Public Television was full of commercials last night. WTF?

[Ron Green]

My wife and I settled in for a rare night of TV, and chose the program on OPB about the laying of Cyrus Field's Atlantic telegraph cable. I was astounded to see commercials, with music, for several minutes before the program. These were way beyond the "support for this program is provided by..." announcements; these were commercials. I suspect the next step will be a guy in a plaid jacket screaming "No money down!"

To me this is more insidious than what's on network TV or cable, because the perception is that PBS is not beholden to the commercial interests. How long has this been goin' on?

[Pithlet]

1. It's been going on for awhile

The shows my 4 year old and 18 month old watch on PBS is always preceded by commercials for McDonald's and Chuck E Cheese, to name a few. They aren't as bad as the commercials on regular TV; they don't appear to market as directly to kids and aren't as hyper. But I still wish they didn't have to do that.

[Ron Green]

2. Maybe they really don't have to; it's a choice to take corporate funds.

I wonder if the McDonald's and Chuck E. Cheese ads are actually meant for the parents whom they assume are watching with the kids?

[Pithlet]

9. It's a choice

But, I think it's a choice they have to seriously consider in order to survive. I would rather have the PBS with the Supported By ads than no PBS at all. Commercial TV for children is pathetic. The ads are so loud, hectic and hyper, and so insidious that I won't let them watch anything on commercial TV at all. And, I enjoy a lot of PBS geared towards adults, as well.

[BillyDoc]

3. It isn't public television any more

because public funding has been cut by congress . . . thus leaving public television to whore for their money from corporations.

[Warpy]

4. The corporate contributors have been demanding more time

to announce their support. Yes, they're commercials. However, they're usually 15 seconds or less and they don't interrupt the programming to run more of them.

I don't suppose it'll last, though. They'll demand half hour announcements on hourlong programs, and if the idiot I think is going to get the job as head of PBS gets it, they'll be only too happy to oblige.

[MsUSA]

8. All the programs end about 10 minutes before the hour just so

they can get in all their "commercials". I've really noticed a lot more also. *sigh* Looks like the only channel I'll be watching is the Turner Classic Movie channel. Even American Movie Classics has commercials used to be free of advertising, not anymore.

[minerva50]

5. "enhanced corporate underwriting credits"

or "enhanced acknowledgments" is what they prefer to call them. Commercials by another name.

[Ron Green]

6. LOL - what a great euphemism! n/t

[Tactical Progressive]

7. They've been getting worse and worse

over the past three years.

It started out as voice-overs of 'This program brought to you by ...', then proceeded to a couple-few ten or fifteen second shortened commercials.

Now they have multiple, full-length thirty-second commercials between programs. It's really not much different than regular commercial programming now.

Pisses me off too. Last night before 'NewsHour' I noticed that I kind of dislike the PBS commercials more than even those on regular commercial television. They are mostly pure corporate propaganda now - how this oil company or that chemical company or this commercial bank is so very altruistic and such do-gooders for the benefit of the common man. It's really much more sickening than the typical product promotion on regular TV.

The only good aspect to this turn is that it really cheapens the credibility of public broadcast. Since shows like NewsHour have whored themselves out to right-wing ideological acceptance and for all practical purposes, promotion, the increasing taint of corporate marketing inherently conveys that diminished credibility. Jim Lehrer, Gwen Ifill, Margaret Warner and the rest, along with Charlie Rose, have lost alot of my respect over the past four years with first their cowardice and then their fully-internalized, banal shift from the center to the right. It is appropriate that their medium looks more and more compromised. That reflects the reality of their work.