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> They definitely have gone down in quality from 1998 to now. What caused this? A gradual decline in public interest in public television and radio. That, in t
by lutusp 14y ago
> They definitely have gone down in quality from 1998 to now. What caused this?
A gradual decline in public interest in public television and radio. That, in turn, has been caused by the increasing diversity of offerings on cable and satellite TV and radio, compared to 30 years ago. There was a time when the only way to see anything resembling scientific or educational programming was to tune into public TV or radio. Not any more -- there are dozens of channels offering this kind of content now, of widely varying quality, but certainly competing with public TV.
As the number of advertisements and pledge drives on public TV has increased, the public has begun to see public TV as just another commercial-supported TV offering, nothing special. And guess what? They're right -- there's no difference.
- illuminate 14y ago"A gradual decline in public interest in public television and radio" Don't forget the conservatives in management who want to "diversity" the programming and defunding due to the "socialist" content.
- lutusp 14y ago> Don't forget the conservatives in management who want to "diversity" the programming and defunding due to the "socialist" content. Yes, very true. Management reacts to a conservative social trend by avoiding content that might be looked on as too liberal, this offends liberals, which causes a further drop in audience numbers, and a death spiral begins. This speaks to a general rule in television programming -- everybody want to have the "least offensive program". The least offensive program is the program that is so bland that it gets the largest audience simply because it offended the smallest number of viewers.