The PBS Annual Meeting is underway in Austin and it is not without controversy.
Following last year's decision to revise Common Carriage rules to force stations to carry unwanted repeats and weak PBS fare, this year PBS wants to intrude on local stations' revenue.
According to a session on the first day of the meeting, PBS new svp for Development, Brian Reddington, unveiled a scheme to allow visitors to PBS.org to pledge for their favorite program or just a general pledge. This means that revenue that would go to a local station will now got to PBS.
During the contentious presentation, PBS staffers claimed that a portion of the online revenue would go to the local stations and that the email address provided by the donor would be shared with the station.
As I have mentioned many times in the past, there is a network mentality at PBS. PBS would like nothing more than to be a network with all the trappings and power that cones with it. PBS forgets several things. As a network it would have to pay affiliates. PBS current receives membership dues from stations.
As with other upcoming plans, PBS also forgets that its purpose is to distribute programming not create, plan, or produce programs. his along with the fact that programs distributed by PBS and funded by taxpayers are "required" to be balanced. One only has to look at the recently retired Bill Moyers and Now to know PBS forgets its purpose.
Under the new scheme in markets where there is more than one station carrying PBS fare, PBS has not yet decided how it would decide which station receives the revenue for the online pledges. In last year's controversy over Common Carriage, these stations were forced to follow even more rules than before making PBS membership less attractive. To those stations, I say, "leave now before it is too late!"
PBS staffers were asked, What of a station says no to allowing PBS to pledge online in their territory? PBS' only answer is, "We would want to know why?" The "why" is obvious, stations need all the money they can garner. Any "leftovers": provided by PBS will always be less than what can be earned locally.
If PBS wants to be a network . . .fine. I will discontinue my membership and you can pay me. However, I know that there is more, and often better, content available. Can you survive without my dues?
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