Serving Elite Folks, and Common Ones Too : Public TV, a valuable cultural tool, is on Gingrich blacklist

As much of commercial broadcasting abandoned serious journalism and educational programs for tabloid sensation and hack cartoons in recent years, public broadcasting ably filled the void. The free market having so plainly failed to serve the commonweal, it is odd indeed to hear the new Republican leaders in Washington invoke free-market philosophy in an attempt to end taxpayer support for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Speaker Newt Gingrich proposes to privatize the CPB, ultimately eliminating the $285 million in federal funds the quasi-public body funnels to 1,000 public TV and radio stations each year. This money, 18% of the stations’ income, has supported innovative programs such as TV’s “Sesame Street,” “Nova” and “Frontline” and the National Public Radio newscast “All Things Considered.” Loss of the funding would cripple pioneering outlets like Southern California’s KCET-TV and KCRW-FM.

Critics maintain that tax dollars are flowing into a bloated bureaucracy and enriching TV personalities and producers. They say, with some justification, that public television has not gotten a fair share of the profits generated by popular characters like Big Bird of “Sesame Street” and Barney, the purple dinosaur.

But one suspects the real reason for the attack is the perception among some Republicans, dating to Richard Nixon, that public broadcasting tilts to the liberal side. Moreover, some of the more daring programs, such as “Tongues Untied,” about black homosexuality, have offended many on the right.

Gingrich calls public television an elite operation, a toy of “rich, upper-class people.” He says productions that make money, such as “Sesame Street,” should be taken over by private channels. Other critics insist cable TV has reduced the need for public TV.

Popular and uncontroversial programs like “Sesame Street” obviously could survive in the commercial arena. But public broadcasting’s true value lies in its willingness to experiment, to embrace not just what is popular and salable. This nation needs such an institution that incubates and celebrates the best of our culture. It is anything but elite. It brings ballet, symphony, opera, theater and science into nearly every American home, free of charge for millions of families of all social strata. Cable reaches only about two-thirds of households, and can cost $400 a year.

Gingrich is not likely to get much support, even from his Republican constituency in Georgia, which has one of the best state public television systems. The 40,000 subscribers in the Atlanta area are mostly middle- and working-class parents who are appalled at the commercial-ridden and violent trash too often fed to their children on regular television.

Public stations need better management, and there are too many overlapping outlets. But the real need is steady funding, insulated from political uproars that focus on occasional controversial programs.

Public broadcasters have long advocated a tax on commercial broadcast revenues to replace the federal subvention. This has failed under political opposition from commercial broadcasters. As an expediency, public stations have attempted to bolster their independence through entrepreneurship, selling videotapes and curios.

The new Congress should ponder some means of preserving, not undermining, this key national resource.