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How Public Broadcasting Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff Works
0:04
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark.
0:13
Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry, which means it
0:16
Speaker 1: is time for stuff you should know about public broadcasting.
0:22
Speaker 1: How are you feeling good full of beans today? That's
0:27
Speaker 1: the last thing I wanted to hear. And you're stuck
0:29
Speaker 1: in here with me for a couple of hours, buddy, dear,
0:32
Speaker 1: that's the musical fruit. Yeah, that's what I hear. That's
0:37
Speaker 1: what I've been here since I was six years old.
0:40
Speaker 1: Is it musical fruit? I thought it was magical fruit.
0:44
Speaker 1: Uh music, probably regional Huh, like soda and coke and
0:51
Speaker 1: pop in all that musical magical, don't talk about it
0:55
Speaker 1: at all, one of them. Actually I grew up. It
0:57
Speaker 1: wasn't even musical. I just grew up with beans, beans,
1:00
Speaker 1: good for your heart. Oh well, that that's pretty that's real. Yeah.
1:05
Speaker 1: So that's the That's how I rolled in the a
1:07
Speaker 1: t l um. So you're feeling uh, you're feeling pretty good. Yeah.
1:14
Speaker 1: I think it's a very wonderfully disrespectful way to open
1:17
Speaker 1: up a show about one of our finest institutions. I
1:21
Speaker 1: really feel on edge because you know that every single
1:23
Speaker 1: MPR personality is going to hear this one. You think
1:27
Speaker 1: every single one guy ros right now is sitting there
1:30
Speaker 1: like these two idiots. Terry Gross already thinks for idiots.
1:34
Speaker 1: She is my hero, buddy. I don't think that there's
1:37
Speaker 1: ever been a finer radio program than Fresh Air. Yeah.
1:41
Speaker 1: I mean, she's the best. She's a legend, she's awesome.
1:44
Speaker 1: Uh have you ever heard an interview with her? Uh? No, there,
1:49
Speaker 1: I recommend it. She's a pretty sharp tack. So I'm
1:52
Speaker 1: sure they're pretty fun. In fact, you know what perfect
1:55
Speaker 1: time to shout out our buddy. Jesse Thorne of Bull's
1:59
Speaker 1: Eye with Jesse Thorn has a short run series called
2:03
Speaker 1: The Turnaround where he interviewers legendary He interviews legendary interviewers. Okay,
2:10
Speaker 1: Ira Glass, Harrol Morris. What I think Terry Gross is
2:14
Speaker 1: in there? I'm not sure, you gotta be. I don't
2:18
Speaker 1: think hers is out yet. I'm not gonna promise that
2:20
Speaker 1: because I'm not positive. Okay, but I can hold my
2:23
Speaker 1: breath all right. But it's a really cool show. Very Uh,
2:28
Speaker 1: it's really interesting to hear because I think Jesse's a
2:30
Speaker 1: great interviewer, and then to hear him interview the great
2:33
Speaker 1: interviewers about interviewing, it makes your head just turn a
2:37
Speaker 1: hundred navy degrees. It's really cool. Alright, Chuck. Yes, so
2:42
Speaker 1: we're talking public broadcasting, which depending on how you Okay,
2:47
Speaker 1: you're a big fan. Sure, so it probably doesn't sound
2:50
Speaker 1: a dull to you talking about public broadcasting. But I've
2:53
Speaker 1: shows people out there who just walked right past this one,
2:57
Speaker 1: and hopefully some of them said, you know what, I'm
3:00
Speaker 1: gonna give the dude's a chance. I'm gonna listen. Those
3:02
Speaker 1: people will be richly rewarded by this episode, because it
3:06
Speaker 1: turns out the public broadcasting, it's history, it's present, its
3:11
Speaker 1: future hopefully all very interesting. Yeah, and if you are
3:16
Speaker 1: not a fan of it, then, um, well you're in
3:20
Speaker 1: the minority technically. Yeah, they've got some big numbers, bigger
3:24
Speaker 1: than I realized. Yeah, more than half of the US
3:26
Speaker 1: population tunes into public TV or radio or online. So
3:33
Speaker 1: we're talking PBS and NPR generally, that's a hundred and
3:37
Speaker 1: seventy million Americans, and um they it says here that
3:42
Speaker 1: PBS gets has more viewers than our dearly beloved Discovery Channel,
3:47
Speaker 1: even HDTV and A and E, which are all thought
3:51
Speaker 1: of as well. They are very big networks, juggernauts. Yeah,
3:55
Speaker 1: but I think people hear PBS you get a certain like.
3:59
Speaker 1: I think some people think it's the treasure that it is.
4:02
Speaker 1: Some people might be a little bored by it without realizing.
4:05
Speaker 1: Oh but wait a minute, I saw Monty Python and
4:07
Speaker 1: Benny Hill on PBS. I'm so glad you when I
4:11
Speaker 1: was a kid to think of Benny Hill or I
4:14
Speaker 1: sure loved Dowton Abbey and oh wait a minute, that
4:16
Speaker 1: was PBS two our Antiques road foe. I mean some
4:20
Speaker 1: Mr Rogers, some some of the more legendary shows in
4:23
Speaker 1: American history. Right, And it's not like all things considered
4:26
Speaker 1: in Morning Edition and Fresh Air and wait, wait, don't
4:30
Speaker 1: tell me, are like are any slouches at all? You know?
4:33
Speaker 1: Like this? This are like if you step back and
4:36
Speaker 1: put the rosters of MPR and PBS together, it bakes
4:40
Speaker 1: up a pretty big swath of the American fabric. Totally agreed. Yeah, well,
4:47
Speaker 1: thank you. I agree with myself on that one as well.
4:50
Speaker 1: So I didn't realize how new they were, though, did you. Yeah?
4:56
Speaker 1: I thought I think I thought it was seventies. Oh well,
4:59
Speaker 1: you were dead on. It started in Actually it goes
5:03
Speaker 1: back a little further than that to the public Um
5:06
Speaker 1: Public Broadcasting Act, and actually we should go back even
5:09
Speaker 1: slightly further than that to set this whole thing up. Right,
5:13
Speaker 1: So radio comes up, it starts to become a mass medium, right,
5:20
Speaker 1: and the UK and Europe, in America at the time,
5:25
Speaker 1: we're basically faced with this thing, like, we've got this
5:28
Speaker 1: huge new technology. Up to this point, it's been newspapers
5:32
Speaker 1: and dudes on horseback running through towns. That's how we
5:34
Speaker 1: got the word out. Now everybody's starting to get radio.
5:38
Speaker 1: So we've got this this really powerful thing. What do
5:41
Speaker 1: we do with it? And over in Europe and the UK,
5:44
Speaker 1: they said, this is a public good and we need
5:47
Speaker 1: to treat it as such. We need to we need
5:49
Speaker 1: to take it seriously. We need to make sure that
5:52
Speaker 1: public affairs programming gets onto the air and they don't
5:55
Speaker 1: have to worry about competing for ad dollars or anything
5:58
Speaker 1: like that. We're gonna fund it pub lookally, in the
6:01
Speaker 1: US we released two acts. There was the Radio Act
6:04
Speaker 1: of and the Communications Act of four and both of
6:08
Speaker 1: them set up the current competitive capitalist market that we
6:13
Speaker 1: have for broadcasting in the country, right, and it worked,
6:17
Speaker 1: there's from what I've seen. One of the reasons why
6:20
Speaker 1: it worked was because there was also this kind of
6:23
Speaker 1: tacit understanding among journalists who were part of these broadcast
6:28
Speaker 1: networks that they had a responsibility to inform the public.
6:32
Speaker 1: And they were also only three of them at the time. Sure,
6:35
Speaker 1: but um over time, broadcasting in the United States went
6:41
Speaker 1: more and more and more toward entertainment because that could
6:44
Speaker 1: get more people, and that's that meant you could get
6:47
Speaker 1: more advertising money. So we got further and further away
6:51
Speaker 1: from public affairs programming and news and got more and
6:55
Speaker 1: more into entertainment. And by the fifties it became evident
6:59
Speaker 1: to some people that we needed something in addition to
7:03
Speaker 1: or to replace, the commercial model that we had in
7:07
Speaker 1: the US. Yeah, and this was even pre cable TV,
7:10
Speaker 1: like these are just the net the big three pre Fox,
7:14
Speaker 1: even this is ABC, CBS and NBC. Uh starting to
7:19
Speaker 1: show things like the Honeymooners and realizing people who are
7:23
Speaker 1: way more into the Honeymooners than Walter Cronkite, Well maybe
7:26
Speaker 1: not they were, people were into the news back then. Yeah,
7:30
Speaker 1: But even if even if you do have people who
7:32
Speaker 1: are into the news. There are some certain things that
7:35
Speaker 1: have to do with the commercial model when put up
7:38
Speaker 1: against the public broadcasting model, that inherently make public broadcasting
7:42
Speaker 1: more appealing if you're trying to get public affairs programming across.
7:46
Speaker 1: And one of the big ones, Chuck, is if you're
7:49
Speaker 1: a program director for NBC and it's prime time, when
7:54
Speaker 1: you know everybody's home, are you going to put on
7:57
Speaker 1: one of your big money makers like the Honeymooners that
8:00
Speaker 1: can charge top dollar from advertisers for or you're gonna
8:03
Speaker 1: put on the McNeil lair News Report where you're where
8:08
Speaker 1: you're not gonna get as many people. But there's some
8:10
Speaker 1: really in depth investigative journal journalism because they don't have
8:13
Speaker 1: to worry about attracting advertisers ideally, um they can just
8:17
Speaker 1: focus on the journalism. Which one are you gonna do? Well,
8:20
Speaker 1: you're gonna do both, but it's a matter of when
8:22
Speaker 1: you do both, you know, right, So are you gonna
8:25
Speaker 1: do one like at five thirty? Right? Are you gonna
8:29
Speaker 1: do a prime time and at five thirty not everybody's
8:31
Speaker 1: home from work yet, So overall you have a less
8:34
Speaker 1: informed citizenry just from when you choose to put news on.
8:39
Speaker 1: I haven't watched. I don't watch the news any more
8:43
Speaker 1: at all, not even cable news. But I can't remember
8:46
Speaker 1: the last time I watched like local news or a
8:49
Speaker 1: news program on a network. I don't even know. I
8:52
Speaker 1: guess when I lived in l A. I didn't have cable.
8:55
Speaker 1: I would watch the news sometimes because I don't think
8:58
Speaker 1: I had the Internet yet. I had like an antenna.
9:02
Speaker 1: My my news Chunky Dumb has come and gone, like
9:05
Speaker 1: over time, waxed and wayne. It feels pretty gone this time. Yeah,
9:10
Speaker 1: just getting used up by cable news used Yeah, just
9:16
Speaker 1: being done with. It's pretty freeing, isn't it. Yeah, even
9:18
Speaker 1: networks I like, you know, I just I don't want
9:19
Speaker 1: to hear it anymore. Um And the way people in
9:22
Speaker 1: just news these days is just so different, you know. Yeah.
9:24
Speaker 1: I get most of my news honestly from Twitter. Yeah,
9:27
Speaker 1: social media, that's how it's done these days. But I
9:30
Speaker 1: was going back to l A. I was. I used
9:33
Speaker 1: to sit around and watch local news in l A.
9:35
Speaker 1: Was pretty great. I have to admit, there's a lot
9:38
Speaker 1: of Yeah, it was just weird and the personalities were
9:41
Speaker 1: kind of interesting. But yeah, I mean I think it
9:43
Speaker 1: was like started at like four thirty and ran all
9:47
Speaker 1: the way up to whatever. The big nightly news programs were,
9:50
Speaker 1: what like seven yeah, yeah, hours and hours of weird
9:57
Speaker 1: Southland news. Yeah, was told to you by a man
10:01
Speaker 1: wearing a cape. Maybe yeah, it was that weird yeah,
10:05
Speaker 1: or I don't know, it was strange. But then I
10:07
Speaker 1: kind of missed the old Atlanta News because I grew
10:09
Speaker 1: up watching that's pretty stayed with giant helmet hair. That's
10:13
Speaker 1: a land in local news. Yeah, And I think most
10:17
Speaker 1: cities have these stalwarts that have been around forever. You
10:20
Speaker 1: know Monica Kaufman, Yeah, who is married now she's not
10:23
Speaker 1: even Monica Kaufman anymore? What is what's her name? Now?
10:26
Speaker 1: I don't know because I want the news in twenty years,
10:28
Speaker 1: but I think someone told me, you know, she has
10:31
Speaker 1: a married name. Now, I was like, what, huh, that's
10:33
Speaker 1: Monica Kaufman or that you know, you would see one
10:36
Speaker 1: of them. I've worked at the Laser Show and I
10:37
Speaker 1: would see like Ken Burns, the weather man at the
10:40
Speaker 1: Laser Show, and it's like a legit celebrity signing. Oh yeah,
10:44
Speaker 1: he gives you like the wink, and everyone's crowding around
10:46
Speaker 1: getting his autographs. It's the anchorman thing, you know. It's
10:50
Speaker 1: like the salad days, Yeah, which are now gone because
10:55
Speaker 1: of cable news in the Internet. Well, yeah, the salad
10:57
Speaker 1: days for them. Sure, Now it's our salad days. It's time. Yeah,
11:01
Speaker 1: that's true too, And that applies not just to local news.
11:03
Speaker 1: It applies to news in general, um, including MPR and
11:08
Speaker 1: including PBS that there's this huge shift. I don't know
11:13
Speaker 1: if you've heard this, but there's a big shift to
11:15
Speaker 1: the Internet now. That's true. People are starting to consume,
11:18
Speaker 1: like you said, news in different ways, and public broadcasting
11:22
Speaker 1: is having to keep up just as much as anybody.
11:24
Speaker 1: But it's occupies this weird niche that we'll get into.
11:28
Speaker 1: But you want to take a break first and regroup. Yeah,
11:31
Speaker 1: we'll come back here and talk about Linda Johnson. I
11:34
Speaker 1: can't wait. Alright, Chuck d J. Yes, lb J. Did
12:04
Speaker 1: you know that he owns some I think TV stations
12:08
Speaker 1: back in Texas when he was a senator. I don't
12:11
Speaker 1: think I knew that he was, So he was real
12:12
Speaker 1: in favor of public broadcasting. Well that kind of makes sense. Yeah,
12:16
Speaker 1: so in nineteen sixty seven, Uh, well, I mean in
12:21
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty seven, he signed the Public Broadcasting Act into law.
12:25
Speaker 1: But previous to this UH, there was something called the
12:28
Speaker 1: n ET UH National Entertainment Times WACA WACA. What was it,
12:37
Speaker 1: I'm sure it was National Education Television, Yes, National Education Television.
12:41
Speaker 1: They were the precursor to UH what would eventually become
12:45
Speaker 1: CPB Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But at the time n
12:50
Speaker 1: e T would UH. They would run things that could
12:53
Speaker 1: be critical of the government and its foreign policy. And
12:56
Speaker 1: some say, I don't think it was entirely due to that,
12:59
Speaker 1: but some say that that did play a part, and
13:01
Speaker 1: the government eventually funding via the Public Broadcasting Act public television,
13:08
Speaker 1: so maybe they could get a little bit more favorable coverage.
13:12
Speaker 1: It's pretty North Korean and mentality if you think about it,
13:15
Speaker 1: you know, and if you step back and look at it,
13:17
Speaker 1: the idea of public broadcasting, government funded public broadcasting should
13:21
Speaker 1: terrify everybody. But the way that it's always been right, right,
13:26
Speaker 1: But the way that it's always been pitched and and
13:29
Speaker 1: um and sold is no, it's taxpayer funded, so it
13:33
Speaker 1: belongs to the people, and that the government. It's supposed
13:35
Speaker 1: to be insulated. It's a different estate. It's the fourth estate.
13:38
Speaker 1: It's not the government, it's its own thing. It's supposed
13:42
Speaker 1: to be kept separate. So I was surprised to see that,
13:44
Speaker 1: but it makes total sense, the idea, oh yeah, we'll
13:47
Speaker 1: bring you into the fold, will fund you, but you
13:49
Speaker 1: owe us big time. Yeah. I mean I wonder what
13:52
Speaker 1: kind of like real talks were had over that, if any,
13:55
Speaker 1: or if it was just sort of like understood, like, hey,
13:58
Speaker 1: here's who's right in your checks now. Well, I think
14:00
Speaker 1: it was also a convergence of different interests, right, So
14:04
Speaker 1: the government wanting to get rid of criticism or clamped
14:08
Speaker 1: down on criticism coincided with people who wanted more public
14:12
Speaker 1: affairs broadcasting, and then you had some endowments that were
14:16
Speaker 1: well healed, well moneyed, and they all kind of came
14:19
Speaker 1: together to create this Corporation for Public Broadcasting that came
14:22
Speaker 1: out of the Public Broadcasting Act. Yeah. So this, uh,
14:26
Speaker 1: like you said, you set it up nicely with radio,
14:28
Speaker 1: but um radio started to decline with the advent of television,
14:34
Speaker 1: and so in order, I mean, one of the main
14:36
Speaker 1: reasons they signed the Public Broadcasting Out was trying to
14:39
Speaker 1: get the this non commercial radio going in a legit way.
14:43
Speaker 1: So they signed Johnson signs the act. The federal government
14:47
Speaker 1: creates uh CPB, like we mentioned, Corporation for Public Broadcasting,
14:53
Speaker 1: and they are not They don't produce TV. They basically
14:58
Speaker 1: dole out money. Uh. They're the they're the gatekeepers. Yeah,
15:04
Speaker 1: in here yourself a nice little radio transmitter with this.
15:09
Speaker 1: But now that's what they do. Yeah, they do a
15:11
Speaker 1: lot of money. They cover licensing fees, are copyright fees,
15:14
Speaker 1: they cover a lot of the technical infrastructure, um. And
15:20
Speaker 1: they give a lot of money directly to smaller market
15:25
Speaker 1: MPR or PBS stations. Yeah, I mean they created the
15:29
Speaker 1: cb uh I say that the whole time CPB created
15:33
Speaker 1: uh MPR in nineteen seventy and before that PBS and
15:37
Speaker 1: sixty nine. They basically said, we need a TV wing
15:39
Speaker 1: and a radio wing going to create these and we're
15:42
Speaker 1: gonna doll out money uh this year actually and then
15:51
Speaker 1: projected or at least asked for for twenty nineteen. They
15:54
Speaker 1: have requested the same amount of money. But you don't
15:57
Speaker 1: even see that very often where they're not asking for
15:59
Speaker 1: a raise or whatever or increased funding of four hundred
16:03
Speaker 1: and forty five million dollars, which amounts to point zero
16:07
Speaker 1: one zero one of the federal budget. Yeah, and there's
16:13
Speaker 1: a lot of debate that will get into when we
16:15
Speaker 1: talk about some of the controversies and criticisms of public broadcasting,
16:19
Speaker 1: and believe me, we're talking about those. But UM, a
16:22
Speaker 1: lot of people say, that's pretty disingenuous to point out
16:25
Speaker 1: what a minuscule amount of the budget that is, because
16:29
Speaker 1: it's still four d forty five million dollars and still
16:32
Speaker 1: half a billion dollars. And then on the other side,
16:36
Speaker 1: which we'll hear a little bit more about two Um,
16:39
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are on the public broadcasting
16:41
Speaker 1: side say, just forget, just get rid of that, just
16:45
Speaker 1: we don't need that money. Let's go without. If there's
16:47
Speaker 1: so many strings attached to that four five million dollars,
16:51
Speaker 1: it makes up such a small portion of say like
16:54
Speaker 1: MPR itself operating budget, that we just don't even need.
16:58
Speaker 1: It's not even worth the trouble. Big debate, which is
17:01
Speaker 1: weird because some some people on the UM public radio
17:05
Speaker 1: side and some are critics of public or public broadcasting,
17:09
Speaker 1: UM government funding for public broadcasting. Yeah, it's a little weird.
17:16
Speaker 1: I mean, trust me, I've I've found myself reading some
17:18
Speaker 1: of this thinking maybe you should just be free from
17:21
Speaker 1: those shackles, because sometimes the public will step up and
17:26
Speaker 1: you might get more funding. Yeah, you know, when something
17:30
Speaker 1: is threatened, right, yeah, yeah, at least first the question
17:35
Speaker 1: is whether that could be sustained for the long term,
17:38
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, well, we'll get into all that you mentioned.
17:42
Speaker 1: Uh MPR they actually get UM less than one percent
17:46
Speaker 1: of that for their operating budget. So the million, it's
17:50
Speaker 1: not like they say, all right, MPR you get two
17:53
Speaker 1: d and twenty something million, and PBS you get the rest.
17:57
Speaker 1: Uh MPR gets less than one percent, And they actually
18:00
Speaker 1: have a mandate CPB of their spending UM has to
18:05
Speaker 1: be on local public media station's content development, community services,
18:11
Speaker 1: and then what they they call other related needs toilet paper,
18:15
Speaker 1: I guess, and stuff like that keep the A C on.
18:19
Speaker 1: So chuck, here's how here's how the whole thing works.
18:22
Speaker 1: You're ready, yep, You and I pay taxes, goes. Some
18:27
Speaker 1: of it goes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in
18:30
Speaker 1: the form of about four million dollars a year. Yeah,
18:34
Speaker 1: and in the form of about like four dollars per textpayer.
18:38
Speaker 1: I saw, I saw between saw one one group found
18:41
Speaker 1: a dollar thirty five a person and for every person.
18:44
Speaker 1: I don't think for every tax paying person. Oh I see, okay, well,
18:47
Speaker 1: then for every tax paying person it's about four bucks um.
18:50
Speaker 1: So taxas go to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and
18:55
Speaker 1: then um, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting spends like that
19:00
Speaker 1: on the small local stations, right okay, Well, and you
19:04
Speaker 1: know the other stuff of content development okay. And then
19:08
Speaker 1: you've got the small local stations subscribing to MPR and
19:13
Speaker 1: PBS who have shows that they create, produce mprs very
19:19
Speaker 1: famously all things considered in Morning edition right started in
19:23
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one and the Morning Edition in nineteen seventy
19:25
Speaker 1: nine running. So all that money goes taxes Corporation to
19:29
Speaker 1: Public Broadcasting, smaller affiliates, and then it goes back up.
19:33
Speaker 1: So it goes down from the top to the smaller
19:36
Speaker 1: affiliates and then back up to MPR and PBS, ok
19:40
Speaker 1: for the for the programs that they're developing. So rather
19:43
Speaker 1: than the taxes going directly to MPR or to PBS,
19:48
Speaker 1: it goes to the Corporation Republic Broadcasting. But even still,
19:52
Speaker 1: rather than going directly to MPR PBS, it goes to
19:55
Speaker 1: the smaller affiliates who then give it to MPR and PPS.
19:58
Speaker 1: And by give it you mean they licensing fees to
20:01
Speaker 1: play those shows on their right exactly. Yeah, like they
20:04
Speaker 1: I think they subscribe and they paid like a yearly
20:07
Speaker 1: fee to carry that show. Yeah. And when it first
20:10
Speaker 1: started NPR, and we'll cover NPR first largely and then
20:14
Speaker 1: get into PBS. But is when MPR started and at
20:19
Speaker 1: the time there are only ninety member stations and now
20:22
Speaker 1: they are close to a thousand member stations all over
20:25
Speaker 1: the country licensing these legendary shows. Right. And then for
20:31
Speaker 1: the smaller local affiliates, if you have all things considered on,
20:34
Speaker 1: you're going to attract a percentage of your town's listeners.
20:40
Speaker 1: The more listeners you have for that, the more pledges
20:43
Speaker 1: you'll get during your pledge drive, right. And then you also,
20:47
Speaker 1: the more listeners you have, the more UM contributions you
20:51
Speaker 1: can get through underwriting too. Yeah, but also you'll have
20:55
Speaker 1: to pay more money to license these shows too write
20:57
Speaker 1: the more listeners you have, Yeah, Like, Um, well, I
21:01
Speaker 1: guess we should go over where they get their funding largely,
21:04
Speaker 1: and then how they charged the member stations. Uh and
21:10
Speaker 1: um says was from fees and dues from member stations,
21:15
Speaker 1: the close corporate sponsorship which has risen over the years.
21:21
Speaker 1: I think I think that was kind of a controversial
21:23
Speaker 1: thing for a while, whether or not they wanted to
21:25
Speaker 1: take on any of that. I think, is it like
21:28
Speaker 1: how much they're beholden to that, Yeah, that makes sense,
21:31
Speaker 1: grants and contributions and then um, like you mentioned foundations, endowments,
21:39
Speaker 1: colleges and universities, stuff like that will pitch in some
21:42
Speaker 1: dough what's the big one that it's always the Katherine T.
21:49
Speaker 1: John d and Katherine Tee MacArthur found exactly. It's like
21:53
Speaker 1: drilled into your head after all these years. And the
21:55
Speaker 1: Chubb group for PBS, oh yeah, and members like you,
22:00
Speaker 1: um Morning Edition and all things considered, they are UM
22:06
Speaker 1: stations are charged based on the volume of their listeners
22:09
Speaker 1: plus a multiplier, and then things like fresh air apparently
22:13
Speaker 1: are priced in proportion to that station's revenue, So smaller
22:17
Speaker 1: stations don't have to pay as much as bigger stations,
22:19
Speaker 1: which is great because again the whole idea between behind
22:23
Speaker 1: public broadcasting is that you have stuff that's supposed to be,
22:27
Speaker 1: like you said, not beholden to advertisers. So if company
22:31
Speaker 1: X is, you know, screwing over this town's water supply then,
22:37
Speaker 1: but they advertise with all of the broadcast networks that
22:40
Speaker 1: are commercially driven, those those networks. News might not mention it,
22:45
Speaker 1: but public public broadcasting will probably do that story and
22:51
Speaker 1: we'll let everybody know. Yeah, that's the idea. So it's
22:54
Speaker 1: important for everybody to have public broadcasting. And that's why
22:59
Speaker 1: the the smaller ones are supported by the larger ones. Exactly. Yeah, um, PBS.
23:07
Speaker 1: On the other side, we mentioned Mr Rogers, Nova Man
23:12
Speaker 1: Growing Up. That was a good one. Wasn't Cosmos on PBS?
23:17
Speaker 1: I think so? I think it was. Originally it seems
23:21
Speaker 1: like a very PBSC show. Sure, that turtleneck masterpiece theater.
23:26
Speaker 1: Of course, this old house, the frugal gourmet. Who was that?
23:30
Speaker 1: Was that? Julia Child or Jack papan Oh? Immediately thought
23:34
Speaker 1: Julia Child. But now you have me wondering. We'll find out, Okay,
23:37
Speaker 1: I'll get to the bottom of this child. You mentioned
23:40
Speaker 1: McNeil Lair Report Evening at the Pops Uh Sesame Street.
23:44
Speaker 1: Probably the most legendary not probably definitely the most legendary
23:47
Speaker 1: kids show of all time, and PBS gets about two
23:51
Speaker 1: hundred million viewers annually, representing eight t two of US
23:58
Speaker 1: television households. So they're they're big, you know, they're not
24:05
Speaker 1: like I mean, I know you think of PBS is
24:08
Speaker 1: like the sweet little like publicly funded thing. But that's
24:11
Speaker 1: that's big stuff. Like if they took in ads, they
24:15
Speaker 1: probably wouldn't have to sweat it at all. No, you know,
24:19
Speaker 1: but that's a double edged sword because then they lose
24:22
Speaker 1: their their public value if they start taking an ad allegedly,
24:26
Speaker 1: which again is why some people haven't really stuck in
24:28
Speaker 1: their craw that they have underwriting at all. Yeah, it's
24:32
Speaker 1: Jeff Smith. By the way, I never heard of him.
24:34
Speaker 1: Frugal Gourmet. Yeah, well not in the seventies, it wasn't. Yeah,
24:38
Speaker 1: it said. He released a book in nineteen eighty four
24:41
Speaker 1: called The Frugal Gourmet. He's the only person associated with it,
24:46
Speaker 1: Jeff Smith. It sounds like an alias to me. It
24:49
Speaker 1: really doesn't. Maybe it's Jacques Popin is French for Jeff Smith. Yeah,
24:54
Speaker 1: it says Jeff Smith. Four Jeff the chef. Chef Jeff,
25:01
Speaker 1: he was the Frugal Gore Mate. He was, according to
25:04
Speaker 1: the Seattle Post Intelligencer, TV's original celebrity chefs he wasn't
25:09
Speaker 1: that big of a celebrity apparently about that so, um,
25:12
Speaker 1: PBS has three hundred and fifty member stations as of now,
25:16
Speaker 1: and um they are in all fifty states plus Guam,
25:20
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands and American Samoa. Yeah. I
25:24
Speaker 1: got their own member stations pretty neat. And they, for
25:27
Speaker 1: the record, get about seven percent of their funding from CPB. Right.
25:32
Speaker 1: But just like with the NPR model, local affiliates, Yeah,
25:36
Speaker 1: pay to carry Antiques road Show as they should. Man,
25:40
Speaker 1: if you want to get some viewers, just have an
25:42
Speaker 1: antiques road show marathon. Do you watch it? Have you
25:45
Speaker 1: ever seen it? Um? Yeah, I have seen it. Uh
25:48
Speaker 1: so good. It's just it's like how it's made you
25:50
Speaker 1: just get stuck in it lulls you into its trap.
25:54
Speaker 1: Well that's like I mean this our own article at
25:56
Speaker 1: house stuff works as a little sidebar about the sound
25:58
Speaker 1: of NPR. How was parodied with Delicious Dish on Saturday
26:03
Speaker 1: Night Live so famously. But that's the thing, you know,
26:06
Speaker 1: you I'd used to listen to public radio on the
26:09
Speaker 1: radio during my commutes before I even really knew what
26:14
Speaker 1: I was listening to, because I didn't want to wake
26:17
Speaker 1: up to a lot of noise. Oh yeah, it's just
26:20
Speaker 1: so soothing. It just kind of eased you into the day. Yeah, absolutely,
26:24
Speaker 1: and it still does. I still listened to it four News,
26:27
Speaker 1: but largely because I want to hear the voices. Yeah, man,
26:30
Speaker 1: are you in the a MSR? The Second Cup? Oh
26:34
Speaker 1: is that still around? Writes us? Oh? God, bless her
26:38
Speaker 1: second Cup concert. Uh have you ever looked at pictures
26:42
Speaker 1: of these people? I know people freak out about us,
26:44
Speaker 1: but yeah, it happens. But you should see these people.
26:49
Speaker 1: I looked at Lowis, writes us, and I think I
26:50
Speaker 1: expected her to be like four years old. Yeah she's not. Nope,
26:55
Speaker 1: I've no I guess I've never seen and reem is thirty. Yeah,
27:03
Speaker 1: they'd like to hang on to folks. You know Herery Gross,
27:06
Speaker 1: she's been doing that show for since the eighties. Amazing.
27:11
Speaker 1: We should be so lucky, right, Hey, your lips the
27:14
Speaker 1: God's ear? Okay, okay, so chuck, um, there's there's a
27:23
Speaker 1: couple of things going on here. Okay, there are Um,
27:28
Speaker 1: we're getting into the sides. Yeah, there's so. One of
27:32
Speaker 1: the things that Congress likes to do every about five
27:35
Speaker 1: years is say, you know that public broadcasting that left
27:40
Speaker 1: leaning COMI drivel. Why are we playing for that? Yeah? Why?
27:44
Speaker 1: And so I was reading this dude named David Boaz
27:47
Speaker 1: or bows Boas, take your pick. He's one of the
27:53
Speaker 1: higher ups that the Cato Institute libertarian think tank. He
27:58
Speaker 1: hates public broadcasting in America. Most libertarians do. Like it is.
28:04
Speaker 1: It really gets to this guy, and he makes a
28:07
Speaker 1: couple of pretty decent points right like he his to him,
28:13
Speaker 1: it's a transfer of wealth from the average taxpayer up
28:17
Speaker 1: to produce entertainment that that you know, the upper middle
28:21
Speaker 1: class typically consumes, even though it's intended for everybody. Um.
28:27
Speaker 1: And so, from like a taxpayer standpoint, I can kind
28:30
Speaker 1: of understand where if you didn't agree with if you
28:33
Speaker 1: thought that this was leaning against you ideologically and taking
28:36
Speaker 1: your taxpayer money, I could see how something like that
28:40
Speaker 1: would drive you bonkers. Um to me, though, I think
28:45
Speaker 1: everybody kind of assumes that public broadcasting in the US
28:49
Speaker 1: leans a certain way, typically left ward, but supposedly, study
28:54
Speaker 1: after study find that they may be slightly left leaning,
28:58
Speaker 1: but they're typically a lot close sort of neutral than then, um,
29:02
Speaker 1: they're they're given credit for. Yeah, there've been overall, Yeah,
29:06
Speaker 1: there's been some things that have happened over the years. Uh. Notably,
29:09
Speaker 1: in two thousand eleven, MPR president at the time and CEO,
29:13
Speaker 1: Vivian Schiller had to resign UM or did resign at
29:17
Speaker 1: least when there was a video undercover video in a
29:21
Speaker 1: meeting where one of the executives called Tea party members
29:25
Speaker 1: seriously racist, racist people, right, there was a big deal.
29:30
Speaker 1: In fact, most of the stuff when you look up
29:33
Speaker 1: MPR controversies is all dated at two thousand eleven. For
29:37
Speaker 1: that reason, it was a big stink. Well, when they
29:39
Speaker 1: got rid of Vivian Schiller, they specifically said that under
29:42
Speaker 1: her watch some controversies had really gotten out of control
29:46
Speaker 1: and they just no longer thought she could lead any longer. Yeah,
29:50
Speaker 1: And so there was a study. Researchers at Duke University
29:53
Speaker 1: did a study of a Twitter of the Twitter network
29:58
Speaker 1: of MPR and like basically did all this Duke University
30:03
Speaker 1: style math that I won't bore you with, but to
30:07
Speaker 1: analyze whether or not MPR was left leaning or not.
30:11
Speaker 1: Um And it wasn't just NPR. They did this with
30:15
Speaker 1: a lot of news outlets and I think they never
30:19
Speaker 1: actually posted The New York Times, didn't UM there was
30:22
Speaker 1: a blog about all this, never posted where MPR fell,
30:25
Speaker 1: but they were asked and um, one of the researchers said, Um,
30:30
Speaker 1: MPR resides somewhat to the left of center, but further
30:34
Speaker 1: to the right than Katie Kuric the Washington Post, the
30:38
Speaker 1: l A Times, or Brian Williams, and that was using
30:42
Speaker 1: their algorithm. And then MPR kind of um hit back
30:48
Speaker 1: and said, in fact, Steve Williams Stevensky wrote it, wrote
30:53
Speaker 1: a article for The Wall Street Journal and said, in
30:56
Speaker 1: all these surveys, most listeners consistently identify themselves as the
31:00
Speaker 1: middle of the road or conservative. So a lot of
31:04
Speaker 1: people are like, oh, wait a minute, like that can't
31:06
Speaker 1: be true, And so they did. Um, they got the
31:09
Speaker 1: actual numbers from those surveys, and twenty percent of nprs
31:14
Speaker 1: audience said that they were conservative or very conservative, middle
31:19
Speaker 1: of the road and thirty seven percent liberal or very
31:22
Speaker 1: liberal SOT or middle of the road or conservative or
31:28
Speaker 1: middle of the road or liberals. So it's not as
31:32
Speaker 1: heavy and this isn't their programming. This is their audience, right,
31:36
Speaker 1: but it's not as heavy left as some might heavy believe. Yeah,
31:40
Speaker 1: and and just because that's their audience. I mean that
31:42
Speaker 1: kind of suggests that it is a little more left
31:44
Speaker 1: leaning because people tend to go seek out stuff that
31:47
Speaker 1: supports their own beliefs rather than challenges. It probably hats
31:50
Speaker 1: off to the middle of the road conservative ones that listen, Yeah,
31:54
Speaker 1: you want to take another break before we get back
31:56
Speaker 1: to it. So the I think it's almost really just
32:26
Speaker 1: kind of more a matter of perception. We were talking
32:29
Speaker 1: about whether MPR is left leaning or not, or public
32:32
Speaker 1: broadcasting in general. I think it's probably a little bit
32:35
Speaker 1: left leaning, but it's not how you know, it's not
32:39
Speaker 1: like the info wars of the left right, you mean CNN, UM.
32:47
Speaker 1: The uh. The thing about criticizing MPR, though, is you
32:53
Speaker 1: can go one way. You can say it's a little
32:55
Speaker 1: left leaning, but if you look on the other side,
32:58
Speaker 1: you'll find people like no, I'm chom Ski who say
33:02
Speaker 1: that's you're getting Mayre down in the details. He said,
33:05
Speaker 1: if you really listen to MPR, where you watch PBS
33:10
Speaker 1: UM and you listen to this stuff they're saying or
33:14
Speaker 1: the people they're having on as experts, it's the same
33:17
Speaker 1: that you're gonna find on cable news. And I think
33:22
Speaker 1: one MPR former MPR correspondent basically said that MPR runs
33:28
Speaker 1: press releases for the Pentagon. Noam Chomsky was saying, it
33:32
Speaker 1: was basically structurally there to support the status quo. Where
33:36
Speaker 1: if if they're presenting a debate and all all, you know,
33:39
Speaker 1: both sides of the debate, it's all still very structured
33:42
Speaker 1: within the status quo. They're not bringing in somebody who's like, well,
33:47
Speaker 1: all of this is moot point, we need to completely
33:50
Speaker 1: redo the structure of our economy or something like that.
33:54
Speaker 1: They don't bring in outside voices like that. They bring
33:57
Speaker 1: in voices that are exact us within normalcy or whatever.
34:01
Speaker 1: So there's a whole camp out there, um that that
34:04
Speaker 1: tend to say, remember that thing that Lyndon Johnson originally did,
34:08
Speaker 1: the reason why he founded the Corporation for Public Broadcasting
34:12
Speaker 1: to kind of keep a clamp down and criticism, to
34:14
Speaker 1: keep things within a reasonable spectrum. Well he succeeded. I
34:20
Speaker 1: kind of tend to agree with that. Yeah, I don't
34:23
Speaker 1: I feel like they usually provide counterpoints, right, They definitely
34:26
Speaker 1: provide counterpoints, but it's all that counterpoint is something that's
34:30
Speaker 1: still within the bounds of normalcy. There's not somebody coming
34:34
Speaker 1: in and saying like, forget those either points, like they're
34:36
Speaker 1: both we just gotta throw everything away and start over again.
34:41
Speaker 1: That that, I think the point is that it's lacking
34:45
Speaker 1: really really outside viewpoints, right, you know what I'm saying,
34:50
Speaker 1: outside the status quo. So this is all come up
34:54
Speaker 1: in the news more recently because this year when um
34:59
Speaker 1: uh Trump proposed his his budget proposal for UM, which
35:04
Speaker 1: is not you know, this is not settled or anything
35:06
Speaker 1: by any means. In fact, MPR people are like, you know,
35:09
Speaker 1: let's just settle down, like this isn't this is round one, um.
35:14
Speaker 1: But the proposal at least called for the eventual complete
35:18
Speaker 1: abolish meant that a word of public funding, uh, for
35:23
Speaker 1: for PBS, n NPR or for CPBRIGHT. And again you've
35:27
Speaker 1: got people on both sides saying, good, great, let's just
35:30
Speaker 1: get it over with. Yeah, an eventual meaning they wouldn't
35:33
Speaker 1: just pull it would be gradually over time, which of course,
35:37
Speaker 1: you know, makes more sense than just like doing it
35:40
Speaker 1: all at once, tearing the band aid off. Yeah. And
35:42
Speaker 1: you know, like I said, I'm always been a big
35:44
Speaker 1: supporter of public broadcasting, but I thought, you know, maybe
35:47
Speaker 1: just be free from those shackles finally, maybe the public
35:50
Speaker 1: would step up. Where where you get hurt and apparently
35:53
Speaker 1: where UM, PBS and NPR are both kind of trying
35:57
Speaker 1: to voice their most of their concerns is that you know,
36:00
Speaker 1: of course your big cities are gonna be fine, but
36:02
Speaker 1: it's the smaller market member stations that rely way more
36:07
Speaker 1: on the CPB funding UM that are going to be
36:11
Speaker 1: most hurt. And these are the people that need this
36:13
Speaker 1: stuff the most. These rural communities UH need public broadcasting.
36:18
Speaker 1: So it's hard to argue with that point. You know,
36:21
Speaker 1: it is for sure there's actually UM a historical lesson
36:25
Speaker 1: in here. You can look to New Zealand for this.
36:27
Speaker 1: Like back in the late eighties they try to deregulation experiment,
36:31
Speaker 1: but they had one channel tv n Z in the
36:35
Speaker 1: whole country and UM the government said, you know what,
36:38
Speaker 1: you guys are done with the teat of the government,
36:42
Speaker 1: go sell some ads, and they tried this experiment. T
36:45
Speaker 1: v n Z actually came out as I believe it
36:49
Speaker 1: survived UM, but it was worse for the wear as
36:53
Speaker 1: a result. And ironically UM, this deregulation opened a space
36:59
Speaker 1: for a true UM nonprofit non commercial television called UM
37:05
Speaker 1: New Zealand on air Uh, that actually came and thrived
37:09
Speaker 1: in the wake of this transformation for TVNZ from public
37:14
Speaker 1: broadcasting to commercially driven. So it's it's it's not necessarily
37:19
Speaker 1: gonna work out well for the people who listen to
37:22
Speaker 1: NPR or watch PBS if they go to completely commercially
37:26
Speaker 1: driven programming. And the whole reason that you have the
37:30
Speaker 1: corporation of public broadcasting ostensibly is because commercially driven journalism
37:37
Speaker 1: wasn't getting the job done before, and it certainly is
37:40
Speaker 1: it now. News rooms being cut um, news that is
37:45
Speaker 1: on cable being more and more polarized one way or another,
37:48
Speaker 1: and it's just shouting match after shouting match. If you
37:51
Speaker 1: really watch the news, the only people, aside from some
37:56
Speaker 1: of those old died in the world news people on
37:58
Speaker 1: like um, you know, NBC or CBS is like nightly news.
38:03
Speaker 1: The only ones really doing real journalism are the ones
38:06
Speaker 1: who are working for public broadcasting at the very least,
38:09
Speaker 1: they're the ones who are trying the hardest. For sure, Yeah,
38:12
Speaker 1: you could totally make that argument, But at the same time,
38:16
Speaker 1: we're in a weird limbo state where everybody's ticked off,
38:19
Speaker 1: right because it's PBS and NPR are not just not
38:24
Speaker 1: fully publicly funded, and they're not just advertising driven. There
38:29
Speaker 1: are a combination of the two that that that compromises
38:33
Speaker 1: them two different ways, which is why both sides are
38:36
Speaker 1: saying one or the other. I tend to feel like
38:40
Speaker 1: they should just go completely publicly funded and we should
38:44
Speaker 1: adopt something like a British model where it's like you're
38:48
Speaker 1: funded for the next five years, go do the public
38:51
Speaker 1: some good and you can't have any underwriting whatsoever. Yeah, well,
38:54
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting and that, um, most of Europe
38:57
Speaker 1: and Britain definitely went that other direction, like you mentioned
38:59
Speaker 1: at the ending, and in that one article you sent
39:02
Speaker 1: over talking about ways it's done public broadcasting in other
39:06
Speaker 1: countries as a whole, and they were talking about the
39:08
Speaker 1: BBC and they said, you know, who is the average
39:10
Speaker 1: I can't remember who they asked, but who's the average
39:13
Speaker 1: BBC viewer? And the answer was every British citizen right. Like,
39:18
Speaker 1: it's a much different deal, you know. And the BBC's
39:22
Speaker 1: criticized too for being a government mouthpiece in a lot
39:25
Speaker 1: of ways too, but they're also critical of the government
39:28
Speaker 1: in ways that other people aren't. And they'll also put
39:31
Speaker 1: news on at a time when everybody is home to
39:34
Speaker 1: watch it. That kind of stuff. So the future of
39:38
Speaker 1: broadcasting public broadcasting UM isn't as simple as like are
39:43
Speaker 1: they going to be publicly funded or not? UM, it's
39:47
Speaker 1: whether or not they're still viable, uh in um. The
39:54
Speaker 1: median audience age was fifty four years old, and in
39:59
Speaker 1: twenty years BEFO for that it was forty five. It's
40:01
Speaker 1: a pretty pretty big age. At least it wasn't like
40:08
Speaker 1: I stayed exactly the same, the same people just got
40:11
Speaker 1: twenty years older. So they are getting some younger listeners.
40:15
Speaker 1: But it's the way that especially people under thirty five
40:19
Speaker 1: years old consumed media is radically different than their parents. Yeah,
40:24
Speaker 1: and there's plenty of people out there who are younger
40:27
Speaker 1: who qualify as quote unquote millennials who are like listening
40:32
Speaker 1: to stuff that MPR puts out there, listening to the huge,
40:36
Speaker 1: huge slate of MPR podcasts. Right, there's a ton of
40:41
Speaker 1: podcasts the MPR puts out. A lot of their radio
40:44
Speaker 1: programs are repurposed into podcasts, and so there's a lot
40:48
Speaker 1: of younger people who are listening to it. The problem
40:50
Speaker 1: is that poses a conundrum to the public broadcasting model
40:55
Speaker 1: as it stands in the US though, right, well, yeah,
40:58
Speaker 1: I looked at the top twenty today on the iTunes
41:00
Speaker 1: just to kind of see an NPR had eight of
41:03
Speaker 1: the top twenty shows as stiff competition for US Hidden Brain,
41:08
Speaker 1: This American Life, Planet Money, um I guess Stown and
41:12
Speaker 1: Serial both they would qualify because they come out of
41:14
Speaker 1: This American Life stable and that's where it got its start.
41:18
Speaker 1: Their highest rank show today was Ted Radio Hour at
41:20
Speaker 1: number five. Incidentally, we were number four. Good but um, yeah,
41:26
Speaker 1: I mean eight shows in the top twenty. But it
41:29
Speaker 1: does pose an interesting conundrum for them. I know when
41:32
Speaker 1: they were started to dip their toe into podcasts, and
41:35
Speaker 1: then once podcast started generating revenue via ads, they weren't
41:40
Speaker 1: quite sure how to handle all that stuff. No, and
41:42
Speaker 1: part of the part of the problem is is if
41:44
Speaker 1: you're a small local affiliate, you've paid a lot of
41:47
Speaker 1: money to get fresh air on your airwaves. You don't
41:50
Speaker 1: want some twenty year old going and listening to it
41:52
Speaker 1: on the new whiz Bang MPR app that the city
41:55
Speaker 1: slickers came up with. You want them listening to your
41:58
Speaker 1: station so that you can get their donations. Um So,
42:02
Speaker 1: for a while MPR had uh an embargo and even
42:05
Speaker 1: mentioning the fact that there were podcasts out there on air. Yeah, um,
42:09
Speaker 1: right now. I think they say that it's okay to
42:14
Speaker 1: mention that an announcer hosts a podcast, but they don't
42:18
Speaker 1: say like, hey, go download the podcast, go to iTunes
42:21
Speaker 1: or Apple. Right, they say that they hosted buck Well,
42:29
Speaker 1: it's a legit concern. But my whole thing is you can't, like,
42:33
Speaker 1: you can't fight on demand listening or viewing. You just
42:38
Speaker 1: can't fight it. You can't tell a twenty six year
42:41
Speaker 1: old no, you need to turn tune in from seven
42:44
Speaker 1: to nine a m. To listen to us. They're like,
42:49
Speaker 1: what is this tune in? What is seven to nine? Yeah? No,
42:54
Speaker 1: it's true. And if if you're fighting against it, you're
42:56
Speaker 1: you're going to lose. Yeah, because that's the beauty of podcasts.
43:00
Speaker 1: What's said is, looking at it from the outside, it
43:02
Speaker 1: looks like MPR and PBS get this because MPR has
43:06
Speaker 1: its own apps, PBS has an on demand video app
43:09
Speaker 1: as well. They it looks like the larger institutions get this.
43:13
Speaker 1: But I don't see what anyone's doing to save the
43:16
Speaker 1: local affiliates, the small town ones that are really going
43:20
Speaker 1: to be the first to suffer, or if they're just
43:22
Speaker 1: being sacrifices canaries in the coal mine, um, in which
43:27
Speaker 1: case that's just the way it's gonna roll, because those
43:31
Speaker 1: kids in those small towns are still going to listen
43:34
Speaker 1: to MPR, they're just not listening to it on the
43:36
Speaker 1: radio any longer. Well, but then people, you know there
43:39
Speaker 1: there's a segment of people that would say, well, you
43:42
Speaker 1: know what, them's the breaks, and if your little member
43:44
Speaker 1: station goes out of business, then that's called changing times. Okay,
43:48
Speaker 1: but let's take this back to you. Remember my example
43:50
Speaker 1: where Corporation Next was poisoning the water in your small town.
43:54
Speaker 1: No one outside of the town knew about it. Incorporation
43:57
Speaker 1: Next advertised on the networks, the local news, so the
44:00
Speaker 1: local news weren't going to take them on. That's why
44:03
Speaker 1: you need that small, tiny affiliate who not have to
44:06
Speaker 1: worry about funding and advertising so that they can do
44:08
Speaker 1: good journalism and expose that corporation to the rest of
44:11
Speaker 1: the town. Well, if that's small radio station and that
44:14
Speaker 1: small PBS affiliate drives up because of the MPR app
44:17
Speaker 1: Corporation Next gets away with poisoning the whole town. Nobody
44:20
Speaker 1: knows town Dies gets blown over by dust and it's
44:24
Speaker 1: like it was never there. I wonder, and certainly there
44:27
Speaker 1: are people in NPR corporate that are way more knowledgeable
44:31
Speaker 1: and trying to solve this, Peter falken Flick than me.
44:36
Speaker 1: But I wonder if they could, like on the podcast
44:38
Speaker 1: Peter Overbee David folken Flick, I combined the two into
44:43
Speaker 1: one super host. It should one super correspond to supergroup.
44:47
Speaker 1: They're like Damn Yankees Um. I was on a plane
44:53
Speaker 1: flight with him one time, by the way, where they rowdy.
44:55
Speaker 1: They weren't in first class, but I remember being like,
44:58
Speaker 1: however old I was when that came out fifteen or
45:00
Speaker 1: sixteen seventeen something like that, were you really and like
45:04
Speaker 1: Jack Blade was sitting on one side of me, Ted
45:06
Speaker 1: Nugent was in front of me, Tommy Shaw was behind me,
45:09
Speaker 1: and it was like I was part of the band.
45:12
Speaker 1: I was sitting in the middle of these that's really
45:14
Speaker 1: cool music legends, and I thought, man, I love Night
45:17
Speaker 1: Ranger and I love Sticks. But he's reading I remember specifically,
45:22
Speaker 1: I'm reading a hunting magazine. Yeah, I can believe that
45:25
Speaker 1: just fantasized. Yeah, I'd rather be hunting. Well, I can
45:29
Speaker 1: tell you Ted Nugent is not listening to this particular episode,
45:33
Speaker 1: certainly not. Uh So my idea was, maybe, like I
45:36
Speaker 1: wonder if they could encourage via the podcast, say, hey,
45:39
Speaker 1: we know you enjoy us on your podcast, but why
45:42
Speaker 1: don't you donate money to your local members affiliate even
45:46
Speaker 1: though you don't consume it through the there to keep
45:50
Speaker 1: the calls alive, you know, yeah, I mean that's just
45:53
Speaker 1: my dumb outsider's opinion. Well, what if you turn local
45:56
Speaker 1: affiliates from broadcast bay, Like, you know, you've got to
46:01
Speaker 1: spend a lot of money on a transmitter and up
46:04
Speaker 1: links and all that kind of stuff. What if you
46:06
Speaker 1: just turned them into news bureaus like they were for
46:10
Speaker 1: investigative journalism and recording for local and then that local
46:14
Speaker 1: stuff could be kicked up the line, you knoww some
46:16
Speaker 1: local reporting appears on the national edition of Morning Edition
46:21
Speaker 1: or whatever. What if you just turned them all into
46:24
Speaker 1: into news bureaus instead, and then they just went completely
46:28
Speaker 1: online consumption. What if like the head of MPR just
46:31
Speaker 1: like swerved off the road. It was like, oh my god,
46:35
Speaker 1: these guys figuring it out so uh getting back to
46:39
Speaker 1: their new models that the the mp mp R one
46:42
Speaker 1: is the app and about of their users or under
46:46
Speaker 1: thirty five that coveted demo and um, but here's the thing.
46:51
Speaker 1: They did some surveys and they said a third of
46:53
Speaker 1: those users seldom listen to traditional radio, but said they
47:00
Speaker 1: because of the app, we're starting to listen to more
47:02
Speaker 1: terrestrial radio, which I'm not sure I get how that works,
47:05
Speaker 1: but well, I could see just being like, oh, I
47:07
Speaker 1: didn't know this was here. Wait a minute, there's like
47:09
Speaker 1: a whole radio station that has this. I'm gonna go
47:12
Speaker 1: check that out. And I can see that. Uh. And
47:15
Speaker 1: then there is Passport, which you mentioned was I don't
47:18
Speaker 1: think by name, but that's the PBS video on demand
47:21
Speaker 1: service that you get if you donate to your local station.
47:26
Speaker 1: I think five dollars a month donation will get you
47:29
Speaker 1: access to Passport. And that's if you wanted to binge doubt,
47:34
Speaker 1: n Abby, you could have done that via Passport. Did
47:38
Speaker 1: you watch that? I saw an episode or two. I
47:41
Speaker 1: just never tickled my gizzard. Okay, I love it, big fan. Yeah,
47:47
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people did. And I didn't
47:49
Speaker 1: hate it or anything. And shoot the TV when it
47:51
Speaker 1: came on. Yeah, you didn't go shoot my passport app
47:55
Speaker 1: uh and then the other big shake up in recent years.
47:58
Speaker 1: Um last year in Sesame Street made the big jump
48:03
Speaker 1: over to HBO after forty six years on PBS, and
48:07
Speaker 1: there were a lot of mixed feelings about this, some
48:10
Speaker 1: people saying, oh man, what a what a drag. You're
48:15
Speaker 1: now on a pay station and these uh, these kids
48:19
Speaker 1: and that can't afford cable TV and HBO maybe that
48:23
Speaker 1: really need Sesame Street can't watch it anymore? Or these
48:25
Speaker 1: new episodes of the Big Birds said t S, I
48:29
Speaker 1: got some money, Big Bird said, you want Sesame Street
48:32
Speaker 1: to stay on the air, and this is the only
48:34
Speaker 1: way it's gonna happen. And you can watch these episodes
48:38
Speaker 1: nine months after they air on HBO. So to me,
48:40
Speaker 1: it's kind of a win win. I thought that was
48:43
Speaker 1: cool that Big Bird win in negotiated that that PBS
48:45
Speaker 1: still got episodes after a certain time. Yeah, good for you,
48:49
Speaker 1: Big Bird and elm So. So to me, Chuck, this
48:54
Speaker 1: is my thing. I think public broadcasting should be public. Originally,
48:59
Speaker 1: IDA was when you bought a television set, there was
49:02
Speaker 1: a tax on it that went specifically to fund public broadcasting,
49:07
Speaker 1: so it got looped into the appropriations process. Which so
49:11
Speaker 1: they have to go beg for the money every year. Um,
49:14
Speaker 1: if it were publicly funded through some sort of tax
49:18
Speaker 1: that was designated just for it, and um there was
49:23
Speaker 1: also this is a really big point to this is
49:26
Speaker 1: how it was originally supposed to be. They were shielded
49:28
Speaker 1: from government meddling by a nonpartisan board of directors whose
49:33
Speaker 1: entire job it was was to keep the government out
49:37
Speaker 1: of public broadcasts and they could just focus on good,
49:42
Speaker 1: unfettered journalism. That would be the ideal, And I don't
49:46
Speaker 1: think it's too late to go to that model. I
49:48
Speaker 1: think commercial commercial broadcasting shows that there's a huge need
49:53
Speaker 1: for it, but that in the US it's in this
49:56
Speaker 1: weird limbo state. Is it commercial, is it publicly funded?
50:00
Speaker 1: You know what's the There's so many easily fixed problems
50:04
Speaker 1: with it. But you have to go all one way
50:06
Speaker 1: or all the other. To me, do you know? It
50:08
Speaker 1: would be great and also a disaster, now that I
50:13
Speaker 1: thought about it for half a second. Is if you could, like,
50:16
Speaker 1: when you go to pay your taxes, you could select
50:18
Speaker 1: a box that say I would like a portion of
50:21
Speaker 1: my taxes to go to funding public broadcasting or to
50:23
Speaker 1: funding schools. That wouldn't work. Well, if that was just
50:27
Speaker 1: what they relied on, it might not work, but why
50:29
Speaker 1: not added on there could do it as well in
50:32
Speaker 1: addition to let's public broadcasting. I got a few little
50:36
Speaker 1: facts here, though, we got some more public broadcasting. Um,
50:40
Speaker 1: I just looked up MPR's own like interesting facts about
50:43
Speaker 1: NPR all things consider. Their very first episode was covering
50:49
Speaker 1: the m twenty thousand person protests of the Vietnam War.
50:53
Speaker 1: Featured a twenty four minutes sound portrait of the protests,
50:57
Speaker 1: the very first thing they ever did. Yeah, it's pretty ballsy,
51:02
Speaker 1: we say balls. I don't know. We'll find out how
51:04
Speaker 1: much I heard Terry Gross. She was on a Mark
51:09
Speaker 1: Mayrin episode and she talked about not kind of a
51:13
Speaker 1: bit of a desire to be free from the shackles
51:16
Speaker 1: of her the restrictions of being on MPR. Oh yeah, yeah. Mainly,
51:22
Speaker 1: she said, when they do like readings from an author
51:26
Speaker 1: and they have to really go in ahead of time
51:27
Speaker 1: and say, hey, you can't say this word from your
51:30
Speaker 1: reading on the air and stuff like that, she doesn't
51:32
Speaker 1: want to get up there and just Phil Flor and
51:34
Speaker 1: Phil foul that's not Terry Gross style. No, But she
51:38
Speaker 1: also doesn't want to be like, by the way, you
51:40
Speaker 1: can't say the B word. Yeah, exactly. Um. MPR had
51:44
Speaker 1: a lot of first one of them, Susan Standberg All
51:48
Speaker 1: Things Considered host in nineteen seventy two, was the very
51:50
Speaker 1: first woman to be an anchor for a national news broadcast,
51:55
Speaker 1: The Simpsons, A special love for them. Terry Gross, Bob Boylan,
51:59
Speaker 1: Robert Siegel, and Carl Cassell have all been Carl Castle.
52:04
Speaker 1: What say Cassell? You're thinking of? Howard Cosell was Carl Castle.
52:09
Speaker 1: They were all on The Simpsons and then Morning It
52:13
Speaker 1: had some other names before they settled on that morning air.
52:18
Speaker 1: First things first, it's not bad, very MPR. And then
52:22
Speaker 1: this sounds so MPR. It's probably why they didn't do it.
52:25
Speaker 1: Tweet Jack starting line, Yeah, that's sound too bad. I
52:31
Speaker 1: think Morning Edition is good. I think it's the best. Uh.
52:36
Speaker 1: And then finally, Bob Boylan's great, great show Tiny Desk Concerts. Steward,
52:40
Speaker 1: listen to those, No, but I'm familiar with them. Man,
52:43
Speaker 1: it's just the best. Uh. He had a band called
52:48
Speaker 1: Tiny Desk Unit, and that was why he named the
52:51
Speaker 1: show Tiny Desk Concerts. Thank you Music Shows for clearing
52:55
Speaker 1: that up. I had no idea. Why well, I mean
52:58
Speaker 1: it's named that because they performed in the his MPR office, Right,
53:04
Speaker 1: That's what I thought, But it's still Yeah, it is
53:06
Speaker 1: his desk, like miniature. I've got one more for you,
53:10
Speaker 1: all right. So there was this two thousand eleven study
53:13
Speaker 1: um that found that of fourteen Western democracies, the United
53:17
Speaker 1: States was the only one to rely almost entirely on
53:20
Speaker 1: commercial broadcasting to inform at citizenry. That's precarious. Interesting, and
53:25
Speaker 1: that the same article you sent did a lot of
53:28
Speaker 1: studies that found that those countries, those other countries are
53:32
Speaker 1: generally much more well informed about news events. Yes, traffic accident,
53:41
Speaker 1: everybody knows. Uh. If you want to know more about
53:44
Speaker 1: public broadcasting, go listen to MPR, watch PBS, and decide
53:48
Speaker 1: for yourself what you think about them. Uh. And in
53:52
Speaker 1: the meantime, you can also type those words in the
53:54
Speaker 1: search bar how stiff first dot com Since I said
53:56
Speaker 1: search parts time for listener mail. Uh. This is from
54:03
Speaker 1: a Ron in Miami, A R O N. I think
54:08
Speaker 1: it's just I don't know a Ron the great key
54:14
Speaker 1: and peels kit. Uh. Hey, guys, just got into podcast
54:18
Speaker 1: a couple of months ago, and I'm a Catchup fan.
54:20
Speaker 1: We did a Remember That Ketchup podcast, good one. I'm
54:24
Speaker 1: a firm believer it belongs in the pantry, not the refrigerator.
54:27
Speaker 1: That many debates about this, mostly while intoxicated, But that's
54:30
Speaker 1: beside the point. Many things work well in contrast, like
54:33
Speaker 1: a frosty beverage with buffalo wings or crunchy potato chip
54:38
Speaker 1: alongside a softer sandwich. But who wants to dip a
54:41
Speaker 1: hot French fry into cold ketchup? H I gotta agree
54:45
Speaker 1: with this guy. Yeah, uh, he said. To be clear,
54:48
Speaker 1: my claim is based solely on memory. However, I recall
54:51
Speaker 1: Heinz introducing their fridge Fit Catchup bottle in two thousand six.
54:56
Speaker 1: During a debate about pantry versus refrigerated, someone on the
54:58
Speaker 1: other side pointed out it was not either to refrigerate
55:01
Speaker 1: after opening for best results, refrigerate after opening. It was like,
55:05
Speaker 1: not either or I'm not sure what he's saying there, confusing.
55:09
Speaker 1: I was completely for it. I've never seen such verbiage
55:11
Speaker 1: on a Hines bottle before. Uh. And then it dawned
55:14
Speaker 1: on me. Hines had just hit uh and released the
55:18
Speaker 1: fridge fit bottle. Of course, they will direct you to
55:21
Speaker 1: keep this in the fridge. It's part of the marketing strategy.
55:23
Speaker 1: Has nothing to do with the best way to enjoy
55:25
Speaker 1: the ketchupy goodness, this guy was wasted when he wrote
55:27
Speaker 1: this is becoming clear. It's a little confusing in the
55:30
Speaker 1: middle there, but he said that. Thanks for the information, entertainment,
55:35
Speaker 1: and remember say no to refrigeration of ketchup the a
55:38
Speaker 1: A Ron, thank thanks for that. Read the sentence. Maybe
55:44
Speaker 1: it's me no, no, I heard you say it, and
55:48
Speaker 1: it it sounded like you were reading it correctly. Okay, well,
55:54
Speaker 1: thanks A Roan. We hope you feel better in the morning.
55:58
Speaker 1: If you want to get in touch with us, like
56:00
Speaker 1: A Ran did, you can tweet to us at s
56:02
Speaker 1: y s K podcast. You can join us on Facebook
56:04
Speaker 1: dot com slash stuff you Should Know. You can send
56:07
Speaker 1: an email to stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com.
56:11
Speaker 1: Has always joined us at her home on the web
56:12
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this
56:19
Speaker 1: and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works
56:21
Speaker 1: dot com