At 9:14 PM -0700 6/10/04, John Willkie wrote: >How would that save even a penny of the "country's money?" > >Making Public TV the tenant of commercial broadcasters would not only >relegate them to third-class status, it would require extensive compensation >to the broadcasters, as it's a "regulatory taking" AND would cost PBS it's >own flexibility. Not to mention the direct and indirect cost of "blowing >off" public TV. People would have to hire real babysitters during the day. >:-) > >But then, I'm a fan of all broadcasting. As a follow-on to the other thread about the use of sub channels to meet public affairs requirements, I agree with John that public broadcasting should remain independent. What's more, I think the service should be expanded, at least with respect to the scope of local public affairs content that is offered. There are major opportunities to use the spectrum to help government agencies and schools reach the public and for their own internal communications requirements. This is one of the reasons that I would reserve a portion of the capacity of the Spectrum Utility I have proposed to handle real public interest requirements. I DO NOT believe that the government should be in the business of creating entertainment or news content. The free marketplace is doing most of what PBS has been doing, now that we have evolved from 5-6 six channels to hundreds. PBS could easily survive on its own as a subscriber based service; millions of people have shown a willingness to support PBS via their telethons. With an ala carte approach to the selection of channels, people could choose to subscribe to PBS and pay the tariff, without the need for those telethons. I STRONGLY regret the use of PBS as a baby sitter for my son; if I had it to do over again I would not allow any child (of mine) to watch more than an hour of TV a day, and not until they are at least five years old. Regards Craig ---------------------------------------------------------------------- You can UNSUBSCRIBE from the OpenDTV list in two ways: - Using the UNSUBSCRIBE command in your user configuration settings at FreeLists.org - By sending a message to: opendtv-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word unsubscribe in the subject line.