Only around 15% of the PBS budget comes from the federal treasury via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), thanks to decades of privatization. NPR’s budget is as little as 1% from the CBP.
Consequently, both networks have suffered from a creeping enshittification, with a rising tide of advertisement and ad-supported content taking over both networks and the forced sale of some of its most valuable assets (PBS licensing Sesame Street to Warner Brothers, for instance) to finance continued operations.
Like, by all means. Cancel your Netflix. Cancel Disney. Support public broadcasting. But this isn’t a solution in the long term, any more than cancelling Basic Cable for Netflix was a way to fix the fully privatized entertainment system. We’re still surrendering our social capital to private interests, bit by bit (or in this case by massive chunk).
This is a stab wound. We can patch it, but we shouldn’t mistake this as to anyone’s material benefit.
Only around 15% of the PBS budget comes from the federal treasury via the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), thanks to decades of privatization. NPR’s budget is as little as 1% from the CBP.
Consequently, both networks have suffered from a creeping enshittification, with a rising tide of advertisement and ad-supported content taking over both networks and the forced sale of some of its most valuable assets (PBS licensing Sesame Street to Warner Brothers, for instance) to finance continued operations.
Like, by all means. Cancel your Netflix. Cancel Disney. Support public broadcasting. But this isn’t a solution in the long term, any more than cancelling Basic Cable for Netflix was a way to fix the fully privatized entertainment system. We’re still surrendering our social capital to private interests, bit by bit (or in this case by massive chunk).
This is a stab wound. We can patch it, but we shouldn’t mistake this as to anyone’s material benefit.