About PBS

What I find touching about Joel Stein's call to end the PBS subsidy is his belief that a) market forces will produce better television, and that b) all the worthwhile shows will find homes on private networks. A) can be falsified by simply watching television. Market forces made "Baywatch" the #1 show in the world for years. "Baywatch" my friend. Forty-seven minutes of prime-time T&A. The current TV market is mostly dominated by clones. "Law and Order", "Law and Order Special Victims Unit", and "Law and Order: Criminal Intent". There are at least five thousand cities in which CSI is currently operating. Then you've got a wide variety of lame magazine shows--which are handy if it's November or May and you're jonesing to look at prostitutes. And this leaves out the frillions of reality shows that wind up on the tube every season, each slightly stupider than the last. If market forces have advanced us an inch since "My Mother the Car" slithered its way onto CBS, I've yet to see the proof. A tiny percentage of any television is worthy. I find it particularly useful when football season comes around. But I'd rather eat a bug than watch most of it, and market forces haven't changed that.

As for B) well, let's see..."The News Hour" and "Frontline" will end up on CNN or MSNBC? I don't think so, unless they can replace Jim Lehrer with Chris Matthews, who will gain another hour to shout questions at Howard Fineman and Peggy Noonan; and unless "Frontline" would be willing to bring its hard hitting investigative approach to the question of what makes Tom Hanks so wonderful:

"This man, whose face we're concealing so protect his identity, recently testified before a Philadelphia grand jury that Tom Hanks is a truly stupefyingly beautiful human being who would bring him soup when he was sick."

Maybe the "Discovery Channel" can buy up "Nova", and put its staff to work delvering the scientific goods on why Ronald Reagan is "The Greatest American" or explaining what it is that makes the "American Chopper" guys so fucking cranky. "Bravo" might buy "Masterpiece Theater", though they just as easily might replace it with their most recent abomination, "Being Bobby Brown".

The networks that Stein thinks will buy these admired pieces of PBS are notoriously fickle enterprises, given to changing their formats in ways that completely obliterate their original purposes. TLC was at one time The Learning Channel, showing documentaries on nature, science, and, during sweeps, sex. Now, they're The Lifestyle Channel, and they educate people mainly about how to inflict their horrible taste on their neighbors for $1000 or less. The Discovery Channel is spending an increasing amount of its energy on cop programs and their "American Chopper" series. "Mythbusters" is the only show on that network I find at all interesting. Starting tomorrow, any or all of these networks could decide to abandon educational programming entirely and switch to full contact female dwarf tosser mud wrestling.

It's true the PBS has put up fewer good shows in recent years. (I'm really sick of watching George Ray stuff his face.) Budget cuts and their status as a political football over the lsat ten years have taken their toll. Pledge breaks have increased in frequency and duration, and with them the regrettable appearances of Dr. Wayne Dyer. Still, PBS's audience is far larger than any of the cable networks Stein is talking about. In a contest between Lehrer and CNN, it's Lehrer in a blowout. It's an asset that can be improved and strengthened with the right management. Over the years PBS has created some enormous winners, and quite a few losers, but they never, never, and I mean never made "Being Bobby Brown." For this reason alone, they should live, and others should die.