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Who funda public broadcasting in the US? Isn't PBS government-funded?
by StavrosK 6y ago
Who funda public broadcasting in the US? Isn't PBS government-funded?
- quink 6y agoPartially. Most of the funding comes from corporate sponsors and individual donors and those tend to be on a station by station or program level. The funding sources for NewsHour, probably the most relevant part of PBS, are listed here for example: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders Which leads to hilarious results like the Koch Brothers funding NOVA. That said, Sinclair and the like excluded, the splintering of television networks into individual markets and restrictions on O-and-O stations are world-class exemplary parts of the US media landscape. Also, what I meant is that put it funding somewhere out of reach of the general taxation pool. Tie it to property taxes, have a licence fee, a foundation with an endowment, a levy on something or other, individual sponsorships, that kind of thing. Tying the funding and thus existence of your media to a healthy democracy is like giving a horse its own rope, they'll trot off into the sunset never to be seen again.