For the last couple of days, I've had many people send me Charles McGrath's editorial on the relevancy of PBS in today's media market.  In light of the many emails and discussions I overhead in the hallways here at the station, I asked KPBS Program Director for Television, Keith York to respond to McGrath's editorial.  He sent me the following thoughts:

New York Times writer Charles McGrath asks the perennial question, in light of recent stabs at CPB appropriation in the recent Bush administration budget proposal, is public television still necessary? McGrath’s question isn’t any more thought-provoking than when Newt Gingrich questioned the institution’s existence a decade and a half ago. Unimpressed by the basic premise, I should also add that a few of his facts are either incorrect or poorly contextualized.
 
Thankfully the article is nothing more than an editorial. Causing many readers to ask themselves “Are newspapers still necessary?”
 
Like many of its competitors, the size of PBS’ Prime Time average has been decreasing. This isn’t news – if you read the trade papers, Madison Avenue has been wondering aloud why they still spend billions each year on advertising in front of commercial network audiences. Rather than comparing PBS’ audience to other Prime Time network schedules (say Fox News, CNN, A&E, Discovery, or History) McGrath strangely offers "Friday Night Smackdown" as a comparison, in the same article he proposes that "quality" is out there. The combined viewing audience for all of the prime-time cable news channels is about 2.5 million. Only about one million more than PBS’ single channel of evening programming. And why does he pass judgment on something as successful as FNS? Thanks for nothing, Charles.
 
McGrath claims that NPR stations are not "trolling" for ratings while PBS is -- in fact, everyone in media (including The New York Times) is "trolling". That may not be the best descriptor, but that's the business we are in.
 
We can, in part, thank WNET for McGrath's perspective - he has failed to understand the value in their airings of "America's Ballroom Challenge" or "Keeping Up Appearances", totally disregards local ownership or local productions. The only thing missing – he steered clear of discussing his personal woes over pre-emptions during pledge drives.
 
His argument that cable TV has supplanted many of the genres pioneered by PBS has been heard before — primarily from staunch critics of federal funding of public broadcasting. Nothing new here.
 
McGrath assumes Americans no longer need PBS because everyone pays for cable TV — they don’t, not by a long shot. San Diego, for many reasons, is a unique market where the majority of the audience (88% at last count) subscribe to cable or satellite. According to State of the News Media, the combined viewing audience for all of the prime-time cable news channels is 2.5 million. Or only about one million more than PBS’ single channel of evening programming. That’s not exactly an overwhelming domination of the airwaves.
 
In saying that PBS’ Nature and NOVA in addition to the history and biography specials, have been appropriated by Discovery, History and National Geographic channels is historically correct – while fewer and fewer of these titles beat out chopper customizing for good timeslots and Nielsen ratings. McGrath fails to give PBS credit for series like POV and Frontline - documentaries and arts programming that commercial television stays clear of. His argument is just plain short-sighted.