And dressing it up in them in the first place is a BAD idea. Just as bad as the idea that PBS is now floating, according to a New York Times newspaper article I read in Friday's Omaha World-Herald, which also reported that the idea was broached last week to PBS member stations.
It's bad enough that (1) the "sponsor blocks" at the beginning and end of each program are looking ever more like broadcast TV ads [and indeed, some of them actually ARE those ads--Ed.]; (2) those "sponsor blocks" are taking up ever more time out of each hour's programming; (3) we have to endure pledge drives that used to run once a year, then twice, and now seemingly every other month. What's worse is that the smooth narrative flow of PBS programs would be hopelessly compromised, thus making PBS indistinguishable from any other network's programming.
Maybe this is an April Fool's Day joke by a procrastinator, though I doubt that. Maybe this is an idea the PBS executives are floating to scare member stations and members into giving more money as a result of the renewed vigor of the Republican Party's push to defund PBS. A more plausible notion, but rather more Machiavellian than I'd hope PBS executives are. Maybe we really ARE at the "end of days" and this is one more sign that the apocalypse is nigh. No . . . that's too paranoid, even for me. Most likely, however, it's the GOP's recognition that what cannot be done directly can be done indirectly. If the GOP cannot neuter PBS by defunding it, it can neuter PBS by making its programming indistinguishable from everyone else's, and further inure us to having microscopically short attention spans, to boot.
Whatever else it may be, however, it is definitely one thing: it's a BAD idea. So much so that, in a beautifully ironic twist, it ought to be the subject of a Geico automobile insurance commercial.
If PBS is going to make me watch sponsors' ads in the middle of PBS programming, I will stop watching and stop contributing to PBS. I'll just wait till PBS sells the programs to cable networks like the Discovery Channel, and watch them there. I can put up with pledge drives. I can put up with commercials. I will NOT put up with both during the same program.
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