On: PBS will have four commercial breaks per hour soon

IMHO this is going to kill personal donations and "silent" foundation/corporate donations because who is going to see them as a worthy non-profit entity after this point?

Also, they could more easily lose congressional funding once they demonstrate this model of income.

Very sad day for US culture.

Just imagine the news about something nasty the oil or coal industry just did and then there's a cut-away to a commercial from big oil telling you how wonderful they are.

Or commercials in the middle of Nova and Antique Roadshow.

Actually, they aren't adding -more- commercials, they're just moving them around. Instead of an almost 8 minute commercial break after a show, it'll happen in 4 shorter segments during the show.

As the article says, this is to combat the mass exodus that occurs after each show, which makes it hard to interest the viewers in the next show.

I'm not sold on the reasoning "to build an audience for the show that follows". We are moving towards an age of "on demand" programming where viewers choose what they want to watch when they want to watch. This is a misguided attempt to hook the viewer onto the next show, at the expense of interrupting the current show.

I had the same gut reaction when I saw the headline, but concur -- the article makes it clear that this is a move to adjust when the same material is presented, not the introduction of new advertisements in the program.

As a consumer of such things I certainly like the uninterrupted viewing, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm not likely to sit around for the content at the end.

It's a foot-in-the-door approach. Once you get people used to four program break-in, you just add more commercials to each break.

Anyone that doesn't think that will happen over time is naive.

But anyone who is sure it will happen is a cynic ;)

This seems to be a sensible idea. The long break in between shows causes me to turn the channel when one ends.

The average hour-long program is 40-45 minutes once all the commercials are removed. Think about that, up to 1/3 of scheduled show is dedicated to advertising. I'm sure if you go back 10-15 years it was 1/4 and before that it was 1/5. This doesn't even count the inshow advertising that goes on.

It seems to be a sensible idea, I agree. But like government projects, sensible ideas tend to metastasize.

I disagree. Speaking of PBS Nova specifically, the shows are 56 minutes (give or take 3min) long once commercials are removed. I know this because I download my media and the commercials are removed for me so all I do to see how long a show is, is look at the remaining-time in VLC.

I wasn't speaking of PBS, but of normal network television. PBS shows usually run up to the mark or just a few minutes short to allow local stations to run their own advertising.

You really think that they will stick to "short" segments?

Or do you think there is going to be mission creep just like there used to be one commercial before PBS Newshour but now it goes on for like 4-5 of them?

So get people used to the 4 segments (ie. this report about the new oil spill brought to you by Chevron) then over time claim budget has doubled and double/triple the number of commercials?

They're already losing congressional funding, and are constantly under threat of all govt funding being pulled. How real that threat is - not sure in all cases, but there's always a lot of posturing on the issue.

I'll posture a bit and say I'd like to see public funding of the airwaves in the US - radio and tv - continue.

Why not just mandate cable providers pick up a small portion of the tab instead of going through the Federal government? FCC could make this happen over-night, in relative terms.

Why not just mandate citizens donate a small portion of their income to charity instead of getting federal funding? The IRS could make this happen over-night, in relative terms.

That's actually kind of what is happening in the United Kingdom. Television owners are required by law to pay a so called 'TV Licence' which is mostly spent on funding the BBC.

I'm not sure whether this is a good thing or not but the fact is that the BBC is simply the best public service broadcaster in the world and they achieve that without any commercials (in the UK) at all.

You can even volunteer to pay your TV tax for internet streaming.

not outside the UK, from what I understand. I'd love to pay a tv tax to get all UK programming. As it stands, we have to use torrents. :/

There's already significant tax benefits for doing this, so the IRS is as much as doing that.

> I'll posture a bit and say I'd like to see public funding of the airwaves in the US - radio and tv - continue.

I'll posture a bit and say that I'd like to have you pay for the things that I like instead of the reverse. (Don't tell me how little it is unless you're cutting me a check for that amount.)

they could more easily lose congressional funding once they demonstrate this model of income

Couldn't you extend that same logic to all efforts by PBS to secure donations or reduce costs as well? PBS shouldn't get too many donations because they could lose congressional funding if they're too good at it. PBS shouldn't cut costs because if they spend less, Congress won't give them as much money...

Very sad day for US culture. Just imagine the news about something nasty the oil or coal industry just did and then there's a cut-away to a commercial from big oil telling you how wonderful they are.

PBS has accepted commercial underwriters for decades.

> who is going to see them as a worthy non-profit entity after this point?

Probably the same people who do today. Non-profit does not mean non-revenue.