How one of our public broadcasters uses my taxes

[Imran Siddiqui]

Bookstores require money. Many lower income people can't afford to go to bookstores.

As does cable .

[rah]

Our cable company provides BBC
It also provides 40 or so music channels where a half dozen are classical oriented.
There's also multiple classic movie channels with hosts no different than PBS.
And yes I agree that many of the classic shows would be picked up by other channels if others existed.

I'll again partially agree on your news argument but will counter with. if the ratings continue to drop, then why are we paying for something that fewer and fewer people are watching. More people are going to the internet to research stories in more depth.

[Lorizael]

As does cable .

Yep.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Our cable company provides BBC
It also provides 40 or so music channels where a half dozen are classical oriented.
There's also multiple classic movie channels with hosts no different than PBS.
And yes I agree that many of the classic shows would be picked up by other channels if others existed.

I'll again partially agree on your news argument but will counter with. if the ratings continue to drop, then why are we paying for something that fewer and fewer people are watching. More people are going to the internet to research stories in more depth.

There is the lower income argument. A lot of folks aren't going to have the Cable system that includes the BBC and music channels. I remember when I had cable, I didn't have BBC America because that was on a higher tier.

As for the ratings dropping, just because fewer and fewer people are watching does not mean that it does not provide an essential service. If fewer and fewer people went to libraries or art museums (which I do think is happening), would it be ok to drop it?

[rah]

Over the Air broadcast usage is now below 10%. And some of those people are using internet feeds.
I doubt that percentage will ever increase substantially ever again

[Imran Siddiqui]

Which is fine by me. I still believe a national public broadcast channel is worth preserving (you know, esp since 90% of its funding comes from "viewers like you")

[rah]

If fewer and fewer people went to libraries or art museums (which I do think is happening), would it be ok to drop it?

If it dropped closer to zero then probably. But in general I'd agree with you there. But again libraries or art museums provide a service that is not otherwise provided. And most museums do charge.

And again I haven't looked at the stats recently but I remember that the demos for those actually watched PBS did not skew towards low income groups.

[rah]

Which is fine by me. I still believe a national public broadcast channel is worth preserving (you know, esp since 90% of its funding comes from "viewers like you")

On that I agree, and contribute. And if 90% is funded that way, why is the other 10% necessary to be provided by the government.

[Imran Siddiqui]

I see libraries:bookstores=PBS:cable

[The Mad Monk]

I don't see anyone else providing what libraries do, but I see many providing what PBS does.



I'll partially concede the news part of your argument, but I don't think it's as different as you paint it. The last time I looked at the numbers, not many people were watching the news on PBS and they were falling. But I haven't seen them in a while so I don't know if that has improved. But with the falling ratings for the news across the board in general due to people getting more news from the internet, I doubt PBS has experienced anything different.
For promotion of the arts, I'll disagree. In the old days of limited broadcast channels I'd have agreed, but not these days. With the plethora of cable channels there is no shortage of of the arts on television.

What exactly constitutes "the arts" is pertinent.

[rah]

We can disagree on that. I was amazed at how many people I saw at the library the last time I went. That is the only source for books for quite a few people.
I can't say the same for PBS. Even with broadcast digital there are so many additional channels that are providing alternate and more focused options.

[rah]

What exactly constitutes "the arts" is pertinent.

And who is the judge? If you think that just because it's on PBS it qualifies at arts, that I'll disagree with. I watch many things on other channels that qualify as art in my opinion.

[Ban Kenobi]

Our cable company provides BBC

Your cable company provides programming that derives much of its funding from British taxpayers?

[The Mad Monk]

Anything that involves actors and a script qualifies as a performing art. Actually you can probably drop the script too.

[rah]

Agreed. It's a personal judgment call. I always laugh when others want to force their call on me.