PBS Begging and A Beautiful Tweet...

I’m a big fan of PBS.  There are many shows on there that I enjoy.  “History Detectives” is probably my favorite.  I also love “Antiques Roadshow” as well as the “This Old House Shows” and “Hometime.”  As well as many of the cooking shows and of course, “Keeping Up Appearances.” 

AETN, our local PBS station here use the tag line “TV Worth Paying For.”  They use that because they are completely listener supported.  They get all their revenues from donations.  Which means they do a lot of begging fundraising throughout the year.

It started out many years ago as a one weekend telethon type deal.  They would show all kinds of big specials like shows featuring 50’s or 60’s music or travel shows or whatever.  Then it went to two weekends a year.  Then three. 

They used to always say “Hey, we only do this three weekends a year.”  But,  now they say “We only do this three TIMES a year.” 

Notice the difference.   Yeah, now their fundraising periods last 10 full days.  They start on a Saturday and run all the way through the next weekend and even through the following Monday night.  This means that they don’t show most of their regular programming for the the full 10 days, or for 30 days total a year. 

What sucks about this is that it means I miss two of the “History Detectives” six episodes.  In the eloquent words of of Mother Theresa, “That’s fucked up.” 

How does AETN, think that I would donate to their network if they are depriving me of 1/3 of the season of my favorite show?  TV worth paying for? Only if I actually get to see the fucking shows!!

I get that AETN needs to raise money to stay in business and bring us some cool programming.  Including a new Agatha Christie series featuring David Suchet as Hercule Poirot, which is going to be awesome.  But, they’ve got to find a way to do their fundraising without depriving us of the very programming that they’re so proud of.



P.S. Last Saturday, desperate to find any kind of entertainment on TV, I flipped over to PBS hoping that they would be showing something cool during their afternoon begging fundraising session.  Maybe some Broadway special, a “Masterpiece Theater” or classic 50’s or 60’s bands like The Limelighters or the Kingston Trio.  Instead they were showing religious programming.  Given that we already have at least six channels showing Christian programming 24/7, let’s try to confine that to Sundays if you don’t mind, mmmkay?  Thanks.


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In other news something truly amazing happened on Tuesday morning on Twitter.  I’m not going to set it up, I’m just going to post the screen grab of Dana’s tweet:




Ah yes, it’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it my friends.  No need to details.  Just bask in the warm glow of Dana admitting that I was right.