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Every time there’s talk of cutting PBS spending, Democrats bring out Big Bird and Elmo and claim that Republicans want to kill them.
Right on cue, Rep. Robert Garcia put on a show, brought out a picture of Elmo and claimed that “Elon Musk and Marjorie Taylor Greene are trying to defund Sesame Street and dismantle PBS and NPR.”
Fact check. Sesame Workshop reported $559 million in assets and $187 million in revenues in 2023. It had $271 million in revenues in 2022.
The organization is coming off a 5-year-deal with HBO Max where it was making $30 million or so off its old episodes, and it’s now looking for a new partner, destroying the myth that we need to fund the rest of PBS’s nonsense to save Elmo and Big Bird.
Sesame Street Workshop is in the red, but it’s not because there isn’t plenty of money already coming in.
The New York Times ran a sob story about it titled ‘Why Does Big Bird Look So Sad?’ The organization cut 20% of its staff and claims it has a $40 million deficit. Why? The Times didn’t care to dig so deep.
But CEO Stephen Youngwood was making over $1 million a year, President Sherrie Rollins Westin earns $864,748 a year and the combined C-suite salaries amounted to over $6 million.
If they really want to save Elmo, maybe they can take a pay cut?
PBS: Propaganda Broadcast System.
What I take away from this is that the supporters of big government like the status quo just the way it is. They and loathe the idea of doing anything that changes it in any way. Government malfeasance, political corruption and waste, fraud and abuse is totally acceptable to them because either directly or indirectly, they benefit from it all.
Their attitude is: It’s the way things have always been done. Why change now?
If PBS wants to politicize Elmo, why not have him come out against Human Trafficking?
I recall some butt-clown former probably illegal “president” saying “at some point you’ve made enough”! Of course HE and the possible man he’s married to don’t seem to have arrived at their “point” as yet!
NPR WAS supposed to be National PUBLIC Radio – a non-partisan effort to entertain and educated ALL Americans. And just like most other Gov’t agencies, the leftists nosed their way in and dug in like a tick on a hound’s butt! It’s abused it’s “right” to be funded by US TAXPAYERS!
We used to live in a very rural area – way back (1977) when there were basically THREE networks. We were able to get ONE PBS or NPR tv station. They had some decent programming, mostly British comedies and some woodworking shows. Today, it’s more like a DEMOcrat propaganda network with so many leftist offerings that it’s just not worth exploring unless you lean WAY to the left!
I doubt it can be fixed so just let it go it’s own way and if the left wants it – let them support it with their billion$!
I used to watch PBS but got tired of those stupid Pledge Breaks so I quit watching PBS
Me too. Years ago, I stopped donating. I believe it was during a fund raising phone call I received from them (ancient times) when I told them their politics were offensive ( probably, it was some overt anti Semitism I was objecting to ). I recall their response. “We are sorry you feel that way.”
I long ago stopped talking to lefty anti-Semites. Or watching their shows.
Readers must be sleeping in this morning – this is the second article with the same cup of java I’ve read this morning with only one or two comments – so let me be the third comment – MAGA DOGE is bringing the wasp nests out of the attic – What they thought they could be so callous and careless about with their commie deep state oligarch commie agendas is being revealed and their past printed and recorded comments they don’t recall, they didn’t make, or those statements meant something else.
These many treasonous to careless blutocrats screwed the pooch and got careless and flagrant and screwed the pooch in public, online posts, and their dinner galas – They all joined in their pride parade of treason – We’re treason and we’re proud floats — they actually thought this was the future and built their foundation on sand –
It was never sustainable – only YHVH’S (G-D of the Bible) plans are sustainable when we get on board – The deep state parade is of the devil – People just don’t want to think that critically and apply this overlay to human life now and in the past. However, these words that I type and you read will prove themselves because I too had to learn the hard way until that became the path of least resistance and the winning and sustainable ways
MAGA is here to stay – the devil is a defeated foe – these lunatic leftards are with the devil
PBS is another government funded organization that shills for the Democrat party. Perhaps, if they were truly nonpartisan, I would feel a little sorry about potential government cuts. But, nope.
The one holding the stupid Sign is your typical Braindead Liberal Democrat
Rep. Garcia is a typical Berniecrat – that is, someone who shills for Bernie Sanders.
Carcia? Gomez? Didn’t I see that guy on TV in black and white? Or picking up my trash?
What? Is he trying to steal Jizzmine Crockett’s five minutes of infamy?
We will be glad to take over Elmo and turn him into a free and true American and cast off
the brain and soul mutilations he has been subject to under the Democrat Fourth Reich.
PBS and NPR may have made sense at one time as an alternative to the “Big 3” television networks, as well as radio. In the early days of broadcasting, CBS, ABC, and NBC dominated the airwaves, and much of what you saw on television or heard on the radio was merely repetitive or an echo of what was on the other channels/stations, which was commercially driven by advertisers, hence the term “soap opera” for daytime dramas targeted to housewives sponsored by soap makers.
PBS (and its precursor NET) and NPR came about to provide a medium whereby the people could go on the air, and create their own content. And initially, it was pretty much like that. Local public radio stations played classical or jazz music, and maybe had one or two talk shows or lectures. Public television had “educational programming” which was locally produced, of which Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood was one of the most famous.
The debut of Sesame Street in 1969 created a new trend in public broadcasting, namely creation of content not locally, but by slick national companies, which would then syndicate their programs, for fairly high fees, to local stations. Suddenly, the fund drives for local stations were not to pay for keeping the lights on, but to pay for those syndication fees.
Since then, PBS and NPR have become de facto commercial television and radio networks, without all the messy business of having to deal with and be accountable to advertisers and shareholders. And they’ve done it with corporate money, foundation money, your pledge money, and a big chunk of government money.
With new forms of communication media having come on the scene, the rationale behind PBS and NPR has really evaporated in an era of streaming media, podcasts, and smartphones. We all have our own TV and radio studios in the palm of our hand.
And then there is the politics. It is gospel truth that PBS and NPR are heavily slanted to the left—and public money is used to promote a leftist agenda. If any government funds are used, they should be used to promote all points of view equally.
With that in mind, it’s time for Uncle Sam to either privatize PBS and NPR as actual commercial networks and let them go out on their own, or reinvent them as real public access radio and television, with more locally produced content and less nationally syndicated stuff and make public broadcasting truly public and politically neutral.
PS: In all of this, I’ve been hearing two different and contradictory messages: On the one hand, PBS and NPR keep saying that the amount of government money they receive is trivial. On the other hand, losing government money would spell disaster for PBS and NPR. You can argue that the amount of government money involved is trivial, or you can argue that it is crucial. You can’t argue both, after all, one argument negates the other. So which is it?