PBS CEO Places Congressional Funding Hopes on Consumer Political Pressure
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- PBS CEO Paula Kerger worries about congressional discussions to completely end funding for public broadcasting by 2015, she told TV critics in a presentation. Kerger expressed frustration at the constant fight over funding, saying: “When you look at the value that the American people place on public broadcasting and the irony that in the same week that we're awarded 58 Emmy nominations again, the question of whether a federal investment in public broadcasting is appropriate is disappointing."
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The proposed cutoff came out of a subcommittee of the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services Committee. Among the recommendations for cutting the budget were barring federal funding from going to NPR and a reduction in funding that’s already been appropriated for public broadcasting over the next two years (CD July 19 p15).
"A number of viewers around the country have begun to reach out to legislators just expressing their concern, and as eloquent a spokesperson as I aspire to be for public broadcasting, I know that it’s really not my voice or that of anyone within public broadcasting that is going to make a difference,” Kerger said. “It’s really the voice of constituents. So I'm hopeful, as has been the case for over us over the years, those voices will, in fact, make a difference.” Kerger said it’s unclear how the current budget cycle will be affected by the upcoming presidential election: “It is unclear if there will be any further movement beyond the next few weeks even if it goes through the subcommittee level. I think there will be no budget pulled together certainly until after the election. So we'll be watching this very carefully."
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting submitted a response a few weeks ago to a congressional question about alternative sources of funding for public broadcasting, Kerger said. “That report mirrored a report that the Office of Management and Budget had done a few years prior in its conclusions that there is no replacement for the federal appropriation for public broadcasting.”
In other countries, notably the U.K. and Japan, public broadcasting is funded by the taxes on TV sets. “When public broadcasting [in America] was created, it was viewed as a public private partnership, and that has worked extremely well,” Kerger said. “The federal appropriation amounts in aggregate comes to about 15 percent of our budget. We have to go out and raise the balance of the money.” The federal funding supporting smaller and rural stations could be as high as 40 or 50 percent, Kerger said. “The real consequence and the reason that we work so hard and fight so hard to try to hold onto our federal funding is that, if that funding was to go away, there are a number of stations that would go dark. And there are a number of stations in parts of the country where the services that the public television and the public radio stations provide are so critical. And that’s really what’s at risk.”