Let's keep the 'public' in PBS.

Byline: GUEST VIEWPOINT By Neal Miller For The Register-Guard

As a former producer-director of drama for the Public Broadcasting Service, I take strong exception to The Register-Guard's June 20 editorial, "Free public television - PBS must learn to live without federal funding."

Fortunately, the U.S. Congress has now restored the $100 million recently stripped from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting budget by conservative Republicans in their ongoing efforts to privatize and politicize public broadcasting.

The CPB funnels federal money to public television and radio stations across the country and to PBS, National Public Radio and other public broadcasting organizations. The $100 million reduction would have had serious consequences on public programming. I commend the 87 moderate Republicans who voted to restore the funds.

The editorial was correct in chastising Republicans for seeking `to kill shows such as 'Sesame Street' and 'Reading Rainbow' while they avoided doing anything to address a broken health care system that's threatening the lives of 45 million Americans."

The editorial also was right in pointing out that the constant harping of conservative Republicans about the "liberal" bias of public broadcasting is a myth created and perpetuated by neo-conservatives who interpret reporting of actual events as criticism of Bush administration policies.

But The Register-Guard's proposed solution, eliminating funding of public broadcasting so it can `free itself of such destructive political manipulation," is misguided and lacks understanding of the nature of the broadcasting industry. You do not destroy a perfectly good apartment building because you don't like the lifestyle of the tenants.

The question is, if federal funds were withdrawn from CPB, where would the money come from to continue public broadcasting?

Public pledges have never been sufficient to fully fund PBS programming. According to a recent CPB report, the amount of revenue from `viewers like you' to PBS stations is only 23 percent of the stations' revenue.

In 2004, private corporations gave PBS producers $184 million for programming, representing 35 percent of PBS' total revenue. The rest of the money comes from a variety of sources, including CPB. The only viable source for the additional funds is private corporations - and if you think the government is a manipulative force, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Private corporation money goes to network programming (NBC, CBS, Fox, etc.) in the form of advertising. We have all seen corporations threaten to withdraw advertising from programs they do not consider `appropriate' or because the spokesman or spokeswoman for the program becomes too controversial.

Private corporations wield even greater influence on PBS, because their money finances the actual production of programming. I have seen firsthand independent producers threatened with the withdrawal of production funds because the corporate sponsor felt the program content was too controversial.

In one case, I saw a corporation threaten to withdraw production funds for an entire documentary series, created by an Academy Award-winning director, unless a specific program in the series was cancelled. Destroying government support for CPB would make PBS and NPR much more vulnerable to control by private corporations and would make this situation much worse.

Like so many other independent filmmakers, I got my start because of support from CPB. That kind of support most likely would disappear if funding of public broadcasting were turned over to private corporations.

More significantly, control of programming content would be in the same hands that bring you network and cable programming, destroying the creativity and balance that is unique to PBS and NPR.

The solution to the funding problem is not to cast public broadcasting adrift in waters inhabited by corporate sharks. The solution is to demand that our congressional representatives and senators adopt a hands-off policy regarding public broadcasting, insulating it from politically motivated meddling.

The United States should not become the only industrialized country in the world to eliminate a public broadcasting service to its citizens.

Neal Miller of Eugene is an independent filmmaker. He wrote, produced and directed six dramatic films for the American Playhouse series on PBS.