President Trump’s new head of the Federal Communications Commission has ordered an investigation of NPR and PBS, with an eye toward unraveling federal funding for all public broadcasting.
“I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” Chairman Brendan Carr wrote on Wednesday to the presidents and chief executives of NPR and PBS, Katherine Maher and Paula A. Kerger, respectively. “In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”
The FCC does not directly regulate the two networks. Instead, it evaluates the actions of roughly 1,500 public broadcasting stations across the country, which hold licenses granted by the FCC for use of public airwaves for radio and television, even in the digital age.
Bye, Big Bird. I love you and I will miss you.
Sesame Street sold out to HBO who eventually dropped them like a ton of bricks.
They may not make it but not because of this. They were relying on DVD sales until streaming killed that and HBO picked them up. HBO got the new content first, PBS got reruns.
Who knows what will happen, now.
It’s okay, Sesame Workshop is a separate non-profit, and makes approximately jillions in merchandizing annually. I’m sure it will continue on in some bastardized, heavily privatized form.
Well then I stand by what I said because Big Bird behind a paywall doesn’t really count in my opinion.
Sesame Street is supposed to be for every kid.