space very carefully and deliberately, and we plan to follow strict guidelines for the Web.”