Posted on 02/16/2011 6:28:56 PM PST by pissant
Looks like it’s Jim DeMint vs. Elmo.
To fight back against Republican plans to cut funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Democrats and other supporters have been enlisting the help of the lovable creatures from Sesame Street and other popular public broadcasting programs. Today, Arthur the aardvark appeared at a Capitol Hill press conference.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.wsj.com ...
I say a big ole Oscar the Grouch bah, humbug.
Sesame Street itself is good enough that it could be easily privatized by someone like Disney or MGM. The rest of the drek couldn’t survive without subsidy and should be allowed to die a merciful death.
IF there is sufficient demand for NPR, it should be able to stand on its own...period. The PBS TV funding is, in fact, a tougher nut to crack because of the emotional games played with the children’s programming. If compromise is needed, they need to maintain funding for only the children’s educational portions and dump the rest. In 2011, there are a dozen or two dozen other channels with political roundtables and news. The model created 50 years ago simply is not relevant today. Shift the children’s education into a different department, and slice the rest.
ping
DeMint!
I think I vaguely the Muppets coming to the rescue the last time the Republicans tried to cut PBS funding. If the funds were cut, children everywhere would cease learning how to count and spell.
It didn’t take the Republicans long to put up their hands and surrender.
Sesame Street has already been privatized by... PBS. The PBS/Sprout cable channel is packed with commercials.
It’s competitor for toddler eyes, Nick Jr, with exception of ad’s for it’s own programming has no commercials.
If PBS goes off the air a commercial channel will pick up Elmo and his friends.
Eliminate all the NPR and PBS funding.
Hey kids, ask mom if she would rather eat or watch Elmo?
The "model" was based on classical music and "education" for areas which were "underserved". Lake Placid, NY served as the "model" -- being a 100 miles away from any other signal...and in the Adirondack mountains where no signal could reach.
It was also the ski resort of choice for the era's "beautiful people".
Children's programming wasn't part of the "model" until the late sixties -- early seventies.
What we have now is a whole network full of programming that is a.) self-indulgent on the part of the producers and actors and b.) funded by the taxpayers...when there is absolutely no need for their product! That's without bringing up the issue of their incessant liberal politicking.
If the producers and actors want to survive, then they should turn a profit -- just like the rest of us do. If they can't do that, they should expire -- just like the rest of us do.
Beneath it all, I don't care that they are universally liberal. I care that they prosper on the subsidy provided by my tax money.
The Sesame Street show producers and franchise owners make monster profits from branded Sesame Street merchandise. Years ago the show was created by PBS, but the non-business savvy PBS execs let PBS these profits slip away when the contacts came up. PBS pays the Sesame Street outfit for the show and gives them air time, but has never seen the real $ the show generates.
This and other poor business management at PBS means the taxpayers get soaked. Another example is all the fancy equipment and high staff levels PBS stations have compared to commercial station, again taxpayers pay. Time to cut PBS from the government teat.
A number of years ago I walked into my wifes office as some of the ladies of the CSR team were discussing “Brokebutt Mountain” between phone calls. I then learned about the movie from my wife when I asked her what the “H” they were talking about.
I can understand from the explanation I got why they disgustingly called it “Brokebutt Mountain”.
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I found that there were lots of PBS programs that are quite good. Mystery, for example, has been wonderful for years. Remember NOVA? There are great things out there; I’d hate to see them discontinued or have 10 minutes of commercials (no exaggerations) between segments.
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