So, this is a little late because it has taken me a while to compose, and I put some things up in the meantime. But the above is the headline of an opinion article in last weekend's New York Times, which argues that while NPR has successfully implemented measures to stay current with the times and therefore has thrived in recent years, the opposite it true of public television.
It brings up some points which, presumed true, make a lot of sense:
Lately the audience for public TV has been shrinking even faster than the audience for the commercial networks. The average PBS show on prime time now scores about a 1.4 Nielsen rating, or roughly what the wrestling show “Friday Night Smackdown” gets.
On the other side of the ledger the audience for public radio has been growing: there are more than 30 million listeners now, compared to just 2 million in 1980. “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” NPR’s morning and evening news programs, are the second and fourth most listened to shows in the country. Go figure. Who would have guessed 40 years ago, when public broadcasting came into being, that the antique medium, the one supposedly on its way out, would prove to be the greater success and the one more technically nimble. You can even download NPR broadcasts onto your iPod.
...
Every now and then a one-off like “The War,” Ken Burns and Lynn Novick’s World War II documentary, the most-watched PBS series in 10 years, comes along and makes a huge splash. The broadcast of the first episode was watched by some 7.3 million people, or about as many as tune in to the “NBC Nightly News.” But such projects are few and far between, and they’re so overwhelming and time-consuming that for many people they mostly serve as lengthy advertisements for the boxed DVD set, which you can view at your own convenience and your own pace.
...
The stunning (and stunningly expensive) BBC documentary “Planet Earth,” for example, which in the old days would have been a natural for PBS, was instead broadcast on the Discovery Channel, which could presumably better afford it. The Showtime series “The Tudors” is just the kind of thing — only better produced and with more nudity — that used to make “Masterpiece Theater” (now simply “Masterpiece”), once the flagship of PBS, so unmissable. Now it’s so strapped for cash that it has pretty much settled into an all-Jane Austen format.
If you’re the sort of traditional PBS viewer who likes extended news broadcasts, say, or cooking shows, old movies and shows about animals gnawing each other on the veld, cable now offers channels devoted just to your interest. Cable is a little like the Internet in that respect: it siphons off the die-hards.
...
Considering how much it costs to create new topnotch programming, the best solution to public television’s woes is the one that will probably never happen: more money, not less. Here too public radio has an edge, because giving listeners what they want doesn’t cost nearly as much.
Sadly, the writer (Charles McGrath) also took a couple hits on the NewsHour, and my several times removed top boss, Jim Lehrer -- mostly lamenting the show's age:
Scanning the PBS lineup, in fact, it’s hard to detect much of a bias toward anything at all, except possibly mustiness. Except for “Antiques Roadshow,” all the prime-time stalwarts — “The NewsHour,” “Nova,” “Nature,” “Masterpiece” — are into their third or fourth decade, and they look it.
...
Listeners complained mightily when Bob Edwards was booted as host of “Morning Edition” in 2004, a month before his 57th birthday, but the change invigorated the show and ratings are up. (Jim Lehrer, 73, has been with “NewsHour” since 1975, so long that some of his early viewers are now in assisted living.)
So, admittedly, PBS as whole may be in trouble -- it's hard to compete with all the TV channels out there now for the attention of viewers. But McGrath oversimplified a couple important aspects of the story. He writes that, "You can even download NPR broadcasts onto your iPod." Umm...hello!? You can download NewsHour broadcasts on your iPod, too! You can subscribe to our RSS feeds, watch videos compilations of past segments, use our interactive election map, and access a lot of other great content that's better than most of the crap on the internet. The NewsHour broadcast, too, has just recently switched to Hi Definition, and added new sets to accomodate the increased attention to detail. They are very much trying to modernize, and are not, by any means, trying to hold onto an antiquated format. Maybe Mr. McGrath hasn't watched the show recently to witness these changes. What hasn't changed, however, is the emphasis on thorough, in-depth analysis, rather than the breaking-news format and pundintry of most cable news shows. Most of the viewers who write into us with comments laud the fact that we are one of the only sources that you can get balanced, thorough coverage, and berate us when they sense the slightest inkling of sensationalism, pundintry, or bias. And they should! Good journalism should not be skewed. Whether or not it's true, most people have the perspective that cable news is biased -- Fox as conservative, CNN as liberal. Evening news programs are better, but then they have the disadvantage of time; there's only such much you can cover in a half hour program, including commercial breaks. The NewsHour and other PBS news shows generally offer the best coverage, on a limited budget.
So yes, while not all of the programming on PBS is the most modern, you can't just substitute it with what's available on cable or the networks - another point McGrath implied. This may seem hypocritical because I don't watch PBS 24/7 or anything; but at least you know that when you turn it on, it's going to be quality programming. And there are a lot of people out there who do watch it as their primary TV source, and it would be great it if could fulfill its potential. A possible solution for this, McGrath says, would be more money, though he admits that's an unlikely reality. Why is it that most things that try and make the world a better place, don't get any money, and yet there's so much damn money out there for rich people to get richer?!
If you're interested in reading or adding to the online forum of viewer comments that the NewsHour setup, check it out here. Or, you can post comments on my blog!
No comments:
Post a Comment