If one gives enough thought to the issue of federal funding for public broadcasting, one may readily conclude that calls for elimination of funding are senseless. Think about the reasons federal funding for public broadcasting was established three decades ago. One key reason had to have been that Congress and the administration then felt commercial broadcasting left something to be desired for the American viewing public.
They were perceptive enough to see what profit-driven broadcasting had become and would continue to be: Programming that was simply a vehicle for marketing products, programming that largely neither engaged nor challenged the viewer. In short, commercial programming was and continues to be pap for passive viewing.Commercial broadcasting's primary function is to make money. To maximize that function, shallow entertainment wedges between mostly inane, mindless advertisements. On a frequent, consistent basis, commercial programming in no way provides telecasts equal to that produced by public broadcasting.
The raison d'etre of commercial broadcasting is to make money. If commercial broadcasting would have seen profit in the kind of programming public broadcasting produces, then it surely would have produced it long ago . . . it hasn't and it won't.
A fair-share reduction in public broadcasting funding along with other federal programs is reasonable, but total elimination of those funds? That is a truly misguided notion.
Steven Purhonen
Salt Lake City