Why I Actually Support Public Broadcasting

So it’s no secret that I am generally pretty conservative on a lot of economic issues. I want the government to shrink in size. That means I tend to favor a lot of budget and tax cuts. 

But in the grand scheme of things, public broadcasting doesn’t cost that much. This year, we are projected to spend $4,062 trillion with $619 billion going to non-defense discretionary spending. Spending $2 billion or so on public broadcasting is not going to break the budget. 

The reality is that the business model for media outlets is not that strong at the moment. It is in the public’s interest to have more dedicated public media outlets that aren’t as ratings/viewership driven as the rest of the competition in their quest to inform the public. Public media serves as a public option for citizens to choose from in their media consumption.

I am not as concerned with the current level of reliance of public broadcasting on corporate funding, but I do agree that it is something to keep in mind.

While I was researching this, I actually found an article by someone that was making “the conservative case for public broadcasting” as well. 

I don’t agree with a bunch of the points he’s made in that article. The market has provided us with some descent broadcasting networks. I particularly like CBS news. Some of their programs like 60 Minutes and Face The Nation are very top-notch in my opinion, despite their liberal shortcomings. From my experience, PBS is also a fairly liberal network as well, so I don’t think public broadcasting will solve the issue of media bias. 

I think a lot of people associate broadcasting with cable news. Cable news sucks. It sucks really really badly and I watch it all the time. I’m almost always mad when I watch it. But whether it’s MSNBC, CNN, or Fox News, they know how to keep me interested. 

The primary reason why I am supportive of additional funding for public broadcasting is because of how affordable it is for the federal government. I am a big believer in giving people options, that’s why I like the free market so much. 

The incentives for content creation are different in public media than in private media. As a result, this often results in fundamentally different types of content being created in public media than in private media. Because it’s not expensive to do so, I think the government should give people that option.