Exactly. I've noticed the argument lately has become "we need to keep public funding for these programs because PBS is the channel that EVERYONE can access. They're arguing that poor people need to be able to watch the kinds of shows on PBS that other people have to pay for on cable channels. I guess those folks don't realize that there are not many households in this country that DON'T have cable, even among the so called 'poor'.
But there are folks who will continue to support PBS, and that's fine. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting can fund the network with the sales of DVDs of their programs, and throw a little advertising on the programs as well. Heck, they already do that with Masterpiece Theatre! Viking Tours has a short ad at the beginning and end of the program, and I don't have a problem with that. If they don't want advertisements on their childrens' programming, that's ok. They make plenty of money off the toys and educational items based on those shows even without any advertising, as the figures in your post show very clearly.
PBS could fund itself rather well, if it had to do so.
The $450 million that PBS is vastly understated. There’s huge amounts funneled through National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, special grants, pressure on state governments to contribute, etc.
In addition to extravagant salaries paid to all the bigwigs in public broadcasting, their program providers have become multimillionaires. Garrison Keillor, Steve Smith (Red Green), Ken Burns and many others have won life’s lottery in public broadcasting.