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Thursday, March 30, 2017

WashPost Prints Op-Ed: 'NPR and PBS Don't Need Tax Money Anymore'

The Washington Post published an op-ed on Sundayheadlined "NPR and PBS don't need tax money anymore." Manhattan Institute vice president Howard Husock is uniquely qualified on the topic: he's a former producer for Boston PBS superstation WGBH and now serves on the board of directors of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Some of Husock's argument is familiar, especially the change in the media landscape since the emergence of a public broadcasting system in the "Great Society" Sixties. What's eye-opening is how PBS and NPR sell themselves to underwriters as having an audience loaded with wealthier and more educated customers:

All this might matter less if it were clear that public media was a preferred choice of a broad cross-section of the American public. Doing so was part of the original mission. Instead, public media today looks far too much like a niche programming service for a left-leaning, upmarket urban constituency.

Of the top 10 most popular NPR affiliates, only one (Atlanta) is found in the South or Southwest. The major, “producing stations” of television programming — locals that provide the lion’s share of content broadcast on smaller affiliates — are based in liberal bastions Boston, New York and Washington. NPR, in data expected to appeal to financial underwriters, boasts that some 58 percent of NPR listeners are college graduates, and that its listeners are “74 percent more likely to earn more than $100,000.” (One NPR slide deck boasts that its programming reaches “cultural connoisseurs” likely to drink four glasses of wine per week.) The appeal makes a virtue of its elite demographics, noting NPR “attracts an audience most notably distinguished by its educational excellence and professional success.” In 2014, Pew Research found that “The clear majority of audience (67 percent) is left-of-center.” Nothing wrong with that, of course, unless your statutory mandate is to reach and inform the American citizenry broadly.

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7 comments:

  1. NPR and PBS should be able to fund just about everything with licensing fees, donations and ad fees from Google and YouTube.

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  2. This is a Liberal / Progressive news outlet like CNN, MSNBC and the rest so they will always be funded. They have violated their original intent. No tax dollars for them is the correct decision.

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  3. Taxpayers should not be funding any of the arts or these public broadcasting stations. Let those who enjoy listening or watching them pay, along with their sponsors. Taxpayer funded ads for big businesses need to end also. We could take a big chunk out of the deficit with these savings, along with all the fraud in government programs.

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  4. I don't envy him his next Board meeting! Now, on to eliminating the AD COUNCIL!

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  5. They don't serve the public with bias. Cut them off!

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  6. If WSCL would just dump the crap NPR and stick to classical music, I would donate. Until then, not a red cent.

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  7. Nope, the Ivy League Schools shouldn't be receiving taxpayer dollars either! They are floating in endowments!

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