Guest Commentary: Daniel K. Miller
Mr. Miller is the Executive Director and General Manager of Iowa Public Television.

A Response to George Will

So Washington pundit George Will questions the value of public television, calling it a “dubious idea… concocted as a filigree on the Great Society.” (Public television minus subsidies: Let’s give it a try, March 6, 2005)

There he goes again.

He said the same thing and used some nearly identical phrases in a column penned nearly thirteen years ago (Who Would Kill Big Bird? April 23, 1992).

It was an isolated opinion then. It is today.

What Mr. Will calls a “dubious idea” has become in fact one of the most successful public-private partnerships in America. For proof, Iowans need look no further than their televisions.

Right now, Iowa Public Television is engaged in thousands of conversations with viewers who are calling us to commit their financial support to our enterprise. In increments of $35, $50, $100 for the year, Iowans are contributing their hard-earned money to Iowa Public Television for locally-controlled and locally-responsive programming that reflects their values and responds to their needs. Each year, over 70,000 of our viewers send messages with their money – telling us that our kind of television needs to flourish, and that they realize there is a shared responsibility in helping make that happen. At the same time, businesses from across the state choose to support us with their underwriting dollars, an investment 200 companies make each year. State and federal legislators get involved as well, supporting Iowa Public Television because of our cornerstone commitments to education and public service.

Mr. Will cites several … let’s call them “misconceptions”… to opine against the federal funding that makes up about one-fifth of public television's budget nationally and that amounts to less than one dollar per person per year.

Take the size of our audience. PBS' is larger than any cable channel’s on any night. More than twice as many people choose to watch PBS over Discovery or the History Channel, and over six times more than Bravo. Nearly 90 million people watch public television each week, up 10% from the same time last year – a fact that speaks loudly about the increasing relevance of our programming.

Our children’s programs are the top choice of parents, and are, most importantly, offered commercial free, with many targeting an audience of younger children ill-served everywhere else.

And their value? A number of independent studies have concluded that educational, literacy-based television programs like those public television provides make significant improvements in school readiness. Public television is the number one source of educational media in Iowa’s and America’s classrooms, and is a major resource for free lesson plans, teachers’ guides, home schooling guidance and other resourceful activities.

But that must not matter much to Mr. Will. Public television is a “preposterous relic,” he argues, made so by today’s multi-channel television environment, where the five channel world of our birth has been replaced by five hundred channels delivered by cable or direct broadcast satellite. But what’s really preposterous here is Mr. Will’s argument that the value of television can be found solely in the number of channels it provides.

Any viewer knows that it’s not the number of channels that matters – it’s what’s on them. Even Mr. Will must have understood that a few years back, when he wrote of the PBS documentary The Civil War, “If better use has ever been made of television, I have not seen it.”

Our viewers know public television’s value. They see it everyday. That’s why Americans rank PBS as the most trusted national institution in the country, and place PBS second only to military activities in value for their tax dollars, according to a new Roper survey. Public television is a good deal. The public knows it. Too bad the pundit doesn’t.