Lately whenever I’m channel surfing and I see that something is on PBS that looks interesting, I go to it and–lo and behold–either I hit a pledge break, or I watch for maybe five minutes and then, stop the music, stop everything, time for a pledge break.
Understand that this is purely anecdotal, but it seems to me there used to be a lot fewer pledge drives, and now it’s literally whenever I happen to tune in. Now for all I know it’s just that they only run shows of interest to me during pledge drives, but jeez. Unless I record stuff so that I can buzz past the pledge drives, it’s pretty much impossible to watch the channel.
I don’t even want to think what it’ll be like if government funding goes away altogether.
PAD
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I was under the impression that PBS always received little funding from the government with the bulk of their funding coming from private donations or am I confusing that with NPR. Or maybe both groups are in a similar situation??? I use to watch PBS, but for similar reasons became tired of all the funding drive breaks.
Side note: I’ve found that netflix provides a good selection of PBS documentaries in their instant watch section.
Years back the main branch of the Ottawa Public Library had a stack of NOVA episodes on laser discs. You never know where their stuff will turn up.
Unless you have small children that enjoy SESAME STREET, PBS has been rendered pointless now that BBC America has grown in audience along with DVD/Blu-Ray releases. As a lifelong DOCTOR WHO fan, I take great solace in the knowledge that I will never again have to suffer through one of PBS’ interminable pledge breaks just to watch my favorite program.
Which would be terrific if BBC America was an option. But my cable provider resolutely refuses to offer it and other TV options aren’t viable out here.
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PAD
Given that you have your own house (i.e. not a condo or apartment), I’d think satellite would be an option? I’ve been satisfied with DirecTV which does carry BBCA.
We’ve looked into Direct TV back when Cablevision and ABC were having a pìššìņg match and spoke to several of our neighbors who had tried DirectTV. For whatever reason, there seems to be a fundamental problem with our neck of Long Island and the DTV satellite. Whenever the weather is remotely inclement, forget it. No reception. Everyone we knew who had switched to DTV wound up switching back to cable.
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The only remaining alternative is FIOS, which also carries BBC America. Unfortunately they offer no coverage of our area at all; a FIOS representative suggested we try Direct TV. So that was helpful.
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PAD
I would argue that even for small children PBS is as necessary as it used to be, there are several cable channels that serve the same purpose and that’s not even looking at online or DVD’s. I agree that the Government needs to cut some spending and I disagree with 90% of what conservatives want to cut but in the case of PBS I kinda see their point.
I disagree completely!
I’ve had BBC America on my satellite for four years ago and am really disappointed in it.
Their programming is pathetic (compared to what they could be showing) I get more BBC comedies on my local PBS station in one night then I get for a week on BBC America.
Oh, and would someone please tell me how American TV shows (X-Files & Star Trek The Next Generation) qualify as BBC America programming?
I don’t think BBC America is the right place for them in the US either but to be fair both the X-Files and Star Trek: TNG were huge in England in their original runs and I imagine still have big followings today.
And in the case of TNG, from their ad campaign, they hang the “network-appropriateness” of it on the show starring Patrick Stewart.
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–Daryl
I know what you mean, Peter; I saw in TV Guide there was a documentary on Mark Twain coming up only to discover on the day that it was yet another pledge break featuring another utterly forgettable musical program of some kind.
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And Charles, I think you’re probably right; my meory of the mid-eighties is that British science fiction shows were the biggest pledge earners on PBS. I certainly watched an awful lot of New Jersey Network Doctor Who in those days.
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I lived down in Central Florida in the late 90s. The station I watched there played Blake’s 7 during pledge drives for a couple years running.
Only during the pledge drives. I could never tape the entire series because I worked in the evenings (even back then) and the &%$#&^&% pledge breaks made it impossible to tape ’em while I was at work.
Funny story, actually.
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About thirty years ago, the New Jersey PBS station I watched at the time was having a pledge drive, and they were doing marathon showings of Monty Python (calling it Python-a-thon). At the time, “Doctor Who” wasn’t being carried on PBS.
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The station manager was personally on camera, leading the pledge drive. The phone activity was pretty moribund. People were visible just kind of sitting there staring at the phones.
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So I called in between breaks, when the show was on, and asked to speak to the station manager. He came to the phone and I said, “Are you, by any chance, looking into the possibility of carrying ‘Doctor Who?’ The manager said, “We are, in fact, looking into that. It’s nothing definite, but we are exploring it.”
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I said, “Okay, I’d like to donate $100 with the understanding that this should be earmarked for acquiring rights for ‘Doctor Who.’ If it doesn’t work out, it’s not like I’d demand the money back, but that’s what I’d like to see it used for if at all possible. And you know, if you’re seriously exploring getting ‘Doctor Who,’ you might want to mention that during the pledge breaks.” He said, “You think so?” I said, “I think people will want to know that.”
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So during the next pledge break, I was watching, and the manager chatted about “Monty Python” for a few minutes, and then he said, “A caller a little while ago asked me if we might start carrying ‘Doctor Who.’ We are indeed looking into that, but we need your pledge dollars in order to acquire it. So if you’re a ‘Doctor Who’ fan, call in.”
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The phone banks lit up almost immediately. The manager did a double take, on camera. They kept ringing all the way through the break.
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The next break he talked for maybe thirty seconds before he mentioned “Doctor Who.” Bam. Phones started ringing.
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He got the message. By the break after that, he was talking almost exclusively about the prospect of getting “Doctor Who.” The phones kept on ringing.
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And he was as good as his word. They eventually got the series.
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So that was cool.
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PAD
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🙂
Reminds me of an 80’s MAD parody of PBS…
(Paraphrasing) “We have only one pledge drive a year…”
“Yes, from January 1st to December 31st…”
This is nothing new, I remember in the early 90’s taping a two hour long Paul Simon special on PBS, I left a half hour buffer on the tape. Watching the show later it didn’t start until 35 minutes into the tape because of pledge drives, then 20 minutes into the show another 20 minutes of pledge. I got less then half the show due till their pledge drives. I pretty much gave up watching PBS after that.
“Now for all I know it’s just that they only run shows of interest to me during pledge drives…”
I suspect there’s a lot of truth to this notion, as I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon myself. I’d wager that you could tell it’s pledge season just by looking at the kind of programming scheduled…
I haven’t really walked PBS since I moved away from Iowa, where we had IPTV. The only time I remember pledge drives being run on IPTV was during the annual Festival – which is going on right now, in fact.
What sized leash do you use to walk PBS?
I blame DST for that typo, as well as any the rest of the week. 😛
As someone who works at a PBS station – and I do *not* speak (write?) – as a representative of the network (or even my own station), I agree with the majority of what’s been posted here.
Our federal and state funding continues to be reduced, necessitating the pledge drives. But we (at my station) try to spread them out. There are three big (network-wide) drives a year (March being one), and we actually try to have as few small ones as possible. We’ve even tried “hit & runs” (one day here, one weekend there) scattered throughout the year, and actually go quite some time without pledging at all. But the drives are all anyone notices.
We are a small station, and fundraising is critical to our survival. Having said that, I’m as disappointed as anyone in some of the pledge programs being offered. The recent SCTV and Laugh-In ‘retrospectives’ were little more than mere clip shows.
I could go on, but I don’t want to hijack this page just to vent. I just wanted you to know that there are a lot of people (even at the network level) who wish there were other ways to raise funds than by having pledge drives.
I just watch PBS when there’s something specific on that I want to watch, like an episode of NOVA, Frontline or Nature.
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Peter David: I don’t even want to think what it’ll be like if government funding goes away altogether.
Luigi Novi: You mean like the other 99.99% of programming you watch that already doesn’t receive any? It’ll simply respond to market demands, like any other channel.
Oh goody. More crummy channels showing lousy programming, reality shows and the same commercial breaked and edited movies.
Those market demands turned AMC into a commercial-fest channel with heavily edited films; A&E from a culture channel into a combination of reality crap and repeats of crime shows; and Bravo stepped in to become the new A&E for a while before it devolved into reality shows about housewives, with the lone vestige of the channel’s original programming being occasional showings of “Inside the Actor’s Studio.”
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The market demands suck.
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PAD
IFC also started also editing their movies – cutting scenes and adding commercials, which sucks because well, one of their big selling points is that they’re unedited and uncut.
PBS … asks for money, and then proves they deserve it by getting rid of all of the shows I watch PBS for, and replacing them with stuff that is of absolutely no interest.
This is good marketing?
By and large, pledging around the PBS anchor shows (NOVA, NATURE, MASTERPIECE, etc) does no good: people simply don’t pledge (maybe they’ve convinced themselves that these shows will *never* go away). And, of course, the anchor shows are the most expensive to us.
The next time ANTIQUES ROADSHOW is bumped in favor of DOO-WOP’S GREATEST HITS, keep in mind the latter is supporting the former.
Actually, I think your first instinct was right. It gets so bad that whenever PBS shows something interesting to me, I always think, “Must be Pledge Week!”
Actually, I wait every year until PBS on Sunday nights show Masterpiece Mystery.
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It happens outside of pledge drives, and I get great shows like Inspector Lewis, Wallander, Sherlock, Inspector Lynley (no longer on), Foyle’s War (also no longer on), and the intimidating Hercule Peroit via David Suchet.
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It’s the only thing on PBS I care for. But I love it.
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And I understand the English Brogue because of it even more.
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Now what I want is another series of Feasting On Asphalt by Alton Brown, but that’s another channel.
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TAC
PBS has three shows I really enjoy on a regular basis…
History Detectives- Which has sometimes is cool even when the history of the object is not what they think.
The Continuing Adventures of a Ninja from Space- AKA Nova Science Now.
Our local station has a movie of the week which I will watch at least twice a month. It ranges from things like Arsenic and Old Lace to (oddly enough for PBS) Batman Forever.
Most PBS shows are on their website, often in perpetuity. (The Tennant/Stewart Hamlet, for example.) So you can watch PBS without the pledges.
And I for one think that PBS is still quite relevant, as no one else makes shows likes Frontline or American Experience.
The other thing that gets me about the pledge breaks is that they’re so freakin’ boring. I mean, I know the stations are on budgets, but really, what makes them think that listening to random station management (few, if any, who have any presentation experience or presence) encourages people to call in? Can’t they find anyone with some sense of creativity to write/perform their pitches?
Very occasionally, they do. I remember (and I think still have on tape somewhere) a mid-90s pledge night from KTEH in San Jose; they were the biggie in the Bay Area for sf/fantasy shows (Silicon Valley, go figure), and the programming that night was a marathon of the newest season of RED DWARF.
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Their hosts for the evening – in studio with the usual station personnel and volunteers – were Craig “Dave Lister” Charles and Robert “Kryten” Llewellyn. They were sharp, funny and apparently well-supplied with caffeine; by the end of the night they’d done just about everything to entertain except pants the station manager and set the studio alight. (I still remember a young staffer showing off the pledge gifts while the large potted plant in the background started stalking him a’la JAWS.) It was delightful anarchy from start to finish, and made the pledge breaks almost as much fun as the shows.
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I don’t know whether the station brought them in specifically for the night or whether they just happened to be in the Bay Area at the time (I do know that Charles was staying or visiting in San Francisco, because I met him in my local supermarket a day or two later.)
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Back when I was down in Florida, the guest host for the pledge drive/Doctor Who marathon was Sylvester McCoy. Oh lord was that funny. He put every bit of his time on things like The Ken Campbell Roadshow to good use doing goofy bits. He even recorded some bits for them to run later where you could run what he was doing behind the pledge hosts and it looked like he was messing with the set or messing with them.
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Funny, funny stuff.
Peter, I had completely forgotten this until your pledge break/Doctor Who post, but in one way, I owe a big piece of my professional career to New Jersey Network’s Doctor Who coverage. Back in 1986, the show was far and away their big money maker; so much so that they were producing additional Doctor Who specials to fill out their pledge breaks. At one point, they were going to bring in writer Terry Nation (who was now living in the States) and I asked one of the people at NJN if it was possible to get an interview with Terry for our Doctor Who club newsletter while he was in town. I was told which hotel he was being put up in and we made an appointment to come down and see him. As it turned out, I got to the hotel much earlier than I had planned and was sitting in the hotel bar waiting for the NJN guy to show up when I noticed a gentlemen sitting by himself in the bar, who liked very much like Terry Nation. I went over and introduced myself and he just couldn’t be nicer. While we were waiting for the NJN guy to show up, he suggested we start doing the interview anyway, so we got more than a half hour on tape before we were meant to start. As it turned out, that conversation started a long friendship that continued for many years. Some time after that interview, when I tried to get my foot in the door with Doctor Who Magazine, the editor asked if there was any way I could track down Terry Nation, who had moved to America and was apparently very difficult to get in touch with. I picked up the phone, Terry said yes immediately and I made my very first professional sale. So that’s my big, albeit convoluted PBS story.
Personally I don’t know why PBS doesn’t just break down and start running commercial breaks. It doesn’t have to be every five minutes like local stations, or eight minute breaks (it feels like) as they do on cable. Just run a three minute break at three minutes before the top and bottom of the hour. That would be less annoying than pledge breaks that seem to run twenty minutes on their own. Or start using product placement: Jim Lehrer reading the news off of a Sham-Wow.
Because then, the sponsors have a say in what PBS broadcasts, instead of the viewers. Given the pap which I recall running on standard commercial channels, I’d rather at least one channel was willing to risk the good, if under appreciated stuff.
PAD,
In this, I guess I am lucky. I have DirecTV, but they don’t carry a local PBS station, so we get a generic national feed. Now, the downside, is that we don’t get any of the local goodies, like Dr. Who or As Time Goes By, but we do get all the PBS national stuff like Mark Twain, Pioneers of Television, Masterpiece Mystery, Antiques Roadshow, etc. without pledge breaks or other silliness.
Most of the pledge drives feature the syndicated stuff, like the Doctor, As Time Goes By, and the other BBC stuff because it ISN’T on the national feed and distinguishes them from the other PBS and local stations. To be honest, I miss them… 🙁
Charlie
I remember at least one year where the local PBS stations ran a short piece with a woman announcing that this would be the place where a pledge break would occur, but they had enough pledges that they didn’t have to run a pledge drive at that point.
The pledge breaks I find most annoying is where they have some relative of the person being profiled on to help sell more merchandise and it’s obvious that they’re uncomfortable doing so. Worse is the talking head hosts who have little or no idea what they’re even talking about, but they must fill a certain block of time.
I think a lot may depend on where you live. In Oklahoma, we only have the Pledge Drives for two weeks each in March and August, so if you just ignore the channel during those times, you don’t have to worry about it. Also, in recent years they’ve filled almost their entire Pledge schedule with music shows, so you don’t have to miss their regular programming– it won’t be on until the drive is over.
And just in case you might have thought this was a new thing, there’s the 2002 video game, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City. One of the stations on the radio is VCPR, Vice City Public Radio, which repeatedly (and loudly) prides itself on being “commercial-free” – especially on the multiple pledge-break interrupts. Here’s a sample, one of my favorites:
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Jonathan Freeloader: You’re listening to VCPR. Finally, a radio station for teachers and librarians. You’ve been enjoying Pressing Issues. As is normal, you can’t listen to an hour’s worth of programing on this station without us begging for money. It’s the bi-daily begathon here on VCPR, where we hold your favorite shows hostage until you pony up some cash.
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Michelle Montanius: You know what’s so great about VCPR? It’s like a shining torch of cultural enlightenment for Vice City. In these times of darkness when the hordes are so uneducated, they can barely understand multi-syllabic phrases like, “Clean my shoes better, Narissa, or I’ll report you to the INS!” or “dialectical materialism”. Isn’t it great to have a patronizing voice on the radio?
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J: That’s right, Michelle. With the way things are going under Reagan, the unwashed huns from the midwest could descend upon Vice City and enslave the poets and postal workers and force us to watch network programming.
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M: That is a frightening thought, but like many things in life, you can throw money at something and feel better about yourself. VCPR is your public radio station, but you have to open your wallets.
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J: That’s right. If you pledge at the $1000 level, you’ll get tickets for “In the Future, There Will Be Robots” at the Vice City Art Center.
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M: People who see that show say it’s difficult to put into English. That must mean it’s spectacular.
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J: Yes, but if you don’t give money to VCPR, we could be thrown back to the Stone Age. Liberals will be set on fire in the streets. Give now. Let’s return to Pressing Issues. Over to you, Maurice, in the studio!
The Ben Stiller Show did a great sketch about this, back in 1992 or whenever that show was on. Janeane Garofalo kept breaking into a very Masterpiece Theatre-esque program every thirty seconds: “Nowhere else can you get great programming like this — and certainly not commercial-free!”
It ended with her appearing on the set of the actual program she kept interrupting, having a complete meltdown and viciously insulting the viewers. “The gravy train is over, people. For god’s sake, stop taking and taking — put something back INTO the system for once!”
It was one of the better sketches from that series, I thought.
The problem isn’t so much that PBS is unwatchable but, for me, they all are. Television has the word ‘vision’ in it. It is, in large part a visual media. And I’m a highly visually-oriented individual. So, when the stations/networks started polluting their broadcasts with those branding ‘bugs’, and throwing on other unwanted crap over the image, I switched off. The worst is probably CW where a friend showed me an episode of SMALLVILLE where, at one point, nearly one quarter of the screen, if not more was covered by a ‘you’re watching’ and channel name and what’s next banner/bug. I love BIG BANG and HOUSE. But that’s what DVD sets are for. Seeing them pristine, as they were meant to be seen, on my schedule and without the several weeks’ gaps the networks often throw in the middle of the year.
Exactly, I hate when they block out the show with garbage. I’ve reduced my tv time to a few shows and the rest I watch on dvd. This gives me time to get other things done, read a book, etc.
At the risk of veering wildly off the point, Starwolf has just brought up one of my pet peeves, which is the increasingly small amount of screen space devoted to the actual program versus the increasingly large amount of that space given over to on-screen promos. My personal least favorite has to be USA who seemed to pioneer the the use of actual moving characters over the screen while a program was in progress. The last straw for me the use of moving tennis players complete with ball. That’s when I gave up USA pretty much for good.
While I was in LA (early 90s) as a teen, I was amazed at how the credits at the end of each show would get squeezed and deformed into one half of the screen while they advanced the next program or even put an ad into the other half. At that time I found it incredibly rude and demeaning towards the talent who worked on those shows.
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Then just a few years later most spanish networks scrapped the credits altogether, killing my brief sense of cultural righteousness.
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Yes, they do that even with The Simpsons, even the episodes with end credit final gags.
The sad part being how many people just put up with it, many figuring “There’s nothing I can do” when there is. It’s very simple. Join Joe above in no longer watching. Get enough people to do it and it won’t take long for the networks to clean up their act … and the screen.
My local PBS station had a pledge drive a year or so ago where they ran a show about Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds musical. I’m almost positive one of the pledge gifts was a DVD of the show, but it doesn’t seem to exist.
Did anyone here get that DVD, or remember their station offering it?
Well, there’s this, but it’s Region 2.
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http://www.amazon.com/War-of-the-Worlds/dp/B000I6AMW2/ref=sr_1_3?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1300163703&sr=1-3
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There’s a CD which is readily available.
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PAD
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Yeah, and if you want to really drop money you don’t have, look up “Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds” on iTunes.
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There’s also this –
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8JLqsbK5V0
I’m not a fan of PBS. Loads of people from my school have shot and sold documentries to them only to recieve I.O.Us for the past ten years.
I’m currently watching “Soupy Sales: The Whole Gang’s Here” on PBS. 🙂
I hear you, PAD. They don’t even play “Ebert Presents AT the Movies” for three weeks during “Pledge Season” in my town… I guess they think more people will turn in to see people asking for money.
In the interest of full disclosure, I work for PBS too. However, I watch many shows on our station that are aired uninterrupted such as Masterpiece/Mystery.
I’m not sure that watching stations with commercials is any better than watching pledge breaks. I was watching something last night on a commercial station and there would be five minutes of the show followed by another five minutes or so of commercials. Pledge breaks may be long but my experience has been that longer portions of the show will air in-between.
Many shows are also available on our website. I’m glad some of the posters here have been able to use that resource. I have watched our shows on-line as well. However, keep in mind that if PBS stations no longer exist, the websites will go away too.
I don’t think anyone wants either PBS or its websites to go away, Rebecca. But I don’t really think you can take your stand on the basis of that commercial networks aren’t any better. The point of the frustration is that the point of PBS is to BE better than the networks.
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Pledge breaks may be long? Pledge breaks ARE long. At least with commercials, you know that you can get up, go to the bathroom, go grab a snack, check your email, whatever, and by the time that’s done, the show’s back. With the pledge breaks, you can do all of that and still have another five minutes of people staring right at you making you feel guilty if you’re not funding them. Plus at least many commercials have entertainment value. If PBS really wants to be like commercial television, then have pledge breaks with the imagination and entertainment value of commercials.
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I mean, what kind of bumper sticker is “PBS: Worse Commercials Than You’ll See on Networks”?
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PAD
I wasn’t really trying to take a stand – just expressing a personal opinion that I find commercials make a show more “unwatchable” than pledge breaks. One of the reasons is because commercials are much more frequent. Plus, PBS pledge breaks don’t affect all the programs year-round. I’m able to watch many shows without interruption at all.
I suppose the biggest problem, Rebecca, is this: If one watches PBS year around, then you have a context in which to put the pledge breaks. But most of what PBS puts on the air isn’t all that interesting to me. And when it DOES put on something interesting to me, boom: It’s during pledge drives.
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So what I infer from that is that PBS has various TV shows that they know could have wider appeal than what they’re currently airing, but they deliberately hold off on airing them until pledge drives. If, on the other hand, they put on shows of wider appeal without attaching “strings” to them, so to speak, they might well be able to increase their audience base. At the very least, they’d probably get me watching more, because if I were tuning in for one show I might wind up seeing promos for other things of interest. As it is…not so much.
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PAD
I’m sure that PBS stations do aim programming around their pledge drives. I would be surprised if they didn’t. It’s their opportunity to communicate to as many people as possible the need for funding support from the viewers.
In regards to the pledge drives not being entertaining enough, they are a little different from commercials. During commercials the advertisers want you to stay tuned and watch their commercial and not change the channel. I discussed this thread with one of our programming executives and the difficulty is that if pledge breaks are more entertaining, people will watch and not take the opportunity to call in with financial support. The station needs to create a balance which gives them the opportunity to relate the station’s message to the viewers. I do watch programs that are pledged and those that aren’t so I can only speak from the perspective of someone who hasn’t been put off by pledge drives.
I also asked about Doctor Who. The station did air the first series of the new Doctor Who with Christopher Eccleston. However, I was told that the viewership was low and the pledge dollars did not cover the cost of airing the program. The station lost money and could not justify airing additional seasons.
I discussed this thread with one of our programming executives and the difficulty is that if pledge breaks are more entertaining, people will watch and not take the opportunity to call in with financial support.
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Here’s where that theory falls apart: The Jerry Lewis telethon. The Comic Relief telethons with Whoopi Goldberg, Robin Williams and Billy Crystal. When you get down to it, those are nothing but huge pledge breaks. They’re also hugely entertaining, and they rake in tons of cash. With all respect, you can tell the programming exec that it just comes across to me as an excuse not to change the way things are done.
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I mean, here are the choices: Have boring, tedious pledge breaks that drive people away. Or take a cue from both Madison Avenue and telethons and have them be entertaining and involving, and thus have a better chance of getting people to phone in.
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PAD
I have to agree with PAD and others that, of late, the only times there is anything interesting on PBS is during pledge drives. I used to watch shows on the network, back in 05 and 06. But, when I realized that it had literally been over three years since I’d watched anything that wasn’t interrupted by pledge drives, I removed the network from my “Favorites” section on the cable box.
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Before that, I enjoyed Monty Python, Chef, Red Green Show, and some others that I have since forgotten the names of.
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Oh, and I have a Dr Who / PBS story as well. In the late 80s, PBS broadcast The Five Doctors during a pledge drive. I expect many people here remember it, as it was an occasion when the Americans got to see it before BBC broadcast it.
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During the breaks in the show, the phones were lit up constantly. The host reminded people that in order for the channel to continue showing Dr Who, they needed viewer support.
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It was the last Dr Who episode shown on my local PBS channel. A year later, they had a Dr Who marathon during the pledge drive. Again, they had a lot of on the air phone activity, again they asked viewers to pledge money to keep the show on the air.
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That particular drive, my father worked the phones as a volunteer. At the time he was a city councilman and had been invited to show community support. He told me that there were more calls logged during the Dr Who marathon than during the regular programming.
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Again, the channel didn’t pick up Dr Who.
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A few years later, I was taking journalism in college I was a county away, but still serviced by the same PBS outlet. For one of my assignments, I interviewed the programming director at PBS and specifically asked about Dr Who. In my research before the interview, I read that there were less than 10 PBS stations who did not carry Dr Who. So, a focus of my article was going to answer the question as to why our local PBS did not carry what was clearly a popular show, especially given that there were 6 colleges in the broadcast area.
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The answer was that a (single) church group had written in to complain that Dr Who was “too violent” and did not include enough “educational content” to fit the PBS image. He straight up told me that this one group of people all of whom were from the same church were single handedly responsible for the removal of Dr Who from the programming guide, and that it was replaced by a quilting show that they specifically requested.
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I asked if there was any public backlash. And, he said that they had received so many letters and specific requests for Dr Who, especially during pledge drives, that he hired an office temp during every drive just to sort out and answer, if necessary, any communication that was Dr Who or BBC related. He didn’t see any problem with turning these people’s support away in preference of the one church group, however. In fact, I remember him saying that the people who requested Dr Who always pledged something anyway.
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I don’t really have a lesson or anything that I learned from that. But, I’ve always thought that it was interesting that a small group of people could have such a large affect on multiple communities.
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Theno
Wow, that’s just…wow. You’d think he would be too embarrassed to be so honest.
Apparently, the Jerry Lewis telethon will be moving to a shorter format of six hours this year partly due to the difficulty in getting stations to commit 21 1/2 hours.
I haven’t watched in recent years but I remember it being an annual event growing up.
Pledge Drives: I recall one year my local PBS station ran short of funds at the end of their fiscal year and ran an emergency pledge drive, for all practical purposes holding their regular programming hostage for the specials (3 Tenors, etc.). They announced over and over again that the MINUTE they reached their goal they’d return to regularly scheduled programming. They also said that their pledge drive schedule could be found in the daily newspaper (this was long before The Internet), but that wasn’t true.
Telethon: ’round these parts the Jerry Lewis Telethon hasn’t been seen in its entirety in years. They only show a few hours a day, devoting the rest of the time to their regular programming (a CW Network station).