KEEP THEM PUBLIC TRUSTS, BUT STOP FIGHTING FOR BUDGET DOLLARS:

The Business Case for Defunding PBS and NPR (Adam Thierer, 10/16/11, Forbes)

[T]he best reason to zero out federal funding for NPR and PBS is because, relative to private media competitors, public media is thriving and can stand on its own. Thus, continuing public media subsides are unfair and unneeded.

In many ways, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which supports NPR and PBS, has the perfect business model for the age of information abundance. Philanthropic models -- which rely on support for foundational benefactors, corporate underwriters, and individual donors -- can help diversify the funding base at a time when traditional media business models -- advertising support, subscriptions, and direct sales -- are being strained.

This is why many private media operations are struggling today; they're experiencing the ravages of gut-wrenching marketplace and technological changes and searching for new business models to sustain their operations. By contrast, CPB, NPR, and PBS are better positioned to weather this storm because they do not rely on those same commercial models.

Thus, in economic terms, non-commercial media operators have an overwhelming competitive advantage working in their favor: They own the market for charitable giving as it pertains to news and culture.

Gary Knell, the new head of NPR, has suggested he is open to exploring a subsidy-free future, although he still desires some federal funding. He should consider the benefits of ending public media's cycle of dependency. It would finally free public media from the endless political squabbles over its objectivity and its funding. Moreover, it would put these non-commercial providers on more stable footing going forward relative to commercial competitors who, at least thus far, have not been able to tap philanthropic sources.

It gives some sense of how thoroughly the Third Way has triumphed in the Anglosphere that rather than making private industry public we speak of taking public entities (consider the Post Office too) private.

Posted by oj at October 16, 2011 7:50 PM
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