PBS Funding: Is It Still Necessary Today?

6 Jul 2025 · 2 min

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2:29

This is a YouTube video titled "PBS Funding: Is It Still Necessary Today?" containing a monologue or opinion piece recorded in July 2025. The speaker reflects on the historical and current role of PBS, arguing against continued federal funding by highlighting the availability of alternative educational content and broader budget priorities. The content is a single-speaker commentary rather than a conversation.

Look, I like PBS. I grew up on Mr. Rogers, and yes, I watched Curious George with my kid 100 times. But let's be real. It's time to end federal funding for pbs. These days, every highly educated professional on a PBS show like Curious George is a woman or a minority. The only clueless character, a well meaning but bumbling white guy. And you know what? That's fine. I'm okay with that. I'm not one of these people constantly complaining, oh, too woke, too woke. That's not my position here. It's a choice. It's not a crime to have choice. But choices have cost. PBS only gets 15% of its budget from federal taxpayers and it's furloughing. It just doesn't seem to be the highest priority. We're not living in 1967 anymore. We're rural. America has Wi Fi, they have YouTube, they have Netflix and 10,000 content options. We don't have a national shortage of video. We have a shortage of common sense. And again, I'm not bashing them the way a lot of people do that. Oh, they're too woke or they're too liberal. That's not the point. My point is just more broadly, there was a real need for PBS when it started. I mean, there was just nothing to watch. Certainly if you wanted your kid to learn something, there was nothing on TV. I mean, when I started watching public TV in the late 19, mid-1960s, Mr. Rogers was in his first year and he wasn't nationally syndicated. This was in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. And I loved him. And there wasn't really anything else to watch other than Captain Kangaroo, which I also watched. These days there are 3000s, millions of YouTube channels that any parent who wants to give their child educational programming can get. And it's not that PBS doesn't do good things, they do a lot of good. But there's an infinite number of good things that a federal government can do and finite amounts of money. I simply think, especially when I see how refugees are being stranded around the world today. I'm not talking about the white Afrikaners. When I see all the refugees in war torn areas around the world starving to death, we're cutting money for them and potentially continuing funding pbs. I just think that sends the wrong message to the world and to US citizens.