Hello Goodbye Public Broadcasting

I thought that since it has recently been under fire from the Bushies, we should take a moment to look into the history of our nation's public broadcasting program:

Public broadcasting in the United States is as old as broadcasting itself. Most early public stations were operated by state colleges and universities, and were often run as part of the schools' cooperative extension services. Stations in this era were internally funded, and did not rely on listener contributions to operate; some accepted advertising. Networks such as Iowa, South Dakota, and Wisconsin Public Radio began in this way.

The concept of a "non-commercial, educational" station per se does not show up in U.S. law until the 1940s, when the FM band was moved to its present location; the part of the band between 87.9 and 91.9 MHz is reserved for such stations. Educational television, the forerunner of modern U.S. public television, evolved in big cities in the 1950s; in rural areas, it was not uncommon for colleges to operate commercial stations instead.

In the United States, public broadcasting is decentralized and is not government operated, but does receive some government support. The majority of funding comes from community support to hundreds of public radio and public television stations, each of which is an individual entity licensed to one of several different non-profit organizations, municipal or state governments, or universities. These organizations often produce their own programs, but largely depend upon national producers and program distributors such as National Public Radio (NPR), Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Public Radio International (PRI), American Public Television (APT), and American Public Media. U.S. government support is filtered through a separate organization, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).

And some more on the CPB:

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is a private non-profit corporation which is chartered and funded by the United States Federal Government to promote public broadcasting. The CPB was created on November 7, 1967 when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. CPB initially collaborated with the pre-existing National Educational Television network, but in 1969 decided to start its own network, Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which signed on officially in October of 1970, after NET was forced by the CPB and the Ford Foundation, to merge with the New Jersey PBS station, WNDT-TV (now called WNET-TV) or face funding withdrawal. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides some funding for the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio (NPR), but much more of its funding goes to public television and radio stations that are members of PBS or NPR, as well as to other broadcasters that are independent of those organizations. CPB also funds some Internet-based projects.

The CPB has nine board members who serve six-year terms and are selected by the President of the United States and confirmed by the Senate.

Presently (May 2007) the CPB board contains five Republicans, two Democrats, and one independent.

According to the Public Broadcasting Act, the White House cannot appoint persons of the same political party to more than 5 of the 9 CPB board seats. Thus, President George W. Bush may not appoint another Republican to the one vacant seat.

So listen to NPR, watch PBS, read the BBC, and think about how we could be doing way better.

via Wikipedia