don’t panic

We’re big fans of PBS. It’s about the only station in all of television land that I can turn on and pretty much count on the fact that my daughter can watch without being exposed to mindless, pointless cartoons or wanton sex and violence.

But the one thing that I really don’t like about PBS is that it’s, well… publicly funded. Or mostly so.

This is a big catch 22 of course, since the public finding is part of why it remains oriented the way it has for so long. During the hours that PBS airs “kid shows”, you won’t for the most part, find commercials of the kind found on other channels. For now at least, I can relax knowing that my child isn’t going to come to me wining about how she has to have the latest plastic media junk that gets blared at twice volume from the commercials found on other stations like Nickelodeon or Carton Network. But because they don’t rely on external advertising, they have to beg for your bucks with “membership drives.”

And I can understand this too. Roughly four times a year (maybe it’s twice… just seems like it’s more often) they hijack their normal program schedule and insert the membership programming. Since they are asking people for money, you’d think they would either show how wonderful their normal programming is (tout it up) or they would switch to a selection of really great shows designed to get us to go, “oh wow… I’d like to support that!” But no. Some marketing reject in management has convinced them that they absolutely must torture their viewers with the exact same damn thing ever single time. For three solid weeks, we are subjected to the same boring motivational speaker (I think it’s actually the same show just repeated again and again, but how can you tell?) until you simply must switch to another station or risk your brain melting away.

There are 2 AM infomercials that blow doors off this content! What are they thinking!!

Whatever. I really could care less about what they show most of the time, so long as they don’t mess with the kid’s shows… oh wait. They are messing with the kids shows.

First I noticed that they would clip them short. Arthur for example, usually consists of two ten-minute mini-shows separated by a five minute “real-world” lesson. But during the membership drive, they cut out the middle part and abbreviate the credits so they have time on either end to beg for money. Considering their viewership at this time of day consists of mostly eight-year olds (or younger), who exactly do they expect is going to be picking up the phone and slapping down a credit card number? Am I supposed to thank them when my child comes in and complains that “they’re doing it again”, meaning an uninteresting adult droning on and on about how wonderful it is that they can provide commercial-free children’s programing?

Apparently that same marketing flunky must have realized that the sudden drop in calls was because half their viewers at that time didn’t know how to use the phone, so they decided to enlist our kids help. Now they tell my impressionable daughter that, “now is the time for you to go get your mom or dad and bring them to the TV for an important message.” I can just see countless five-year olds running to their parents after Sesame Street saying, “Mommy! Mommy! There’s an important message on the television! Come quick!”

And how angry that same parent will be as they believe that 9/11 has happened again, only to find themselves listening to some dork explain that they can get all eight inspirational CD’s for a low monthly contribution of only $120.

You want to have a telethon, fine. But leave our kids out of it, jerks.