PBS Should Have Seen This Coming

Underneath the Meme is an Easter Egg: The Foo Fighters covering Roky Erickson's Two Headed Dog

Listen, I'm old. When I was kid, there were 3 network channels, ABC, NBC, & CBS. There were a handful of independent TV stations on the UHF dial. And there was PBS. If you wanted to watch TV, you had about 8 choices in the greater Cleveland Area. When Cable came, many households went from those handful of choices to hundreds of choices. It was then that PBS should have started thinking about their own mortality.

But no, they held pledge drives and talked about how "important" Public Television was. Did I ever donate? Uh, no, I paid a Cable Bill. But I did have Aunties who pledged.

Without picking on PBS specifically, the fundamental question is: Should the government be in the media business. And as a Libertarian-leaning website, the answer is easy: No.

What should Public Broadcasting mean?

Before I answer that, let me just spell a few things out. Our co-conspirator at Beacon of Speech, Ted, has over-the-air television. He has 62 channels. Before he cut the cord, he had 100 cable channels. If he upgraded, he could have had 200 channels. My family cut the cord, but now has 5 paid streaming services and 2 free streaming services. One of our free streaming services is Pluto with, at least, 100 channels. I could easily argue that there's 500 channels out there for consumers without even including paid streaming options.

If PBS went belly-up, what shows would I want to save from the station? Austin City Limits and Nova. That's it. Austin City Limits would surely be picked up by another network. Nova is just a science show, not unlike The Universe on the History Channel. Nova could easily be assimilated into the NatGeo stable.

So what's so special, program-wise, that Congress would have to step in to save PBS?

The answer is nothing. It is a relic of a bygone era.

Then why is everyone so upset? In a TV landscape awash in low concept television, PBS was the symbolic home of elitist Liberalism.

To me, Public Broadcasting should have meant exactly what it says, the- public- is- broadcasting. On cable, there used to be Public Access, but those shows quickly withered away. Where, in 2025, can the public have access to broadcasting? Almost nowhere. There are still gatekeepers at all different levels.

When Trump was president the first time and he threatened to defund PBS, they should have done some self reflection. Instead, other lefty publications rallied around PBS. The headlines screamed DONALD TRUMP HATES BIG BIRD across the nation.

They should have asked themselves "if we're 99% Liberal, and we all hate the president, maybe we should diversify to better represent the public before the next Republican comes around." I think they were legit shocked when Trump was re-elected.

You're screaming 'PBS should only do what PBS wants to do!' Well guess what, once the purse strings are detached, they are free to do whatever they want. They can be the hoity-toity version of MSNBC. PBS could be bought by Disney, they have value. PBS will have to run commercials? You mean like everyone else? PBS isn't good enough to be its own streaming option.

Or they might just fold and you'll have 499 options instead of 500.

Your favorite channel is PBS?

No it's not. I've never met anyone whose favorite channel is PBS.

Libertarians have been prone to calling PBS - American Pravda

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