[klaxon horn sound] From Friday’s Washington Post:

The [House] subcommittee acted to eliminate within two years all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which passes federal funds to public broadcasters — starting with a 25 percent reduction in CPB’s budget for next year, from $400 million to $300 million.

In all, the cuts would represent the most drastic cutback of public broadcasting since Congress created the nonprofit CPB in 1967. The CPB funds are particularly important for small TV and radio stations and account for about 15 percent of the public broadcasting industry’s total revenue.

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Several denounced the decision by the panel, which has 10 Republicans and seven Democrats, as payback by a Republican-dominated House after years of complaints from conservatives who see liberal bias in programs carried by the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. Broadcasters noted, for example, that the 25 percent cutback in next year’s CPB budget was a rollback of money that Congress had promised in 2004.

PBS, in particular, drew harsh criticism in December from the Bush administration for a “Postcards From Buster” episode in which Buster, an animated rabbit, “visited” two families in Vermont headed by lesbians. And programming on both PBS and NPR has come under fire in recent months from Tomlinson, the Republican chairman of the CPB, who has pushed for greater “balance” on the public airwaves.

The Observer reported somewhat hysterically on this about a month ago, claiming that:

A handful of senior figures at PBS have now begun alleging privately that it represents a Republican takeover of public broadcasting in an American media world already heavily skewed to the right. They may be right. But they seem powerless to do anything about it. The corporation board is now looking for a new chief executive, and Tomlinson has made no secret of his preferred choice. Step forward Patricia Harrison, a former senior figure in the Republican national committee. If there is any bias at PBS, methinks it will soon of the right kind, rather than the left kind.

Yes, folks - the U.S. does have public broadcasters. They are small and more local compared to their European counterparts (they do not benefit from massive state subsidies and operate in a much more competitive multichannel environment), but do produce some distinctive programming. I’m not very knowledgeable in this area, but in addition to federal funding, it appears they are mostly funded by viewer donations and corporate / university charitable sponsorship - i.e., they are community-spirited. Click here for more details, but it basically looks like in 2003, the total revenues were $2.3 billion, of which the federal government contributed about 20% (16% from the CPB, 4% from other federal sources). Viewers and listeners voluntarily pumped-in a staggering $600 million. Not bad.

I also think it is safe to say that the radio portion (NPR) of U.S. public broadcasting has much more social impact than the television portion (PBS). And, like most public broadcasters, they seem to completely miss-out on the key youth market and anything remotely trendy!

This recent concern over the CPB’s funding underscores many of the problems with public broadcasting: No matter how society tries to insulate the public media from political control, there will always be seen to be a problem, usually one of control by the political party in power — whether they are on the right or left. Further, cutbacks in public funding of public broadcasting will almost invariably be linked by some to ideology, or attempts to control — whether or not that is the case. Finally, similar to the Jerry Springer debate in the U.K., people naturally feel they have a valid complaint when public money is used to broadcast something they disagree with. Basically, this means that public broadcasting will never be free from political controversy — it is a built-in feature of the system.

And on the issue of which viewpoint ‘controls’ or ‘dominates’ American media - the right or the left? Although asked all the time, it’s a fundamentally silly question when the most influential news and current affairs shows in the U.S. are late-night comedy shows, and one fake news show in particular, The Daily Show.

We’ll keep an eye on this…