To Save Public Television, Switch Funding Channels : PBS: Federal support could be more generous and less political if restructured.

More words per federal dollar have been expended in the recent budgetary debate over public television than over any other government program, overwhelming proof that it’s time to depoliticize the funding of public television.

Let’s be honest: The critics of funding public television aren’t particularly interested in the disposition of these relatively few government dollars. If they were, they would direct far more of their inexhaustible energy to items such as the $10 billion expended annually for agricultural price supports, which would bring magnitudes greater budgetary relief than cutting public broadcasting’s paltry $285 million.

In fact, public broadcasting is a model for how a small amount of government money can be leveraged into programming watched by more than 100 million viewers every week. That $285 million allows public broadcasting to raise another $1.5 billion each year from corporate underwriters, foundations and millions of ordinary individuals. All told, each hour of public broadcasting costs the federal government a mere 5 cents per viewer.

So the challenge for our policy-makers should be not how to remove funding from the federal budget but how to remove it from the political arena.

Long before the current assault, that was the conclusion of a 1992 Twentieth Century Fund task force (on which I was privileged to serve) that included many critics of PBS. “National funding of public television should come from new non-taxpayer sources of funding such as possible spectrum auctions or spectrum usage fees,” the report recommended.

Under that scenario, the government would ask broadcasters to pay for use of their broadcasting frequencies, either through a one-time charge or through annual fees. Since the report was issued, the government has been auctioning wireless voice frequencies; more than $1 billion has already been collected and bidding in the current round has reached nearly $5 billion. Vice President Al Gore has suggested using some of this money to help wire classrooms to the information superhighway. Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) has proposed adding public broadcasting to the vice president’s list.

Commercial broadcasters should consider supporting permanent funding of public broadcasting, even if they are asked to bear part of the cost. Purely in terms of their own interests, commercial broadcasters might come out ahead. First, if public broadcasting is forced to become more “commercial” in the absence of federal funding, that means one more competitor for the existing networks.

In the wake of the successful spectrum auctions of wireless voice frequencies, pressure will inevitably mount to take a similar approach with television spectrum. A modest spectrum fee to support public television could forestall pressure later for full-scale auctions or other more onerous government levies.

Another approach would be a small assessment against advertising revenues of commercial television. This would have the advantage of sharing the support among all television networks--those on cable as well as those broadcasting over the air.

In fairness to the critics, neither is PBS’s house completely in order. More permanent government support should be coupled to reform of the public broadcasting structure. For example, PBS has 351 member stations, compared with slightly more than 200 affiliates for each of the major networks. That means two or even three PBS stations in some markets, often with virtually identical programming.

Some past errors are already being corrected. PBS will now participate more fully in merchandising, video sales and the like when a program proves successful. But however much PBS participates, these potential revenues are far less than Republican critics claim and can’t possibly substitute for the federal money.

Federal funding needs to be restructured so that the management of public broadcasting can go back to doing what it does best: producing high-quality programming that reflects a diversity of viewpoints and interests.