Back to the topic of PBS and NPR, more food for thought on proposed budget cuts....

QuoteBut PBS, a subsidiary of the CPB, has been in decline for years, spending more than it has brought in and has claiming "budget cuts" that never happened. As far back as 2013, economist David R. Henderson noted that PBS stations all over the US were failing, and their executives were scrambling, blind to the realities of the new media market, or to the concept of "markets" at all:

    "A group of top PBS executives met in Washington last year (2012) to share their woes and try to find solutions. I attended the meeting and can attest that PBS has no shortage of executives, many if not most with backgrounds in community relations and fund-raising, not running television stations in today's highly competitive world."

Meanwhile, public radio and television hosts repeatedly claimed there had been "cuts" in PBS funding. But a quick check on the budget outlays going back to 1999 shows that there were only two years when the overall budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting saw even minimal cuts. In 2008, the CPB got just under $7 million less in taxpayer cash than the previous year, and in 2013, the CPB got roughly $22 million less than the previous year. From 1999 to 2016 the CPB budget has increased from $250 million to $445 million annually.

If you owned a production company that got magical manna money each year to the tune of over $400 million, don't you think you might be able to keep it in the black?

http://www.mrctv.org/blog/trumps-proposal-defund-pbs-neh-nea-sees-left-throw-childish-fits

Quote from: quiller on March 20, 2017, 02:28:09 AM
For what it's worth....

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/local/michigan/2017/03/20/bill-seeks-dedicated-aid-ann-arbor-lakes-center/99394256/

Stabenow is mostly MIA and Peters is off on Cloud 9 with the other Dhimmis. But this does set up a separate controlling authority for research....at a whopping price.

"cutting-edge research" = more money.

Everyone owes it to themselves to "take a tour" of a PBS broadcast facility, television or radio, offices, whatever.

Then take a tour of the biggest commercial station in the area, again, television or radio.

If you had a choice, where to work, it'd be the PBS joint, every time - based on the high quality of the MODERN equipment, rather than the  "dumps" that pass as commercial broadcast facilities.   

One place I strolled into, had a 'live, on-the-air' DJ working from a desk in a cubical... literally walked right up to her, and started asking her a question, before I saw a tiny sign, "Shhh, On-the-Air" sign on the edge of her desk.

By contrast, the PBS station has beautiful sound proof broadcast booths, behind the glass sits the broadcast engineer & call screener - facilities I've -never- seen in a Commercial radio or television station.   The ONLY thing that looks decent in a Commercial station -those places is what actually appears "over the air" - the rest looks like a high-school science project gone awry.  Even the desks are made of out cheap wafer-board, "unfinished from the back side, stuff".

One place, a television station, I got buzzed in a side door, walked through an area which doubled as trash sorting, boiler room, lockers, etc., basement stuff, and immediately upon walking through a doorway, to my right was the entire evening news "set" with a green screen on the right side (weather area?).   As I rounded the corner, I almost tripped over one of the evening news casters who was sitting on the floor, outside the station manager's office.   Literally the basement of a converted house.... the news studio!   That's a Commercial studio!

Those commercial stations LOVE the old engineers.  The new kids out of college have never had to keep that old broadcast crap running, much less ever seen it before.

Unfortunately, WE'VE been PAYING for that wonderful PBS building & broadcast facilities for decades!

Hoofer's remarks about commercial stations is dead on the money. I worked at a place that had 1940s amplifiers, audio board and stand-up RCA turntables with their own pre-amps.

The engineer who could keep it running was a god. A god, I say. 

Quote from: quiller on March 22, 2017, 05:48:28 AM
Hoofer's remarks about commercial stations is dead on the money. I worked at a place that had 1940s amplifiers, audio board and stand-up RCA turntables with their own pre-amps.

The engineer who could keep it running was a god. A god, I say. 

We seriously WANT the liberals to start PAYING for their own radio and television stations - like NOW.   If they really say and mean PBS is essential to American living, then let them put-their-money-where-their-mouth-is.

PBS gets the best-of-the-best-of-everything, and use it to pump socialist crap all over the nation.  A PBS engineer looks like he just stepped out of the "Board Room" - he has a full time job.

Commercial engineers cover a dozen stations, part time, travels all over the place, and look like a plumbers, who just crawled out of a manhole... not exaggerating to say that, I know a few.

Stop funding NEA, CPB, NPR, PBS!