I like Austin City Limits, but let’s be honest, the audience is mostly college educated, upper middle class white people. They are more than capable of funding their own show without relying on forced contributions from taxpayers.
I don’t recall watching any political program on PBS.
They call it “the news”.
So you’re saying the news on PBS is actually a political program ?They call it “the news”.
You’re assuming that the younger generation watches PBS.
They do. “Sesame Street” just added an autistic character, and the aforementioned “Austin City Limits” is a huge draw for the CMJ & SXSW kids. Kids also like “Arthur.”
I’d be all for funding NPR and PBS if they adhered to an updated version of the “Fairness Doctrine” which would mean they’d have to hire someone who wasn’t a progressive liberal, and have programs that appealed to the non ‘progressive’ half of the country…
Good point. No, I don’t assume they do; in fact, I know by means of working with young people that most do not watch PBS or even much of the awful nonsense that airs elsewhere. Television itself as a means of entertainment and information is going the way of the newspaper, the typewriter, the CD and LP; it is fast becoming an anachronism. But maybe by chance, a particular show of better quality will be watched, reluctantly at first, together with other, adult family members, and this may light a fire in the mind of the viewer. Perhaps it is wishful thinking, but I believe it can happen.You’re assuming that the younger generation watches PBS.
You do realize that PBS made Pat Buchanan a household name courtesy of “The McLaughlin Group,” which was hosted by a conservative Catholic, right? And before McLaughlin, William F. Buckley (doesn’t get any more “non-progressive” than that.)
Pat Buchanan is unknown outside of that tiny subset of people known as “political nerds”. He was never a household name, nor for that matter, was WFB whose magazine “National Review” could never boast much more than a 100,000 readers and was largely supported by donations.
Pat Buchanan ran for president and was on other talk shows besides The McLaughlin Group.
He certainly wasn’t a “household name”. And the shows he appeared on were shows that appealed to the same demographic as the McLaughlin Group, IOW, that small subset of people known as “political nerds”. I very much doubt more than 5% of the public could identify him from a recent picture.
I disagree.
Dana Carvey’s SNL parody of “The McLaughlin Group” (from the era of staunch conservatives like Joe Piscopo, Dennis Miller, Adam Sandler and Victoria Jackson) featured Pat Buchanan quite prominently. Of COURSE he’s a household name. I don’t know anyone who hasn’t heard of him, and they almost always mention SNL (not PBS.) Nobody gets parodied on SNL unless they’re a well-known public figure. Pat Buchanan: definitely well-known.
More than 5% of the American public cannot identify ANYONE from a (recent) picture unless they are a famous modern celebrity. That’s because they don’t watch PBS.
He was on Crossfire on CNN.
Charlie Rose is a perfect example of that. Nobody gets to be parodied on SNL unless they’re “a famous modern celebrity” (including the very famous household name Pat Buchanan), whereas the guests on Charlie Rose are very much on par with the relatively obscure guests Jon Stewart had on “The Daily Show” (which was statistically proven not too long ago to have more educated viewers) – of course, I don’t understand how there’s somehow a “liberal” bias to have interview subjects like Charlie Rose’s recent guests a WSJ’s Pentagon reporter, former CIA deputy director, and Reihan Salam, executive editor of National Review – which is a CONSERVATIVE publication. And I’m supposed to applaud pulling the plug on that? Really?
