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A Different Kind Of Digital Divide
Logic Bomb writes: "The New York Times has a really interesting article about PBS and its struggle to convert to digital. On one hand, PBS stations need to start broadcasting their low-definition signals using digital transmission just like everyone else, and some stations are struggling with finances. On the other, better-funded big-city stations are already concerned with money for providing interactive content. Even worse, rules for determining what digital broadcast programming cable providers must carry threaten PBS with being essentially forced out of some markets. I don't watch TV much, but PBS falls into a class of things that I consider vital to our nation's citizenry. I hope things work out ok."
the only reason that I can see provided by /. posters is "because I enjoyed it" What about those who didn't (and since it is publicly funded , payed for it regardless)?
Oddly enough, when I lived in the US I had to pay taxes for roads, schools, and the miltary, even though I had no car, no kids, and did not consider myself under threat from invasion.
Now, I can sympathize with what you're saying, but only in the context of there being TRUE alternatives to corporate owned and controlled TV. "Frontline", in my opinion, puts on more hard edged news stories that any of the networks, or even the cable channels that I've seen; this is an example of PBS providing a type of programming that just isn't provided elsewhere. However, you are right that even they are swayed by the ways of the political winds in their programming, but are still more risky (in my view) than the networks.
"Frontline" was the show that dared to broadcast (soon after the Gulf War) a story that contradicted many of the sacred poodles that the press and politicians had been saying during the war (such as the Isreali Defense Minister saying that Patriot missles were of no use in destroying the warheads of the SCUD missles; or that the CIA essentially coerced Hosni Mubarak to spy on Saddam before the war started, in a supposed "negotiation"; or that Kuwait spent billions on advertising and lobbying in the U.S. before the war, including a highly deceitful propaganda campaign detailing Iraqi "attrocities")
They also recently played a series with interviews of DEA agents who admitted that all their efforts to control supply into the US during the 80's had utterly failed (much their own surprise), and that many now advocated an end to the "drug war", and some form of legalization with treatment regimes, etc.
I never saw anything like this on the networks, CNN, HBO, etc. To me that is riskier TV than anything outside of cable access (and I'm ignoring the issue of whether it is accurate reporting or not; I think it is, others may not. It is still risky)
So, you may want PBS to go belly up; but it would be sad if they did, and there was no loosening of control of the airwaves in other ways. If you think PBS is afraid of corporate sponsors, imagine how all the other channels feel who are paid exclusively by corporate sponsors.
"It's overkill, of course. But you can never have too much overkill." - Anonymous Slashdot Coward
Yes conservatives read slashdot and yes, PBS does have a liberal bias. Although, it is not so bad. In answer to your tax question, why do you think Democrats fund CPB (Corperation for public Broadcasting) and Republicans want to cut it. Personaly I like PBS and although CPB programing does have a slight libral bias I think it's tollerable. Bias in media is not restricted to CPB programming. I think the Rosie O'Donnel show was more libraly biased than anything on PBS ever. NPR is very biased and it bothers me but public television is A OK in my book.
And still I wait for the plethora of PCI-based HDTV tuners... who should I blame for the plain vacancy in the market?
With video cards already able to decode MPEG-2 streams, and others that operate as SDTV tuners, I'm convinced there's an opposing force compelling manufacturers to avoid this obvious early-adopter market. So, is it the movie industry? Local broadcasters? Syndicators? Which copyright robber barons are exerting their influence on manufacturers this time?
If anyone needed an example of how copyright *failed* to promote the science and arts, its this endless paranoia about what level of control will be built into the next generation of media distribution. So the debate drags on for ten years about which fair-use prevention technique will be embedded in the new technology, and in the mean time, we twiddle our thumbs using technology from the 50s.
Where are the independent manufacturers not cowed by the content industry?
My monitor is capable of displaying every resolution HDTV has to offer, and my computer plenty versatile to handle the metadata, so why is my PC not yet equipped with a tuner?
I don't need large brains to have a good time.
National Public Radio may be said to have a liberal character but in general I don't think you could fairly claim "bias", as there as no commercial news broadcast that begins to come close to NPRs approach to presenting multiple sides to a given issue or story. (Remember I said we would not use the make-believe sense of the term in which anyone with an education or an idea different from the RNC is considered clearly biased).
Certainly not overtly biased fascist-party media organs like the Faux News Network. They don't come close to balance and are frankly proud of their ability to avoid it.
Certainly not General Electric owned CNBS.
Some USians may think Jim Lehrer, of the once-great McNeil Lehrer News Hour, is liberal. But in that case I'll have to assure them he is not, and that they do not have the first clue about what a real liberal is. (Don't worry, by the time you have it figured out it will be too late).
Johnny Quest has two Daddies.
Perhaps I misread the UN Declaration of Human rights, but the last I heard tv was a luxury.
There has been a lot of likening of PBS to BBC. I live in the UK and I pay £104 ($160) a year for the luxury of BBC1 and BBC2. That is more than I spend on my whole (albiet limited) cable TV package in a year. It's also more per channel than any of the movie channels I have on digital satelite.
For those of you in the USA, we actually have to pay for a tv license here (or they give u big fines apparently). And for that we get just TWO television channels (completely commercial free i might add) that manage to have more quality programming than the 300 or so i have on satelite.
You cant really have things both ways. Personally I prefer the way of having everyone pay a blanket fee to produce quality programs, but in the US you chose (surprise surprise) the more commercial route.
I would like to point out, as a system engineer working for a PBS station, That not a lot of people are aware of what a PBS station does for their community. For example: One of the services we provide is giving class content to teachers to use. They need a show on dinosaurs we can boradcast to them as needed. We are also the ones that broadcast the local city council meetings so you can stay informed (you do watch don't you) we provide topical on target content to that people can use it to learn. If we did not provide this for free then the teachers would have to buy this content. We know how little money the school have can they afford to pay the robber barons so that they can teach the kids? I think not, or at least they would not have as large of a selection.
The next thing we provide is free computer support. One of my key duties is helping the local school systems with their computer issues. Most schools do not have a trained system admin and cannot afford one. They usually have a computer lab teacher, who has had no training and cannot get any, trying to support the internet connection and the servers in their schools. They quickly get in over their heads and I come to their rescue providing free support to get them on their feet. And speaking of bandwidth we provide that to, all the schools come through us to get low cost bandwidth. We diseapear and their goes the schools internet access with us.
We support the community in computers, we give free workshops to teachers to show them how to use word and power point, we sponsor and run our areas great computer challenge for middle and high school age children. I was a room monitor last time myself on my own time and money.
The local PBS radio stations are part of us, when the tv part goes they go too. Besides no classical station and no public talk radio we are also the station that provides reading to the blind. Everyday we read the paper to the blind to help keep them informed. This service is provided free once again with no adds and no breaks, something a commercial station cannot do.
PBS is just not sesame street, it is ALL of the public services in an area. Those computer classes you where able to take in public school existed becuase of us. Their is no budget for these things, so when we go, tech teaching in the schools goes with us.
We are publicly supportted to free us from the ties that would stop us from providing USEFULL content and services. This way they do not have to buy them but we can provide them. When Digital TV comes to us, and takes 10 Million to upgrade (our estimated costs) it is not just the fact that we go off the air if we cannot raise the money, the kids are affected also, and that is a shame.
If you want to see the kinds of things that we provide for free to people go to www.whro.org We are streaming the content of our radio stations. Catch the show logon on fridays at 1:30pm EST laying on 89.5 . It's a free user call in show that fixs peoples problems. No hostile company beholding tech support, but knowledgable people who want to fix your problems correctly for free. It's a great example of the level of service we provide in a specific area as that show is locally created and boradcasted.
Papa Legba come and open the gate
I don't watch TV much, but PBS falls into a class of
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things that I consider vital to our nation's citizenry. I hope things work out ok
Those who really do feel PBS is "vital to our nation's citizenry," please donate money to PBS by becoming a member:
http://www.pbs.org/insidepbs/membership/local.htm
And for those corporations that would like to help:
http://sponsorship.pbs.org/
"And like that