Save your tears for Big Bird and PBS
All over social media, I see pictures of “Sesame Street’s” Big Bird looking sad or heading towards a chopping block.
Child favorite Elmo is also said to be threatened if President Trump’s budget is passed as presented, which would mean defunding of the Public Broadcast System (PBS) and, I guess, the same fate for the Children’s Television Workshop” that owns “Sesame Street” and created and have rights to Big Bird and Elmo.
I know cuts to useful, widely enjoyed, and general laudable agencies and programs are popularly thought of as tragedies wrought by political Philistines, but don’t weep too sobbingly or too soon.
As you can also see by the amount folks posting on social media say each taxpayer’s levy contributes to PBS. Somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.50, government funding or subsidy of PBS is icing on the fiscal cake. The public network could not survive on such a pittance. And doesn’t. There are indeed public television stations that live hand to mouth and barely survive on the gifts of sponsors and listeners. Most, especially major stations in big cities, such as Philadelphia’s (actually Wilmington’s) WHYY, are solvent corporations that easily make their annual budgets and enjoy the same advantages as commercial stations.
More, because they receive tax money rather than paying it. Their 501(c)-3 status as public charities protect them from such.
Being forgiven taxes doesn’t necessarily mean overhead is low or that expenses more easily met, but it does provide public stations with more accrued cash to broadcast, program, administer, and work on various projects.
Not having commercials that interrupt programs and, in theory, pay for those programs doesn’t mean public television doesn’t sell air time. Its execs just look for one sponsor who will underwrite an entire show or series and get credit as a benefactor at the end.
Regular begathons bring in plenty. It is unfair is a way to watch a variety of programs on Channel 12 or listen often to Terry Gross or Marty MossCoane on its radio outlet, 90.9 FM, without sending in a buck or 50 when asked. Same with Temple’s WRTI (90.1 FM) to which I subscribe.
Stations may lose some funding if federal dollars are taken away, but nothing significant to the point of threatening closings, layoffs, or suspension of audience-appreciated programming.
As for the parent body, PBS, it may be a blessing for it to be privatized as a charitable organization rather than a government entity. Then it would be independent and immune from whatever winds blow from each incoming presidential administration. I think that would be a relief.
The difference would be a more concerted fundraising effort by PBS, the maindownsides of which would be too few people responding, which might be an indication the general public doesn’t value PBS, and local entities, such as ‘HYY, may balk in having some of its funds skewed to a national pot instead of staying in its coffers.
I won’t say that public television stations’ budgets are bloated, but I have seen multiple incidents of public TV spending in ways that would be questioned, and justifiably, at a commercial station.
I would prefer that this year, Congress grant PBS its stipend for fiscal 2018 and stipulate as seed money, a last dose of revenue before PBS or the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are left to fly on their own as nonprofits, but I see no catastrophe if the president gets his way and defunds immediately.
As for the forlorn Big Birds and Elmos that pepper my computer monitor and only get my attention because of some professional interest in television, they won’t and can’t be victims in anything.
Look at how much merchandise relate to “Sesame Street” is available at local shops. Try to think of a child who doesn’t have an Elmo. Cookie Monster, or other “Sesame Street”-related doll in their toy chest. Consider that in Langhorne, adjacent to Oxford Valley Mall, is an entire “Sesame Street” theme park that draws millions of visitors from all over the world each year.
Everything involved with “Sesame Street” and Sesame Place is copyrighted, trademarked, and licenses. If it could keep track of each bakery that offers Elmo cupcakes, Children’s Television Workshop could eke royalties from them.
PBS and CTW don’t need public money. They may have to return some taxes or pay occasional fees based on business deals unrelated to their charitable mission, but, in general, they and other companies are doing just fine.
PBS doesn’t even have to be provider of programs other networks wouldn’t touch any more. There are so many choices, even operas, ballets, and glimpses of Broadway’s “Hamilton” would find some outlet to broadcast them.
The only people I feel some concern for are artists that might depend on a PBS gift to complete a worthy project. A well-run, conscientious charity would be able to do that as well.
Complain as you will about cuts to public broadcasting and the way some spinners comment on them. PBS can exist without the government, and we may all be better off if it did.
Remembering Chuck Barris
Chuck Barris, who died last week, was such a master of bombast, I once joked, to him, it’s a good thing his first initial isn’t an “M.”
Barris, who had a distinguished and interesting military record, is responsible for some of the silliest and most permissibly salacious television games shows of the ‘60s through the ‘80s. Winklingly suggestive through “The Dating Game” and “The Newlywed Game” could be, and as outright awful and insulting as “The Gong Show” was, Barris created popular entertainment that amused enough Americans to keep his programs running for decades. Reruns of “The Newlywed Game” continue to air on the Game Show Network, which revived the show with Carnie Wilson and Sherri Shepherd in Bob Eubanks’s host spot earlier this century.
Barris’s style of programming, quizzes geared upon making participants look bad, fizzled out big after its heyday, but memories of his shows last. “The Dating Game” has a become a model for similar matchmaking shows. People of a certain age continue to make a gong sound when less than charmed with a joke, song, or other act someone is performing. I, for one, have run to the gong many times while watching “American Idol,” “The Voice,” and other talent contests, especially when I hear a singer who insists on creating his or her own tunes or adds trills and screams to a rendition of a song that requires simplicity or only the histrionics its composer already provided.
As is common with TV-related celebrities who have passed lately, I had the chance to interview Barris. In addition to being quite fascinating about how to appeal to a wide public, he told me a story from 1952 that paralleled a famous scene from the 1967 movie, “The Graduate.”
“You know when the guy comes up to Dustin Hoffman and says, ‘plastics?’” Barris asked. “Well, that was the exact decision I had to make. In 1952, when I left Drexel, the two growing businesses were plastics and television. I knew I would towards one of them. Television won out.”
Barris also married into a television family around that time. A Philadelphian, his wife for about 15 years was Lyn Levy, who was a member of the family that joined with the Paleys to form CBS.
Ironically, Barris’s biggest hits aired on ABC and NBC.
Appreciate his work or not, Barris was a keen hand at creating television. His time in the limelight is long past, but I bet people of his time hear ‘The Dating Game” and start humming “The Little Spanish Flea” (as I’m doing right now, while rolling in the jazzed up Mendelssohn notes that start “The Newlywed Game”).