Having emerged from the first 100 days of the 104th Congress with most of its advance funding intact, public broadcasting is entering the most crucial stage in renegotiating its relationship with the lawmakers. Rep. Jack Fields (R-Tex.), chairman of the House telecommunications subcommittee, moved up the schedule for that stage in an April 5 meeting with top pubcasters, asking them to submit by the end of the month their plans for replacing the annual CPB appropriations that congressional Republicans want to eliminate. The Senate, meanwhile, declined to accept House leadership, voting April 6 to continue CPB funding at this year’s $285.6 million level for the next two years.

PBS and MCI will develop a computer information service that supplements public TV programming while letting consumers place online orders for books, videocassettes and other program-related materials. The telecom company said March 23 [1995] that it would invest at least $15 million in the venture over the first five years. It was one of a series of MCI announcements publicizing its plans for expansion of Internet activities. Four days later, the company detailed its plans to offer Internet access services nationwide under the brand name “internetMCI,” and opened a shopping mall on the Internet called “marketplaceMCI.” And on March 29, the company said it hired cable programming veteran Scott Kurnit away from the Prodigy online service to oversee its information services unit, including the venture with PBS.

In this time of unprecedented threat to public broadcasting, people are responding with unprecedented generosity to station’s pleas for support. TV station WPBA in Atlanta beat its $75,000 pledging goal by 39 percent, with pitching help from hometown boy Newt Gingrich. The boon fell just short of doubling WPBA’s in-take during last year’s March drive — $42,000. If donations to the system expand permanently by 15 percent,  the increase would amount to about $58.5 million — one-fifth of this year’s federal appropriation to CPB. Pacifica station WBAI in New York broke a record for community radio stations with an $820,000 January drive.

Fundraising pitches by House Speaker Newt Gingrich drew unprecedented media coverage and helped to boost March pledge receipts at WPBA, Atlanta, home-town public TV station for the powerful Georgia Republican who has vowed to end federal aid for public broadcasting. Gingrich taped a series of spots urging national and local viewers to “open your wallets” and support public television. “Tell them Newt Gingrich asked you to help make sure that PBS stays on the air and Channel 30 stays strong because more than ever it’s going to need our support as individuals to make sure it has the funding it needs,” the congressman said in a self-scripted 45-second message for Atlanta viewers.

If public broadcasting loses its federal aid, it’s “highly unlikely” that it will recover the same amounts by increasing revenues from product licensing, individual contributors or local and state governments, an economics consulting firm reported back to CPB last week. Moreover, “the nature of public broadcasting will inevitably change” if the field loses its federal assistance, according to National Economic Research Associates, a White Plains, N.Y., firm that presented conclusions of its CPB-commissioned study to the CPB Board on March 14. Steven Schwartz, v.p. of NERA, also estimated that public broadcasting has a value of $2.8 billion to $4.3 billion to the American public–far more than the $1.8 billion from all sources that are spent on it, or the $285 million that Congress appropriated for this year.

The man who led the campaign to make educational radio eligible for federal aid, Jerrold Sandler, died Feb. 24 [1995] at age 64. He apparently had a heart attack after cancer surgery ...

Of all the facts, half-truths and distortions used by public broadcasting's opponents in the ongoing contest to redefine the field's public image, the Barney Billions seem the most enduring and damaging.

Public broadcasting’s response to a detailed inquiry by Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) arrived on Capitol Hill the evening of Feb. 10 [1995], accompanied by three boxes of supporting material. All but one of the major national organizations submitted responses to the Senate Commerce Committee chairman’s 16-page, single-spaced questionnaire, which included more than 200 questions about the field’s financing, program policies and interrelationships. Pressler earlier had withdrawn some of his queries about political contributions by public broadcasting employees and personal data on NPR staffers. CPB said collecting the information by the senator’s deadline cost $92,000 for staff time, legal fees and copying.

Public broadcasting’s response to a detailed inquiry by Sen. Larry Pressler (R-S.D.) arrived on Capitol Hill the evening of Feb. 10, accompanied by three boxes of supporting material. All but one of the major national organizations submitted responses to the Senate Commerce Committee chairman’s 16-page, single-spaced questionnaire, which included more than 200 questions about the field’s financing, program policies and interrelationships [earlier story]. Pressler earlier had withdrawn some of his queries about political contributions by public broadcasting employees and personal data on NPR staffers. CPB said collecting the information by the senator’s deadline cost $92,000 for staff time, legal fees and copying.

“When you basically cut the legs out under the gang that’s gotten you to this point, this has to mean something,” said a prominent programmer, “so the question is, what does it mean?” Passed over for the top programming spot in PBS’s January reorganization, Jennifer Lawson resigned her position last week. Her deputy, John Grant, also quit. Lawson joined PBS five years ago as its first chief program executive, entrusted with greater authority and more cash than previous PBS programmers to shape the schedule and bargain with producers. The departures of Lawson and Grant will clear the way for executives hired by President Ervin Duggan to follow their own programming vision–a subject of much speculation and some anxiety among station programmers who met with PBS earlier this month.

Three polls taken last month gave majorities of 62 to 84 percent favoring CPB’s federal funding. Then, a few days later, comes one showing the public 63 percent okaying cutbacks. Why such a flip-flop? “Question wording can move poll results very drastically,” replies John Brennan, polling director at the Los Angeles Times, which published the fourth poll. In the first three polls, the questions about CPB appropriations simply asked whether the funding should be continued or eliminated or, in the case of PBS’s own commissioned poll, whether it should be increased, maintained or decreased. The results were that: 62 percent opposed eliminating the funding in the Business Week/Harris Poll, 84 percent told PBS’s pollster “increase” or “maintain,” and 76 percent said “continue” in the USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll.

When public broadcasters awoke on Jan. 23 [1995], they saw the headlines and their heads started spinning. Newspapers reported that Bell Atlantic [later renamed Verizon] was interested in a partnership with CPB “that would have the Baby Bell step into the funding role now played by the federal government,” as the Wall Street Journal put it. That news came from Sen. Larry Pressler who revealed on CBS’s Face the Nation that the company and other telecom firms were interested in buying or partnering with public broadcasting after Congress privatizes it. To people who thought they understood media economics, it made no sense.

For an industry that has “elitist” planted on its back like a hard-to-reach sticky label, the most critical piece of public broadcasting’s campaign to save itself may be the grassroots response. Opponents of CPB funding in Congress complain they’re swamped with calls and some charge that pubcasters, because they get federal funds, can’t legally lobby. Stations argue that they are within their rights as long as they don’t use federal money to lobby. When constituent calls and letters reach a “critical mass,” they penetrate even the toughest mind-sets in Congress, said Bond. “Constituents always can make a difference. If we can change someone’s position, that’s the best we can hope for, to send the signal that this is not worth bloodying your hands for.”

The little town where I grew up — Manning, S.C. — was small enough that we could walk to church on Sunday. My Sunday School teacher was a Southern matriarch named Virginia Richards Sauls, one of nine daughters of a South Carolina governor. Miss Virginia, as we called her, never tired of telling us the great stories of the Bible. Her favorite was the Parable of the Talents. In that parable, a rich man leaving on a journey entrusts his property — measured in what were called talents — to his three servants for safekeeping. He returns to find that two servants have invested their talents well — so well, in fact, that their worth has doubled.