Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: "Adam H. Kerman" <ahk@chinet.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.tv
Subject: Re: White House Publishes List Of Grievances Trashing "PBS, NPR
 Grift" That Has "Ripped Us Off"
Date: Fri, 18 Apr 2025 17:46:33 -0000 (UTC)
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Crosspost to newsgroups Ubi doesn't read cut

Dimensional Traveler <dtravel@sonic.net> wrote:
>On 4/18/2025 1:08 AM, anim8rfsk wrote:
>>Ubiquitous <weberm@polaris.net> wrote:

The full-text quote of copyrighted material that Ubi the shithead
plagarized came from here:

https://www.dailywire.com/news/white-house-publishes-list-of-grievances-trashing-pbs-npr-grift-that-has-ripped-us-off

>>>The White House released a report on Monday, delivering a detailed
>>>laundry list of grievances with National Public Radio (NPR) and the
>>>Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and making the case for stripping
>>>the two networks of any and all taxpayer funding.

>>Do it do it do it do it DO IT!!!

>Its not like they get much federal funding to be taken away.

That's not true.

There are certain minimum costs to broadcasting and maintaining the
radio or tv license that apply to whether the station is in a small
market or large market. The small-market stations that were once
sponsored by school districts and colleges and universities are now
offering programming beyond what that initial sponsorship paid for. They
don't have the ability to make up for revenues lost if the federal
subsidy via Corporation for Public Broadcast is yanked.

Indirectly, yes, this will mean fewer public radio stations that are NPR
members, cutting NPR's indirect subsidies as well.

I have explained before that PBS is effectively syndication, that
national programming doesn't necessarily run in a given time slot
(although most affiliates run most programs at the national time)
because unlike CBS, NBC, and ABC, there is no O&O concept and affiliates
are not being paid to clear prime time, Instead, PBS affiliates acquire
programming, hoping to sell it to other affiliates.

Again, if the small-market affiliates can no longer afford to buy this
programming or can no longer afford to broadcast at all, this will then
affect funding for the rest of the country.

I don't expect the major PBS affiliates that provide the bulk of
programming nationwide to be affected so adversely that they[ll go out
of business. That's WNET New York, WGBH Boston, and WTTW Chicago. For
whatever reason, I've never noticed that the Los Angeles public
television station provides any national programming, but if someone
knows that they do, please point this out.

I don't think this is entirely about Trump's pettiness for unfavorable
news coverage. In fact, it makes no sense. Trump is a grievance-monger.
His brand is entirely based on, I seak my mind, and my opinions are what
YOU believe, If I don't get covered, it's really the opinions of
American society getting censored.

If you failed to notice, Trump got the Republican nomination for
president three times in a row, getting elected twice. He thrives on
unfavorable news coverage. He spent far less in 2016 than Hillary,
getting elected thanks entirely to free media.

Why is Trump really doing this? The more public radio and tv affiliates
that can be forced to give up their broadcast licenses, the more
spectrum that can be resold and repurposed by the enormous license
holders, generally the big cell phone carriers. They own broadcast
spectrum repurposed from radio and televiwion.

This would be particularly effective in narrowing the FM radio spectrum
available for over-the-air broadcast. Public radio is concentrated at
the left hand of the FM dial. There are also religious stations; I don't
know how Trump will attack those. But get rid of public radio, than all
the spectrum 91.9 FM and below can be auctioned off.

It wouldn't be as effective with public television which never had a
reserved block of channels. With repacking, most television has been
moved to UHF but there are still a few stations in the narrowed VHF
spectrum; I don't know if this includes any public television.

In my opinion, C-SPAN was right and NPR/PBS was wrong because nothing
resembling news for the Amerian public should be government funded.
However, there's no realistic way to fund small market stations, so I
think federal subsidies should remain.