AN ALTERNATIVE
VIEW OF THE FUTURE OF PUBLIC TELEVISON
Jerold
M. Starr, Executive Director, Citizens for independent
Public Broadcasting
University of Chicago Cultural Policy Center , December
1, 2004
Looked
at in world perspective, U.S. public service broadcasting
is the new kid on the block and still the small fry in
the gang. Public service broadcasting was well established
throughout the modern world before it came to America
. It was launched in Britain in 1927, Australia in 1932,
and Canada in 1936. In all countries except the United
States , public broadcasting was well developed before
commercial broadcasting was permitted.
The
universal mission of public broadcasting is to serve viewers
and listeners as citizens and voters, rather than consumers.
This requires creative freedom, especially from government
and commercial controls. In its essence, public broadcasting
must be available to all, instill democratic values, promote
respect for all groups, and strive for fairness and accuracy
in coverage of news and public affairs.
Consistent
with this tradition, the 1967 Carnegie Commission recommended
that America launch public television to compensate for
the limitations of advertiser driven media and to offer
programming that would “enhance citizenship and public
service.” In the language of the Carnegie Commission,
public broadcasting was to serve as a “forum for
debate and controversy,” providing a “voice
for groups in the community that may otherwise be unheard” so
that we could “see America whole, in all its diversity.” As
he signed the bill into law, President Johnson declared, “Public
television will help make our nation a replica of the old
Greek marketplace, where public affairs took place in view
of all citizens.”
Media Monopoly
When
PBS was launched in 1967, three commercial networks controlled
almost all programming in the U.S. The need for an alternative
was clear. The media landscape some 37 years later looks
considerably more varied, but the need is just as great.
In the U.S. today there are approximately 1,800 newspapers,
3,000 book publishers, 11,000 magazines, 11,000 radio stations,
and 1,700 television stations. Behind this illusion of
choice, however, lies a collusion of interest that serves
the giant media corporations at the expense of American
democracy and cultural diversity.
In
1994, a mere 50 companies owned a controlling interest
in all of these media. By 2002, this was down to six companies.
Comcast and Time Warner dominate the cable market where
the average system makes a 30 percent profit. Only two
companies, DirecTV and Echo Star (The Dish), control the
Direct Broadcast Satellite market. Between 1975 and 2000,
the number of TV stations increased by 75 percent, but
the number of TV station owners actually declined by 33
percent. Time Warner, General Electric and News Corporation
own all of the cable news networks, whose news and public
affairs programs reflect the interests of their corporate
owners.
Successful
Models
The
authors of the 1999 McKinsey Report, commissioned by the
BBC, define the most effective public broadcasting services
as those that combine both distinctiveness and share. That
is, not only do they offer programs not normally available
on commercial channels, but they also attract a large share
of the audience. This creates what the authors call a “virtuous
circle,” whereby commercial broadcasters follow successful
programming examples set by public broadcasters. This further
enhances public broadcasting’s impact on the civic
culture.
The
most successful systems enjoy independent funding. In Britain
, Denmark , France , Japan , the Netherlands , Sweden ,
and Switzerland funding comes primarily from TV household
license fees. In Germany , commercial broadcasters underwrite
public broadcasting with broadcasting and concession fees.
Australia and Canada receive generous subsidies from their
federal governments. As a percentage of GNP, Australia
and Canada receive three times that of America ’s
PBS, Britain six times as much.
According
to McKinsey, the most effective public broadcasting services
are the ARD and ZDF in Germany , SVT in Sweden , and the
BBC in the UK , all supported by license fees. Their more
reliable and substantial funding underwrites broader schedules
of programs that generate much larger audiences. Public
broadcasters in England , France , Germany , Italy , the
Netherlands , Norway , Sweden , and Spain attract audience
shares of between 33
percent and 49 percent with Denmark at 69 percent. In the
U.S. , PBS claims less than three percent.
Independent
funding has long been a goal of PBS as well . Carnegie Commission
Chair James R. Killian, Jr. argued that “a free, innovative,
creative public television service” would not be possible
if it were to be “ultimately dependent” on Congress
for its funding. President Johnson proposed a trust fund, but
Republican opposition caused this provision to be stripped
from the bill. Throughout the history of the service, especially
in 1979, 1988 and 1995, similar proposals have been advanced.
PBS Decline
Today,
PBS is in trouble. Government funding has not kept pace
with rising costs, especially those associated with the
digital transition. Worse, public support is on the wane.
Between fiscal years 1993 and 2002, public TV memberships
declined by 20 percent, from five million to four million
. A recent survey indicates that this trend has accelerated
to a five percent loss in each of the past two years.
The
loss in memberships reflects a loss in viewers. In 1987,
PBS had a rating of 2.7. This dropped to 2.2 by 1992, 2.0
by 2000 and 1.7 by 2002; 37 percent over 15 years and 15
percent in just the last two. While all broadcasters have
lost viewers to cable, the commercial networks own their
own competition and have been able to increase advertising
and raise rates to maintain their revenue base.
In
an attempt to meet expenses, PBS and its member stations
also have followed this path to greater commercialism.
Five-second underwriting acknowledgements have expanded
into 30-second commercials, including pitches on children’s
programs for junk food and theme parks. There are more
co-production deals with commercial partners looking for
lucrative back-ends. Such programs typically are designed
for export and, consequently, are less local or even national
in character. Also, PBS sought and the FCC granted permission
to use two of PBS’ digital frequencies for revenue
generating purposes.
Despite
these compromises, PBSrevenue has been falling almost three
percent per year since 1993. In the past two years, PBS
has downsized its staff three times, cutting its total
workforce by 25 percent. PBS tried to make up its shortfall
by increasing member station dues by 7.5 percent. The stations,
themselves challenged, balked and PBS had to settle for
a three percent raise which it plans to use for Masterpiece
Theatre and Antiques Roadshow.
Need
for a Public Broadcasting Trust
Clearly,
a new approach is required. My organization, Citizens for
Independent Public Broadcasting, advocates that public
broadcasting in the U.S. be restructured as a public trust,
along the lines of the U.S. Olympic Committee, Red Cross
or Little League Baseball.
In our
view, innovative, diverse, noncommercial programming for both
national and local TV and radio audiences would require at
least $1 billion per annum. Most of this would go for TV, far
exceeding the $300 million per year now being spent. This programming
fund would be supplemental to current levels of operational
support from state governments, individual subscribers, and
foundations. Corporate donations would still be welcomed, but
would be briefly acknowledged and restricted to general system
support. There would be no more upscale commercials masquerading
as enhanced underwriting spots.
We
advocate further that financing come from the commercial
broadcasters who pay no use fee for their lucrative monopoly
over the public’s airwaves.
The following
revenue sources would each provide the $1 billion per year
needed to endow the trust: a five percent tax on the sale or
transfer of commercial broadcast licenses, a two percent tax
on annual broadcast advertising, a two percent annual spectrum
fee, or a piece of the action on the auction of up to $100
billion in digital spectrum. Any smaller combination of the
above also could produce the $1 billion required to support
the trust. The proposed structure and operation of this
Public Broadcasting Trust is spelled out on our website cipbonline.org.
Suffice it to say that it would replace both the President’s
patronage appointed CPB and take over the satellite distribution
systems now administered by PBS and NPR. More importantly,
it would work with professional associations, labor and trade
organizations to incorporate representatives of those constituencies
crucial to its mission: artists, educators, journalists and
public broadcasters.
The public broadcasting trust would commission,
produce, and distribute both news and public affairs and
cultural and educational programs as part of a national
service to local stations. We suggest further that a significant
portion of the trust funds be made available to local television
and radio stations to produce and acquire programs of interest
to their specific communities.
At present, less than five percent of all
public TV program production is local. Only 15 of some
350 member stations have a daily news or public affairs
program. Perhaps the most overlooked finding of the recent
General Accounting Office report is that, of the 139 licensees
that provided narrative comments on program production,
85 stated they do not have adequate funds for local programming
or that they would produce more local programming if they
could obtain additional sources of funding.
Local Accountability
We
recognize that change at the top would not be enough.
As PBS pioneer James Day once observed: “The greatest force
for blandness is not the government, it’s the stations.” Stations
need officers with programming vision and boards of directors
from diverse social and professional backgrounds, committed
to a clearly defined public mission, with relevant expertise,
willing to hold management accountable and be responsive to
community input. When necessary, such boards also must be willing
to defend management and resist pressure from government officials.
Accountability must include both fiscal discipline and program
policy. New measures also are needed to empower
community advisory boards to perform their designated
function; to be engaged in active outreach to the community
to solicit evaluations and assess needs. In short,
this would be public broadcasting in the service of
the public sphere, supporting and enhancing democracy
in mass society.
Public
Support Growing
Is
a public broadcasting trust possible in this age of Republican
political domination? This is an empirical question. We do
know that all significant legislation has required decades
of advocacy before its time came. This includes Social Security
and Medicare. While it sometimes seemed impossible, their
time did come. To abandon this 37 year quest now is to
abandon all hope and trust in the political process.
In
at least one respect, the timing is perfect. The digital
transition, like that of color TV, will require millions
of consumers to purchase new equipment. In addition
to the above use fee measures, a five percent tax on
factory sales of digital television sets itself would
for several years generate the $1 billion needed for
a public broadcasting trust. If applied to all digital
equipment, the tax rate could be lower still.
The
fact that the Republican Party is controlled by its conservative
wing and that this one party now controls the White House,
both houses of Congress and the higher courts makes it
absolutely imperative that there be some media, on
principle, willing to consider contrary facts, air dissenting
views and hold those in power accountable.
Past
public trust proposals were defeated by a combination
of forces: a powerful National Association of Broadcasters,
timid politicians, the narrow base of reform movements,
and a divided public broadcasting community.
So,
what is different now? The NAB is weaker, politicians
are willing to consider the idea, and there is
a powerful public movement ready to support such an initiative.
At issue is whether public television still aspires
to its founding mission or is willing to settle
indefinitely for increasing marginalization.
We
must acknowledge that, among political officials,
the trust fund idea has never really gone away. In
1998, House Telecommunications Subcommittee leaders Billy
Tauzin and Edward Markey designed a bill (later
withdrawn) to create a permanent PBS trust fund, abolish
the CPB and phase out commercial underwriting messages.
The 2000 Gore Commission on the social responsibilities
of digital broadcasters strongly recommended
that Congress create a trust fund for public television
and eliminate "enhanced
underwriting" by corporations. We would be building
on a rich history of efforts to accomplish this important
goal.
Public support is crucial and has been missing in past
efforts. For example, in 1988, the Senate Commerce Committee
sought to create a trust fund based on a two to five percent
fee levied on the transfer of all properties licensed by
the FCC. Predictably, commercial broadcasters offered vigorous
opposition. The bill’s sponsor, Senator Ernest Hollings,
challenged public television officials in the Senate Hearing. “Where
was their constituency?” he asked, “Why couldn’t
they fight a corporate lobby with numbers—viewers who
would ring their legislators’ bells to preserve and
defend noncommercial programming?”
Media scholar Patricia Aufderheide reports, “No one
answered him. And no one on the panel was there—from
organized labor, community groups, supporters of children’s
television, issue-oriented groups, or the educational community—to
say that public television mattered to them one way or the
other.”
The
potential is much greater today. In the past year there
has been a tidal wave of public opposition to greater media
consolidation. The three million messages to Congress far
exceeded any issue with the exception of the war in Iraq.
The Courts have ruled against the FCC’s ownership cap
rollbacks and Congress also has gone on record in opposition.
The networks have pulled out of the NAB amidst a growing
dispute with the stations. Fed up with sleazy programming and
uncritical reporting of government war claims, public criticism
of commercial broadcasters is at an all-time high.
Our
polling also indicates popular support for the concept
of a public broadcasting trust. A December 1998 poll
by Lake , Snell, Perry & Associates
found that only 19 percent of the public knew that broadcasters
pay no fee to use the public’s airwaves. Once advised
of this fact, almost two-thirds of those with an opinion
favored charging broadcasters for any additional airwaves,
including those for digital TV. An overwhelming 79 percent
of the American public favored a proposal to require commercial
broadcasters to pay five percent of their revenues into
a fund to support public broadcasting programming.
We
believe that a bold new proposal for a trust to ensure
and enhance public broadcasting’s
contribution to culture and public affairs in a system
dominated by rank commercialism, widespread indecency
and neglect of public affairs would resonate with the
public.
In
recent years, several major public interest organizations—like
Common Cause, People for the American Way , Working
Assets and the Free Press—have taken up public
broadcast reform as an issue. In the recent past, these
organizations have generated hundreds of thousands of
letters opposing Congressional cutoffs of PBS funding
or CPB interference with programming. Their capacity
to mobilize broad-based support would be invaluable.
It
must be said, however, that none of these organizations
has any interest in working to create a trust fund
for PBS without substantial assurance that this fiscal
independence would, indeed, be used to promote greater
journalistic and editorial independence. The truly
significant question at this moment is whether PBS is
open to change or too trapped by the assumptions of Beltway
politics to aspire to a new vision.
PBS
Turns More to the Right
This question is especially salient given the recent PBS
choices to host new public affairs shows: Tucker Carlson
and Paul Gigot with Michael Medved still under active consideration.
Carlson receives 38 percent of his funding from PBS, Gigot
almost all of his funding from CPB. At the same time, Bill
Moyers’ Now, just two years on the air, is
being cut back to a half hour.
Gigot is chief of the rabidly right wing Wall Street
Journal editorial page. Carlson proclaims himself
a “conservative ideologue and proud of it.” He
already hosts his own program on CNN, with a dismal 0.7
rating, and professes to have “no idea” why
PBS chose him to host a show. He does not think it is because
his father, Richard Carlson, used to head the CPB.
Defending these new shows at a July news conference, PBS
President Pat Mitchell denied any pressure from Congress
or the CPB. Instead, she said, this was an initiative “to
have all points of view,” adding, “Once PBS was
defined by [conservative] Bill Buckley and ‘Firing
Line.’ More recently, we’ve been defined by many
people as [liberal] Bill Moyers.” Mitchell stated further
that “PBS also airs what’s considered one of
the most balanced news programs, “The NewsHour.”
This interpretation of balance or diversity totally misses
the mark. PBS’ new shows are hosted by conservative
white male flacks and hacks whose views on military and economic
issues mirror those of government and corporate officials.
Worse, they already are available to the public through the
commercial media. They do not offer the alternative the public
so desperately needs. They do not provide voices that would
otherwise be unheard. They do not allow us to see America
whole, in all its diversity.
I am not just talking about personalities, but also format.
Whatever, Republican critics may say of Moyers, Now offers
investigative reports on subjects ignored by the cable news
channels and The NewsHour. We need to widen the
public discourse beyond that of government media releases
and celebrity gossip. We need to present research documenting
factual claims that lay the basis for reasonable discussion.
And we need to model public discussion that is more than
a mere scream fest. Conservative National Review editor
John McLaughlin has had one or two shows on 320 PBS stations
for at least 20 years, despite a meager 1.2 rating. Former
McLaughlin panelist Jake Germond has said that a show where “people
repeatedly interrupt one another, shout for attention, deliver
ad hominine attacks on one another and deride the moderator” should
not be taken seriously. Another panelist, Eleanor Clift,
laments, “You don’t have time to express the
ifs, ands, or buts.” In the analysis of linguist Deborah
Tannen, “Viewers conclude that if the two sides are
so far apart, the problem can’t be solved, so why try?” I
know that PBS does not offer this program as common carriage
these days, but the public does not know the difference.
Such shows are the face of PBS.
It is hard to believe that Bill Moyer’s Now has come
to “define” PBS in just two years on the air.
We do know that this one program provoked a firestorm of
Republican criticism from members of Congress and the CPB.
William F. Buckley’s Firing Line was on PBS
for at least two decades. While Tavis Smiley’s new
program is now carried by some 80 PBS stations, for many
years the one national program for the African American community
carried by most stations has been hosted by Republican Tony
Brown.
Other conservative pundits PBS has featured over the years
include Fred Barnes, Larry Elder, Laura Ingraham, Morton
Kondracke, Peggy Noonan, and Tony Snow. The only Democrat
has been Ben Wattenberg, a conservative affiliated with the
American Enterprise Institute, home of the Project for a
New American Century.
With the exception of Bill Moyers, no progressive has ever
regularly guested on, let alone hosted, a PBS public affairs
program. I include in this pantheon of outsiders, such journalists,
broadcasters and intellectuals as Barbara Ehrenreich, Amy
Goodman, Ellen Goodman, Molly Ivans, Katarina vanden Heuvel,
Phil Donohue, Jim Hightower, Paul Krugman, Michael Moore,
Cornell West, and Howard Zinn.
As for The NewsHour, Pat Mitchell neglects to
add that this praise for its balance comes largely from Republicans
who would shriek in terror at a truly independent news service,
like the BBC. In the early 1990s, MacNeil-Lehrer Productions
sold two-thirds of The NewsHour to Liberty Media,
a subsidiary of TCI cable systems, owned by arch conservative
John Malone, and later acquired by AT&T.
In 1998, sociologists David Croteau and William Hoynes
analyzed several weeks of NewsHour shows. Depending
on the topic, from 75-90 percent of the sources that appeared
on camera were “elite voices,” that is, corporate
representatives, government officials, professional journalists
and academics. The segments on economic issues featured three
times as many corporate representatives as labor representatives.
Public interest advocates accounted for only five percent
of all guests. Men outnumbered women by four to one. The
differences with guests and topics featured on ABC’s Nightline were
negligible.
This discrepancy is built into the very concept of the
program. In 1991, Robert MacNeil admitted that “the
policy critics are not visible in our program.” He
explained, it was “because most of the time in our
studio discussion…we are coming at the point when
the debate has reached the question of policy and how that
policy will be turned into action.”
After he left the show in 1995, MacNeil acknowledged the
timidity of most PBS programs: “We [PBS] are not as
provocative, innovative, creative, or original as we should
be…Trying to ingratiate ourselves with the public
by diluting what we do plays into the hands of the people
who say we’re either not good enough or not necessary.”
In his 1999 review, Current contributing editor
David Stewart acknowledged The NewsHour to be “intelligent,
fair, and determined to consider significant Issues and news
stories.” However, in his view, it was not “brisk.” He
explains: “The debates…sometimes seem endless,
the discussions feature predictable views, held by an equally
predictable set of lawmakers, military leaders, and professional
pundits…”
PBS deserves praise for presenting many fine documentaries
over the years under the auspices of Frontline, POV and Independent
Lens. The recent Frontline on the credit card
industry was first rate journalism. Unfortunately, too many
award-winning productions have been blocked by PBS underwriting
guidelines which permit funding from corporations and conservative
foundations, but ban support from organized labor and public
interest groups.
For more than 30 years now, corporations have been actively
promoting their interests through the Business Roundtable,
Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Hoover
Institute and numerous other foundations, think tanks, publishers,
web sites, TV and radio programs. In this last election,
top-giving corporate political action committees favored
Republican candidates by a margin of 10-1. It is an obsolete
bias to pretend that unions and public interest groups are
political actors while corporations are not.
This ban effectively handicaps the development of programs
with alternative perspectives while doing nothing to ensure
fairness and accuracy in content. The latter is a desirable,
even essential, goal but could be achieved more effectively
by following any of the many peer review models currently
practiced in academia, publishing, and the arts.
Reflecting this PBS reliance on corporate support, there
are nightly and weekly programs featuring Wall Street and
business news, but no regularly scheduled programs that examine
the economy from the perspective of workers, consumers or
environmentalists.
The consequence is the continuing erosion of core supporters
for whom this is supposed to be the alternative to the corporate-owned,
establishment oriented cable news channels. In fact, when
compared to broadcast only viewers, some 35 percent fewer
PBS members with cable now look to PBS first for “ in-depth
analysis of major news and issues,” and 43 percent
fewer for programs that help you “understand the issues
that matter to you.”
They now have new choices on public access channels like Democracy
Now, satellite channels like Link TV and Free Speech
TV, cable’s The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,
and subscription channels, like Showtime and HBO, willing
to feature shows like Real Time with Bill Maher,
documentaries like The Panama Deception and series
like the sequel to Tales of the City judged to
be too controversial by PBS gatekeepers. These do not begin
to approximate the reach of the Christian Broadcasting
Network, Fox News or MSNBC, but they do offer progressive
alternatives not available on broadcast media, including
PBS.
Defending
the Public Interest
Beyond any semblance of real balance in our media system,
we all suffer from the lack of vigorous investigative reporting
to inform the public about social problems confronting our
nation and our communities and what can be done about them.
The FCC requires that all frequencies be dedicated to the
public interest, convenience and necessity. This should be
truer still of those frequencies specifically reserved for
public education.
In the tradition of the Enlightenment, the public interest
refers to all those things that are essential to community
and nation. There is a public interest in accountable government,
an impartial judicial system, tax fairness, secure borders,
crime-free streets, effective schools, safe roads, reliable
public transportation, economic growth, good jobs, clean
air and water, affordable health care, a social safety net
for the disadvantaged and all that makes for a good society.
These goods are of a different order than home shopping
or celebrity gossip, no matter how many individuals might
be interested in such things. The same can be said for typical
PBS fare, like how to cook, garden, paint, sew, decorate
your house, lose weight, manage your emotions or make money
in the stock market. Such subjects do not address the public
interest.
We may differ on how to obtain these collective goods.
But that is precisely why we must thoroughly investigate,
discuss and debate these questions. And we cannot do that
without the active cooperation of those who control the media
of mass communications, especially those dedicated to public
education.
According to the distinguished educator John Dewey, it
is the media’s job “to interest the public in
the public interest.” If we desire a democratic society,
if we desire transparency and accountability in our political
and economic affairs, then we must dedicate a sufficient
portion of our communications capacity to consideration of
the public interest.
News and public affairs on PBS must transcend the artificial
criteria of objectivity and balance which are used selectively
to censor program content critical of established interests.
No one requires business programs to invite socialists or
labor leaders to balance the views of capitalists, religious
programs to invite atheists to balance the views of believers,
programs on national security to invite pacifists to challenge
the assumptions of militarists, or cooking shows to give
equal time to vegetarians. Similarly, charges that one has
failed to adequately balance the views of public interest
advocates or policy critics with the views of government
or corporate officials are most often red herrings to distract
attention from the media’s ongoing censorship of those
who challenge the system.
PBS spokespersons are fond of defending their service by
pointing to criticism from both the left and the right as
evidence that they must be doing something OK. A more efficient
conclusion is that all alternative points of view have typically
been excluded in favor of programming dominated by establishment
perspectives and sensibilities. Public broadcasting’s
unique mission requires that it include alternative voices
rather than justify their exclusion; that it reflect on power,
not simply reflect power.
In our view, this is not an issue that can be neatly reduced
to political labels—liberal vs. conservative, right
vs. left, Democrat vs. Republican, or whatever. It comes
down to a question of what stories get told and who gets
to participate in the telling. If politics, economics and
other public affairs are covered only from the top down,
interest groups and potential publics representing millions
of citizens will continue to be excluded from the national
debate, further impoverishing our democracy.
When those who control the dominant institutions also dictate
the subjects and terms of public discourse, democracy and
truth are the silenced victims. Surely, the perspectives
of government and corporate leaders are important. However,
they must be balanced, if you will, by coverage from the
bottom up—with an understanding of what is happening
to our workers, consumers, citizens, and environment.
This could be the beginning of a bigger and better public
television in the United States; a public television truly
equal to its important mission at a time when such contribution
is needed more than ever. Or it could be the beginning of
the end. The choice ultimately rests with the leaders of
public television. We eagerly await their decision.
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