The Hartford Courant is running a short series (part 1, part 2) on the woes at Connecticut Public Television. Over the past 16 months, CPTV has moved to a new, larger office while slashing positions, cutting back local programming, and losing both viewership and the resulting donors. CPTV has run up large debts: past-due phone, electicity and janitorial bills that have resulted in credit woes and, thus, bad PR.
CPTV is not alone, as many PBS and NPR stations have seen increasing financial pressures, dwindling viewership and listenership, and have been wondering “why?”
The answer is simple: forsaking the local programming will cause viewers to look elsewhere.
It’s become so bad that fundraising shows (a.k.a. “gimme-gimmes” in the Burrow) no longer have local station cut-ins asking for support. Instead of saying (in the case of DC) “please call in your pledge and support WETA,” the cut ins have perky, non-local folks saying “please support this PBS station.” It’s cold and anonymous, and hardly effective. It used to be fun to look for friends or family answering the phones at the local PBS station during the pledge breaks; now that fun is, by-and-large, gone. Sure, local operators are standing by to take pledges, but it’s not the same.
At the same rate, the “gimme-gimme” periods are more frequent and wreak more havoc with the normal PBS schedule than they did 10 years ago. Yes, PBS’ federal funding has been cut significantly over the past decade, and the new leadership at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a conservative sycophant who has deemed most PBS programming “too liberal” (thus endangering even more fundng). So we see more frequent fundraising drives that are filled with nationally-provided “special programs,” like concerts that are readily available at Blockbuster or Netflix, self-help programs that drone on incessantly for hours, and things that usually never appear on PBS stations during non-fundraising times.
But you’d think that local PBS affiliates would work the local crowd by giving them what they want: the PBS shows they’ve come to love. Frankly, nothing incenses me more than turning on WETA looking for “Travels In Europe,” “This Old House,” or “All Creatures Great and Small” and finding a Wayne Dyer or “Them Psychedelic 60s” geriatric rock-and-roll show plopped in its place. It’s aggravating, to say the least, and usually makes me switch away rather than call and pledge a few buck to shut up the non-local talking heads.
I don’t want another “Views of Scotland” or “Bruce Springteeen in Concert” or “Learn to Play Piano With MacGuyver” or “40s Big-Bands Reconstituted and Medicated” or “You’re So Damned Special, Damin It” that’s interrupted every 5.2 minutes to cut into a pre-recorded, 10-minute long plea for money for my “local PBS station.” If PBS stations need to fundraise, do short cut-ins between the normal programming Don’t just plug the next week’s programming between shows; go ahead and ask for support. It’s simple, unobtrusive, and probably very effective.
And even during non-fundraising times, let’s keep some local programs on the air. Here in DC, there are two local PBS stations: WETA and WHUT. Of the two, only WHUT seems to truly keep a pulse on the local market, airing local political shows, local profiles, and other such things. WETA, on the other hand, produces some decent shows for national consumption, but otherwise shows the exact same stuff I’d see in Connecticut, Utah, Arkansas or Oregon. You’d think they’d even modify their broadcast lineup to not compete with the other local PBS station, but it’s not the case.
My guess is that the PBS stations are simply scared of losing more funding, yet are wasting time and money on research to try and find that elusive “perfect viewer/supporter” that has increasingly turned elsewhere – either cable or the internet – for their unique programming fix. Unless PBS stations remember their local calling, they’re on a very limited lifeline. As Lisa Simmons, national programming director for CPTV, says in today’s Courant article:
“Without [local] programs … we are no different from any other PBS station… It’s just another reason for people NOT to support CPTV.”
Indeed, without local programs, there is precious little reason to support most PBS stations. It’s a very sad turn.
Abby
8 August 2005 — 06:43
That Matt Dyer stuff is hideous. The worst I saw was an hours-kong infomercial for N.V. Perricone about his theories on skin care. He also sells very expensive skin creams. So, it was hardly disinterested.