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Why is Nova paid for by the Koch Brothers ( http://www.cpb.org/ombudsman/d... )? Seems David and Charles are all for pushing the populace to see just enough science to not want to dig further. To displace science provided by scientists.

I'm sorry, I'll have to call bullshit on this. Have you ever watched Nova? It is decades ahead of the mediocre stuff the other networks put out, including Discovery and National Geographic. They also talk about global warming all the time, every time, when they talk about the earth or the atmosphere. They routinely have Neil deGrasse Tyson and many many other prominent scientists on the show. They are a delight to watch every Wednesday, and don't you dare insult them with your petty partisanship. They are the most under-appreaciated and informative science show today. So it's funded by "David H. Koch Fund for Science", so much the better. Would you rather that money go into yachts and overpriced art?

We are blessed with a fair amount of light-duty science shows on TV... but... it seems to be financed by non scientists. Why is Nova paid for by the Koch Brothers ( http://www.cpb.org/ombudsman/d... )? Seems David and Charles are all for pushing the populace to see just enough science to not want to dig further. To displace science provided by scientists. I want to see Science TV shows that make me want to learn more about the topics ... to understand and even participate in the process of adapting / adopting. Why not feel part of science and not subject to it? How about science that seeks to inform. Rather than fascination with Mars, how about how pollution affects the living world around us... how ocean currents work, how to integrate my home, How to wire up a Raspberry Pi to do myriad things, what life forms am I made of? There is enough science to go around. Lets light our kids' imaginations!! Lets have some science with a capital S!

They're still government properties, their frequencies, brands, copyrights and studios belong to the taxpayers, who paid to develop all of it. They'll be on the block soon, just like many municipal water utilities and public power utilities already are. More of the neo-liberal hogwash about how private industry is always more 'efficient' somehow will be used as the justification, or maybe "deficit reduction".

You are dead wrong. According to PBS themselves, they are not and never have been part of any government:

PBS is a private, nonprofit corporation, founded in 1969, whose members are America’s public TV stations -- noncommercial, educational licensees that operate more than 350 PBS member stations and serve all 50 states, Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and American Samoa.

.

NPR is a "privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization."

Both organizations get a significant minority of funding from the Federal government-funded Corporation For Public Broadcasting but neither NPR nor PBS is owned by the Federal government any more than the multitude of private organizations which receive some Federal funding. They probably wouldn't exist today if they hadn't been funded by the CPB and if the CPB stopped funding them altogether, they would suffer greatly. However, no part of the Federal government can sell either PBS or NPR and even if all Federal funding were cut off, they'd still have a chance of surviving on their other sources of funding.

Actually you are both wrong. He is talking about eliminating budget for CPB. CPB uses its budget for NPR and PBS. Eliminating CPB would ultimately kill NPR and PBS. http://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb/

Corporate culture prioritizes pretty pictures to sell us more shit we don't need.

And yet, isn't PBS a non-profit?

So? Corporations manifest within themselves a corporate culture. The shit PBS sells, for the most part, just happens to be shit we need.

Again you show yourself to be a prick who can't comprehend written English. Why the hell does it matter if Rheem is a liberal? She's not in the news business. And I'm pretty sure that study wasn't CPB funded. It was another conservative attack study where everyone who was a reasonable human being was deemed liberal and everyone who believed in the infallibility of the Christian sky spirits and believed thermometers are a communist plot was considered conservative.

You may have your opinions, but you may not have your facts. The study was CPB funded. Google it if you like. Here, allow me...HERE. The whole PDF is write there, taken directly from the CPB website.

Diane Rehm hosts a news talk show, two hours a day, M-F. She is no different than Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly, or Keith Olbermann. The difference is that FoxNews and MSNBC fund themselves and my tax dollars pay to pay Diane Rehm and broadcast her opinions, opinions that are different than my own. NPR has no one on their show that refelcts MY opinions, yet, I still have to pay for it.

Rehm takes up just under 10% of NPR's weekly schedule. Prairie Home Companion takes another 3hrs per week, provided it's only aired once and provided that Garrison Keller does nothing else throughout the week. And even though I've heard anything terrible partisan from Click and Clack, the CarTalk guys, NPR is liberal, period. The fact that they were supported by George Soros to the tune of millions of dollars, after Soros said he was spending his money to take Republicans down really drives the point home. Why would Soros, who stated that he wants to support liberals, give money to NPR? Doesn't that put NPR in the same camp as MoveOn.org and MediaMatters.org? Or do you not think those are liberal outfits either?

Anyway, my point is that even if Rehm is providing editorial, it is the editorial section of any news org that makes up the overriding opinion of that organization. Rehm is the Bill O'Reilly of NPR and reflects their political leanings. So to say that NPR is not liberal only proves not only your ignorance, but worse as it shows that you are not someone to accept facts that may counter your preconceived notions. Ignorance is curable and forgivable. Stubbornness is not. I am terribly sorry.

I work for PBS. No check will be written. Our money comes from viewers, sponsorships and endowments.

As someone who used to work for PBS and aided in the plan for the $120 million taxpayer-funded satellite upgrade, I think you may be missing the $50-$100 million per year that regularly comes from the CPB (from Federal tax dollars) or directly from Federal grants to PBS.

Then you need to consider that CPB gets around $400 million from the Federal Government each year, and they turn around and grant $200 million of that directly to public television stations as Community Service Grants, who then turn around and pay $150-$200 million to PBS as member assessments .

Well, seems like my guess isn't so "terrible" after all. It appears that 40-49% of their funding comes from government subsidies. Note, I wasn't inferring that INDIVIDUAL donors make up 50%. I said PRIVATE donations make up about 50%, which would include corporations. And no, they don't make substantial amounts of money on merchandise, as evident by their (0.5% in 2005, for example). The gap between private donors and public funds is made up by the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.

Historically, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has received 15% to 20% of its annual operating revenue from Federal sources and 25% to 29% from State and local taxes.

source: Wikipedia. Wikipedia's source: http://www.cpb.org/stations/reports/revenue/2005PublicBroadcastingRevenue.pdf

>Or at least, as a taxpayer I should be getting a kickback.

Public Broadcasting gets about about $600 million from the federal and state governments via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which includes PBS, NPR, PRI, other entitites, indepenednet progam producers and such.

So, what do you think that Big Kickback is going to amount to for T.V. stations sharing out some bandwith?

Yep, enjoy that $1.00 now.

Source (sort of): CPB.org FAQ/Budget Breakdown 2003

I hope you'll not only share a link to where your music can be found but you'll keep your sensibilities about music and the RIAA when talking to radio stations. I work at a community radio station (WEFT 90.1 FM) which plays a great deal of music licensed by the RIAA. Hardly what I'd call alternative, but mine isn't the only opinion in the place.

Recently we had a light discussion about what it would take to do webstreaming. For those of you who don't know, the RIAA licenses tracks of their clients and the terms of the license are rather vague and somewhat hard to shift to if one is used to being able to broadcast almost anything.

WORT recently announced a new and improved webcast. Their announcement is interesting because it starts by lying claiming that they'll webcast "all of its programming!" (see page 13 of the PDF newsletter). When you read further you see that WORT plans to comply with RIAA licensing restrictions by not webcasting some of its programming (presumably either shows or tracks that can't be webcast at that moment). Like I said, it's not easy to webcast if you insist on doing what you can to avoid losing a copyright infringement lawsuit while playing RIAA-licensed stuff. If you've grown used to the over-the-air rules, which don't restrict you in the way RIAA's webcasting restrictions do, you've got a tough row to hoe. The RIAA's online restrictions say things such as you can't play the same featured artist more than 4 times in a 3-hour period, nor can you play more than 3 tracks from the same CD/tape/record in a 3-hour period.

I was curious how much adjustment WEFT would have to make to take on webcasting RIAA tracks. So I looked at some of WEFT's playlists and compared them to RIAA webcasting restrictions. Suffice to say, WEFTies don't yet realize how many shows they'll have to change. I forsee much unpleasant discussion about this topic as we wrestle with exchanging increased listenership for playlist freedom and the hassles that go along with assembling an RIAA-compliant playlist.

/.ers will read this and think that this is a natural application for a database. And if you're thinking this way, you're right but there's more to it than that. WEFT has roughly 40,000 CDs in its library and lots of CDs coming in every week. Finding the financing for the hardware to host the database on alone is a daunting task, finding the volunteer commitment needed to make the database workable for everyone (not just the techies) is another tall order. I'm up for it, but I know a lot more about writing software than I do about writing grant requests, and I estimate we'll need many thousands of dollars to do this in a way that won't fall over when the power dies or a couple of hard drives go bad.

Still other /.ers might think differently and conclude that we should just stop playing RIAA tracks, or WEFT should severly cut down on the RIAA tracks we play. Again, I'm up for that—I host a public-affairs program called "Digital Citizen" every other Wednesday from 8-10PM where I play only stuff my listeners can share. I focus on copyright law, patent law, and Free Software (as in the Free Software movement) issues. The only RIAA licensed tracks I play are fair-use snippets, so these webcasting rules don't apply to me. Other public-affairs shows (like News from Neptune) don't play RIAA tracks at all. The majority of shows on WEFT are music shows and it remains to be seen how receptive they will be to giving up 90% or more of what's in WEFT's library.

So now you're slightly more familiar with the restrictions from the radio end of things, even on community radio which is ostensibly more accessible to the public and less likely to play the mainstream RIAA-licensed stuff you can hear everywhere else.

Not necessarily. Corporations run according to the rules they set up for themselves, and there is not (AFAIK) any law that says "a corporation must think only of profit and nothing else". Granted, most corporation are set up to be motivated primarily by profits, but they don't have to be. For example, here is a corporation that is not run for profit.

How exactly is PBS and NPR a service for the most well off members of society? Are you well off? Do You listen or watch either of those entities?

Yes, and yes, as a matter of fact. But to paraphrase one of the best-ever Slashdot comments, I am not a statistically significant sample size.

Something tells me that the richest memebers of society arent taking telecourses on PBS at 10pm at night. Merely, it is somehow your preconception that only rich people listen to NPR, or watch PBS. Rich children dont watch sesame st, they get taken shopping by their servants.

This is really not something that's up for debate. Both NPR and PBS, like all media outlets, keep very close tabs on their viewer demographic. Allow me to quote from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting:

Compared to the general public, NPR listeners are 152 percent more likely to own a home valued at $500,000 or more; 194 percent more likely to travel to France; and 326 percent more likely to read the "New Yorker."

... [PBS's] viewers are 44 percent more likely than the average Joe to have a household income over $150,000; 39 percent more likely to have a graduate degree; and 177 percent more likely to have investments of $150,000 and up.

(from here.)

As for the property tax deduction: I'm not sure what that has to do with anything, but yes, I support eliminating that (along with the mortgage deduction), for similar reasons.

Or, in other words, you dont have the slightest idea what you are talking about. Mainly, because the views you are expousing are not your own, you are simply parroting what you have heard other people say.

Because I disagree with you, I must not have any original views? Only people in favor of government-funded broadcasting can think of arguments on their own? How do you figure?

Word of advice: ad hominem attacks just weaken your argument, and make you look petty and juvenile.

...I really wish the US government would take our money ... against our will to fund an organization...

"NPR was a $100 million tax expense in 2003 "

most government funding for NPR was cut during the Reagan era.

the frequency of mention of sponsors on NPR has increased substantially.

However, it is quite apparent that NPR has a "pro-Israel" stance in its reporting. One need only look to the source of some of NPR's funding for the answer.

Just to be clear, CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) gets less than 20% of its funding from state, local, and federal government combined. So yes, it is government-funded, but not as much as it is publically-funded (25%).

In part, but let's not forget that it's also partly taxpayer funded television. Apparently in PBS-land, "censorship" is when the government gives you $390 million dollars for FY 2006.

I find it highly ironic that PBS, which is related to NPR by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, is presenting a documentary about how music is dying. The article mentions radio consolidation and they're part of the problem. NPR lobbied against low-power FM stations. Just something to remember when they start the next pledge drive...

NPR and PBS are controlled by the same people, which is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. If you think NPR is so Liberal(TM), why don't you contact them?

Don't let facts stand in the ay of a troll, though...

What commercials are you talking about?

The ones they run in between shows.

They have sponsor acknowledgements.

What's the difference?

There are pretty strict rules on these as well. The only one that comes quickly to mind is that they must not contain mention of specific products.

I didn't know about that, but apparently you're right on that point.

What they fail to mention is that most of the corporate money is CPB, which is funded totally by the fed.

You're right again. Thanks for the info.

The CPB terms and conditions (PDF) don't require free use except for educational institutions (1 year for secondary institutions, 7 days for post secondary schools.) Other, non CPB sponsored programs might well come with fewer restrictions.

Some programs are not supported by the CPB (and are tempted to sell out) or perhaps possess only the broadcast rights associated with a particular piece of music, etc.

I don't know what logic you're using, but this describes direct appropriations from Congress, i.e. from taxpayers.

If you take the 2% of NPR 200 million dollar budget you get 4 mil. Take and divided by three (they mention it takes 3 groups to build up that 2%), then you have 1.33 million from CPB (estimate). CPB's total budget is $386 mil. So take the 12 million they get from the feds and you end up with 3.11% of CPB's budget is from the feds... take that 3.11% times the $1.33 they give to NPR, and you get $96,000. That's the rought amount of money from congress that actually makes it to NPR. Not a whole lot for a 200 million dollar budget. While I don't think they'd like it, I'm sure you could yank CPB's funding and it wouldn't matter much to NPR's ultimate survival.

For an interesting break down of what CPB actually funds, go to: http://www.cpb.org/programs/pr.php?prn=332

NPR gets about 2% of it's funding from tax payers. It's nearly completely listener funded.

The 2% number is definately "fishy." NPR, a distributor of public radio content, receives only 2% of its funding directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which gets money from the Federal Government.

But NPR is but a small part of public radio, and even it gets plenty of taxpayers funds indirectly that are "laundered" through other entities.

For example, NPR gets 30% of its revenue from programming fees from public radio stations. Those stations often receive Federal funding from the CPB (community service grants, for example) and also can receive funds from state governments directly, through educational institutions, from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) through the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP), and often from local governments as well. NPR's satellite distribution service, the PRSS, also receives Federal funding.

So if you "follow the money," you will see that far more than 2% of taxpayer funding ends up going to public radio.

The CPB says that membership accounts for only 25% of public broadcasting revenues. Businesses and foundations contribute 22.6%. Public and private educaitonal sources contribute 10.4%.

So at the end of the day, it is reasonable to say that around 50% of public broadcasting revenues come from taxpayer dollars. Due to the larger number of state supported public television networks, I suspect the number is slightly less for public radio (~40%).

But it isn't 2%...

NPR gets about 2% of it's funding from tax payers. It's nearly completely listener funded.

The 2% number is definately "fishy." NPR, a distributor of public radio content, receives only 2% of its funding directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) which gets money from the Federal Government.

But NPR is but a small part of public radio, and even it gets plenty of taxpayers funds indirectly that are "laundered" through other entities.

For example, NPR gets 30% of its revenue from programming fees from public radio stations. Those stations often receive Federal funding from the CPB (community service grants, for example) and also can receive funds from state governments directly, through educational institutions, from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) through the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP), and often from local governments as well. NPR's satellite distribution service, the PRSS, also receives Federal funding.

So if you "follow the money," you will see that far more than 2% of taxpayer funding ends up going to public radio.

The CPB says that membership accounts for only 25% of public broadcasting revenues. Businesses and foundations contribute 22.6%. Public and private educaitonal sources contribute 10.4%.

So at the end of the day, it is reasonable to say that around 50% of public broadcasting revenues come from taxpayer dollars. Due to the larger number of state supported public television networks, I suspect the number is slightly less for public radio (~40%).

But it isn't 2%...

Yes, good point, and their begathon comes every year! Meanwhile the number and wordiness of thank-yous to corporate sponsors has been growing. (I mostly listen to NPR -- same problem.) Yet membership accounts for only 25% of revenue, so "viewer supported" is true but misleading. One-fourth supporting.

I went to the trouble of looking this up on the CPB site, so feast your eyes. Their financing is complex to say the least. The item "CPB Appropriation" appears to represent the federal government's $300 million share -- a pittance if you compare it to the $800,000 they want here for one episode of one show.

The point is probably just to get the pledges, to make an impression on SciFi whose bottomline motivation is money.

less than half of a penny goes into supporting both public radio and television

I'm not sure you are counting all the money...according to the Corproration for Public Broadcasting, state governments pay 13.9% ($280 mil), federal government pays 14% ($300 mil). Another $75 mil comes from local governments and public colleges.

Of course, this is only true in a roundabout sense -- grants from the CPB, which is almost entirely federally funded, are not counted by NPR as federal funds.

CPB, which is one of the largest single funders (11%) of PBS, also puts their financials online -- they receive almost the entirety of their funding from the federal government.

So, again, by their own numbers, almost 20% of PBS' funding comes from the federal government. What was your point again?

What exactly is the Corporation for Public Broadcasting then?

PBS does receive tax dollars, although you have to follow the money a bit to find out where it comes from. According to this page, PBS receives "grants" from The Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Dept. of Education. Anyone with half a brain ought to understand that "grants" from DOE are direct taxpayer money. Now, where does CPB receieve its money? Congress.

And we all know where *they* get their money. Out of my paycheck twice a month. So, yes, I'm forced to support my competition.

And to top it off, PBS runs commercials, too. According to the report I already linked, they received $176 mil. in "Program Underwriting." That's the Archer Daniels Midland spot you see going into each segment of Newshour with Jim Lehrer.

Flame away.....

Less than half of the industry's total income comes from tax-based sources such as federal, state, and local governments. Sixty-one percent of the income is from private sources such as businesses and memberships.

...and...

How much does the federal government contribute?
In 1999 Congress appropriated $250 million to CPB, approximately 11.6 percent of the industry's total income.

...or this...

By law, 95 percent of the funds allocated to CPB go directly to benefit viewers and listeners either through Community Service Grants to stations, programming grants to producers, or other station-related activities.

Are you telling me that NONE of this money makes it to any public radio stations? Where I live, the public TV and radio station share the same facilities.

But I could be wrong. I have been wrong before...

GTRacer
- Still missing Dan Hickman and "Metro".

Secondly, it isn't the government's job to entertain people, nor is that public broadcasting's job. Plenty of dollars flow through commercial broadcasting, and commercial broadcasting sucks to the Nth degree as a result (chasing after the lowest common denominator of everything); public broadcasting (in the US) was designed to provide a telecommunications infrastructure to public education, and to provide programming (news, documentaries, essays, science, culture, etc) that wasn't -- and isn't -- being provided by the commercial entities.

But irate politicians, almost from the beginning, angered by the news coverage, have, over and over again, cut funding, or made public broadcasters beg for money from its viewers or from corporations, making US public broadcasting mediocre at best. Public radio and TV is now about Lawrence Welk reruns, wimpy classical music playlists, and de-clawed information programming; public broadcasting in its current, messed-up state can be (and is) emulated by cable entities and commercial radio stations, yes, but with better funding, PBS/CPB/NPR could put its commercial-space emulators to shame.

In a country where "culture" means mass-produced corporate crap, and "news" means mass-produced corporate infotrivia, and "education" means mass-produced crappy consumers, it might behoove Americans to divert some War Department chump change into a mucho beefed-up PBS.

Not that it matters to you, of course; you'd rather keep public broadcasting's $1 for yourself. Don't spend it all in one place.

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