The Beggar of Television

I had a shameful experience recently, an experience more discomfiting than watching a billionaire’s son panhandling for dimes.

It shames me for our society that KCET public television should have to devote so much time and talent to begging for donations from the public.

The billions of dollars in profits raked in by the commercial TV networks and Madison Avenue are made possible by franchises which cost them little or nothing, as do the license renewals which we routinely yield up. These licenses are a grant from us, the people of the United States, for the use of the airwaves which government regulation makes possible. And what do we get? To put it conservatively: a vast wasteland.

The media pocket billions; the public TV stations, which are doing the job that media in a democracy should do, have to interrupt their work to shake the tin cup. The best in television, from “Sesame Street” to Shakespeare and objective treatment of public affairs such as Bill Moyers’ programs, have to go on bended knee for the money to get a quality product into our living rooms.

It is past time that we let our congressmen and senators know their responsibility in this matter. A small, very small, tax on air-time or an annual license fee yielding sufficient revenue to cover the budget of public TV would enable those stations to do an even better job than they are now doing, hobbled by poverty as they are.

FREDERIC E. PAMP

Santa Ynez