Stuff You Should Know - How Public Broadcasting Works

Episode Date: August 1, 2017

Public broadcasting works a bit differently depending on where you are in the world. American TV made the leap more toward commercial broadcasting in the early days, yet PBS and NPR still remain a vital part of our national fabric. In England and many other countries, public broadcasting is more the standard. Learn all about the interesting history of public broadcasting in today's episode. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.

We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.

Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry,

which means it's time for Stuff You Should Know about public broadcasting. Mark, how you feeling? Good. I'm full of beans today. That's the last thing I wanted to hear. And you're stuck in here with me for a couple hours, buddy. Oh dear, that's the musical fruit.

Yeah. That's what I hear. Yeah. That's what I've been hearing since I was six years old. Is it musical fruit? I thought it was magical fruit. Musical fruit makes way more sense. Probably regional.

Huh. Like soda and Coke and pop and all that. Musical, magical. Sure. Don't talk about it at all, one of the... Actually, I grew up, it wasn't even musical. I just grew up with beans, beans, good for your heart. Oh, well, that's pretty, that's real.

Yeah, so that's how I rolled in the ATL. Yeah, you did. So you're feeling pretty good? Yeah, I think it's a very wonderfully disrespectful way to open up a show about one of our finest institutions. I know. I really feel on edge because you know that every single NPR personality is gonna hear this one.

You think? Every single one. No. Guy Ross right now is sitting there like these two idiots. Well, Terry Gross already thinks we're idiots. She is my hero, buddy. I don't think that there has ever been a finer radio program than Fresh Air.

Yeah, I mean, she's the best. She's a legend. She's awesome. You ever heard an interview with her? No, I recommend it. She's a pretty sharp tack. So I'm sure they're pretty fun. In fact, you know what?

Perfect time to shout out our buddy Jesse Thorne of Bullseye with Jesse Thorne has a short run series called The Turnaround where he interviews legendary interviewers. Oh, okay, that's smart. So like Ira Glass and Errol Morris. Sure. Boy, I think Terry Gross is in there.

I'm not sure. Maybe. I don't think hers is out yet. I'm not gonna promise that because I'm not positive. Okay, but I can hold my breath though, right? But it's a really cool show. All right.

It's real interesting to hear, because I think Jesse's a great interviewer and then to hear him interview the great interviewers about interviewing. Right. It makes your head just turn 180 degrees. It's really cool. All right, Chuck.

Yes. So we're talking public broadcasting, which depending on how you, okay, you're a big fan. Sure. So it probably doesn't sound a little dull to you talking about public broadcasting, but I'm sure there's people out there

who just walked right past this one. And hopefully some of them said, you know what, no, I'm gonna give the dudes a chance. I'm gonna listen. Those people will be richly rewarded by this episode because it turns out that public broadcasting, it's history, it's present, it's future. Hopefully.

All very interesting. Yeah, and if you are not a fan of it, then well, you're in the minority, technically. Yeah, they've got some big numbers bigger than I realized. Yeah, more than half of the US population tunes into public TV or radio or online. So we're talking PBS and NPR generally. Right.

That's 170 million Americans. And it says here that PBS has more viewers than our dearly beloved Discovery Channel even, HDTV and A&E, which are all thought of as, well, they are very big networks. Juggernauts. Yeah, but I think people hear PBS to get a certain like, I think some people think it's the treasure that it is.

Some people might be a little bored by it without realizing, oh, but wait a minute, I saw Monty Python and Benny Hill on PBS. I'm so glad you went up to think of Benny Hill. Or I sure love Downton Abbey. And oh, wait a minute, that was PBS too. Right. Or Antiques Roadshow.

I mean, some, Mr. Rogers, some of the more legendary shows in American history. Right. And it's not like all things considered in Morning Edition and Fresh Air and Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me or like are any slouches at all, you know? Like this, these are like, if you step back and put the rosters of NPR and PBS together,

it makes up a pretty big swath of the American fabric. Totally agreed. Yeah. Well, thank you. I agree with myself on that one as well. So I didn't realize how new they were though. Did you? Yeah, I think I thought it was 70s.

Oh, well, you were dead on. Yeah. It started in 1970. Actually, it goes back a little further than that to the Public Broadcasting Act. And actually, we should go back even slightly further than that to set this whole thing up, right? Okay.

So radio comes up, starts to become a mass medium, right? And the UK and Europe and America at the time were basically faced with this thing, like we've got this huge new technology. Up to this point, it's been newspapers and dudes on horseback running through towns. It's how we got the word out. Now, everybody's starting to get radios.

We've got this really powerful thing. What do we do with it? And over in Europe and the UK, they said this is a public good and we need to treat it as such. We need to take it seriously. We need to make sure that public affairs programming gets onto the air and they don't have to worry

about competing for ad dollars or anything like that. We're gonna fund it publicly. In the US, we released two acts. There was the Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1934 and both of them set up the current competitive capitalist market that we have for broadcasting in the country, right?

And it worked. There's, from what I've seen, one of the reasons why it worked was because there was also this kind of tacit understanding among journalists who were part of these broadcast networks that they had a responsibility to inform the public. Yeah, and there were also only three of them at the time.

Sure. But over time, broadcasting in the United States went more and more and more toward entertainment because that could get more people and that meant you could get more advertising money. So we got further and further away from public affairs programming and news and got more and more into entertainment.

And by the 50s, it became evident to some people that we needed something in addition to or to replace the commercial model that we had in the US. Yeah, and this was even pre-cable TV. Oh, yeah. Like, these are just the big three, pre-Fox even. This is ABC, CBS, and NBC

starting to show things like the Honeymooners and realizing people are way more into the Honeymooners than Walter Cronkite. Well, maybe not. People were into the news back then. Yeah, but even if you do have people who are into the news, there are some certain things that have to do with the commercial model when put up

against the public broadcasting model that inherently make public broadcasting more appealing if you're trying to get public affairs programming across. And one of the big ones, Chuck, is if you are a program director for NBC and it's prime time when you know everybody's home, are you going to put on one of your big money makers like the Honeymooners

that you can charge top dollar from advertisers for? Or are you gonna put on the McNeil Lair News Report where you're not gonna get as many people, but there's some really in-depth investigative journalism because they don't have to worry about attracting advertisers. Ideally, they can just focus on the journalism. Which one are you gonna do?

Well, you're gonna do both, but it's a matter of when you do both. Right. So are you gonna do the one at 5.30? Right. Or are you gonna do a prime time? And at 5.30, not everybody's home from work yet. So overall, you have a less informed citizenry.

Just from when you choose to put your news on. I haven't watched, I don't watch the news any more at all, not even cable news, but I can't remember the last time I watched like local news or a news program on a network. I don't even know. I guess when I lived in LA,

I didn't have cable, I would watch the news sometimes. I gotcha. Cause I don't think I had internet yet. I had like an antenna. My news junkie dump has come and gone like over time. It was waxed and waved. It feels pretty gone this time.

Yeah. Just getting used up by cable news. Used. Yeah. Abused. Yeah. Just being done with it, it's pretty freeing, isn't it?

Yeah, even networks I like, I don't wanna hear it anymore. Yeah. And the way people ingest news these days is just so different, you know? Yeah. I get most of my news honestly from Twitter. Yeah.

Social media. That's how it's done these days. But I was going back to LA. I was, I used to sit around and watch local news in LA. It was pretty great. I have to admit. There's a lot to talk about. Yeah.

It was just weird and the personalities were kind of interesting. But yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think it was like started at like 430. And then ran all the way up to whatever the big nightly news programs were what? Like seven?

Yeah. Yeah. So I mean. A couple takes over. Hours and hours of weird Southland news. I got you. Yeah. Told to you by a man wearing a cape.

Maybe. Yeah. It was that weird? Yeah. Or I don't know. It was strange. But then I kind of missed the old Atlanta news because I grew up watching.

That's pretty staid with giant helmet hair. That's Atlanta local news. Yeah. And I think most cities have these stalwarts that have been around forever. Sure. You know? Yeah.

Monica Kaufman. Yeah. She's married now. She's not even Monica Kaufman anymore. Oh, what is, what's her name now? I don't know. Cause I was the nuke in 20 years. I got you.

But I think someone told me, you know, she has a married name now. I was like, what? Oh. That's Monica Kaufman. Yeah. Or that, you know, you would see one of them. I worked at the laser show.

And I would see like a Ken Burns, the weatherman at the laser show. And it's like a legit celebrity sighting. Oh yeah. He gives you like the wink and the guns. Yeah. Everyone's crowding around getting a Zodicraft. Sure.

It's the anchor man thing, you know? Right. The salad days. Yeah. Which are now gone because of cable news and the internet. Well, yeah. The salad days for them. Sure.

Now it's our salad days. It's our time. Yeah. That's true too. And that applies not just to local news. It applies to, to news in general, including NPR and including PBS. Yeah.

That there's this huge shift. I don't know if you've heard this, but there's a big shift to the internet now. That's true. People are starting to consume, like you said, news in different ways and public broadcasting is having to keep up just as much as anybody. But it's, it occupies this weird niche that we'll get into,

but you want to take a break first and regroup? Yeah. We'll come back here and talk about Lyndon Johnson. I can't wait. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references

to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound, like poltergeist?

So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass

and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you.

Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy.

You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles, stuff you should know.

All right, Chuck. LBJ. Yes, LBJ. Did you know that he owned some, I think, TV stations back in Texas when he was a senator? I don't think I knew that. He was. So he was real in favor of public broadcasting.

Well, that kind of makes sense. Yeah. Yeah, so in 1967, well, I mean, in 1967, he signed the Public Broadcasting Act into law. But previous to this, there was something called the NET, National Entertainment Times. What was it? Yeah.

Walker Walker. What was it? I'm sure it was national education television. Yes, national education television. They were the precursor to what would eventually become CPB, Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But at the time, the NET, they would run things that could be critical of the government and its foreign policy.

And some say, I don't think it was entirely due to that, but some say that that did play a part in the government eventually funding via the Public Broadcasting Act public television. Yeah. Maybe they could get a little bit more favorable coverage. Right. It's pretty North Korean in mentality, if you think about it.

It is. You know, and if you step back and look at it, the idea of public broadcasting, government-funded public broadcasting should terrify everybody. Yeah. But the way that it's always been. Sesame Street is very scary. Right, right.

But the way that it's always been pitched and sold is, no, it's taxpayer-funded so it belongs to the people, not the government. Yeah. It's supposed to be insulated. It's a different estate. It's a fourth estate. It's not the government.

It's its own thing. It's supposed to be kept separate. So I was surprised to see that, but it makes total sense. The idea, oh, yeah, we'll bring you into the fold. We'll fund you. But you owe us big time. Yeah. I mean, I wonder what kind of like real talks were had over

that, if any, or if it was just sort of like understood like, hey, here's who's writing your checks now. Well, I think it was also a convergence of different interests, right? So the government wanting to get rid of criticism or clamp down on criticism coincided with people who wanted more public affairs broadcasting. Yeah.

And then you had some endowments that were well-heeled, well-moneyed, and they all kind of came together to create this Corporation for Public Broadcasting that came out of the Public Broadcasting Act. Yeah. So this, like you said, you set it up nicely with radio. But radio started to decline with the advent of television. And so in order, I mean, one of the main reasons they signed

the Public Broadcasting Act was trying to get this non- commercial radio going in a legit way. Yeah. So Johnson Signs the Act, the federal government creates CPB, like we mentioned, Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And they are not, they don't produce TV. No. They basically dole out money.

They're the gatekeepers. Yeah. In a way. They say, here, get yourself a nice little radio transmitter with this. But no, that's what they do. They dole out money. They cover licensing fees or copyright fees.

They cover a lot of the technical infrastructure. And they give a lot of money directly to smaller market NPR or PBS stations. Yeah. I mean, they created the CPB, I'm going to say that the whole time, CPB created NPR in 1970 and before that PBS in 69. They basically said, we need a TV wing and a radio wing. Going to create these and we're going to dole out money

this year, actually, 2016, 2017, 2018, and then projected or at least asked for for 2019. They've requested the same amount of money, which you don't even see that very often, where they're not asking for a raise or whatever, per increased funding, of $445 million, which amounts to 0.01% of the federal budget. Yeah, and there's a lot of debate that we'll get into when we talk about some of the controversies and criticisms

of public broadcasting. And believe me, we're talking about those. But a lot of people say, that's pretty disingenuous to point out what a miniscule amount of the budget that is, because it's still $445 million, still half a billion dollars. Yes. And then on the other side, which we'll hear a little more about too, a lot of people who are on the public broadcasting

side say, just forget it. Just get rid of that. We don't need that money. Let's go without it. There's so many strings attached to that $445 million. It makes up such a small portion of, say, like NPR itself's operating budget that we just don't even need it. It's not even worth the trouble.

There's a big debate, which is weird, because some people on the public radio side and some critics of public broadcasting agree. Or at least government funding for public broadcasting. Right. Agree. Yeah, it's a little weird. I mean, trust me, I've found myself reading some of this,

thinking maybe you should just be free from those shackles. Because sometimes the public will step up, and you might get more funding when something is threatened. Right. Yeah. Yeah, at least at first. The question is whether that could be sustained for the long term.

Well, we'll get into all that. You mentioned NPR, they actually get less than 1% of that for their operating budget. So the $445 million, it's not like they say, all right, NPR, you get $220 something million, and PBS, you get the rest. NPR gets less than 1%. And they actually have a mandate, a CPB of 95% of their spending has to be on local public media stations,

content development, community services, and then what they call other related needs. Right. Toilet paper, I guess, and stuff like that. Keep them to AC on. Yeah. So Chuck, here's how the whole thing works. You ready?

Yep. You and I pay taxes. Boo. Some of it goes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in the form of about $445 million a year. Yeah, in the form of about $4 per taxpayer? Is that right? I saw one group found $1.35 a person.

That's for every person. I don't think for every tax paying person. Oh, I see. OK, well, then for every tax paying person, it's about $4. So taxes go to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. And then the Corporation for Public Broadcasting spends like 95% of that on the small local stations, right? Correct.

Well, and the other stuff, content development. OK, and then you've got the small local stations subscribing to NPR and PBS who have shows that they create, produce. NPR is very famously All Things Considered and Morning Edition, right? Started in 1971 and then Morning Edition in 1979. OK, so all that money goes to taxes, Corporation

to Public Broadcasting, smaller affiliates, and then it goes back up. So it goes down from the top to the smaller affiliates and then back up to NPR and PBS for the programs that they're developing. So rather than the taxes going directly to NPR or to PBS, it goes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. But even still, rather than going directly to NPR or PBS,

it goes to the smaller affiliates who then give it to NPR and PBS. And by give it, you mean they pay licensing fees to play those shows on their stations. Right, exactly. Like, I think they subscribe. And they pay like a yearly fee to carry that show. Yeah, and when it first started, NPR,

and we'll cover NPR first largely and then get into PBS. But in 1970 is when NPR started. And at the time, there are only 90 member stations. And now there are close to 1,000 member stations all over the country licensing these legendary shows. Right, and then for the smaller local affiliates, if you have all things considered on, you're going to attract a percentage

of your town's listeners. Sure. The more listeners you have for that, the more pledges you'll get during your pledge drive. Correct. Right? And then you also, the more listeners you have, the more contributions you can get through underwriting too.

Yeah, but also you'll have to pay more money to license these shows too. Right, the more listeners you have. Yeah, well, I guess we should go over where they get their funding largely and then how they charge the member stations. In 2016, it says 39% was from fees and dues from member stations. So close to 40%.

Yeah. Corporate sponsorship, 24%, which has risen over the years, I think. I think that was kind of a controversial thing for a while, whether or not they wanted to take on any of that. I think it still is. Is it? Yeah.

Like how much they're beholden to that? Sure. Yeah, that makes sense. Grants and contributions, 14%. And then, like you mentioned, foundations, endowments, colleges and universities, stuff like that will pitch in some dough. Right.

What's the big one that it's always the? The fourth? Oh, the Catherine T. Wait. The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. Exactly. It's like drilled into your head after all these years. And the Chubb Group for PBS. Oh, yeah.

And members like you. Yeah. So morning edition and all things considered, they are, stations are charged based on the volume of their listeners plus a multiplier. And then things like fresh air, apparently, are priced in proportion to that station's revenue. So smaller stations don't have to pay as much,

as bigger stations. Which is great. Because again, the whole idea behind public broadcasting is that you have stuff that's supposed to be, like you said, not beholden to advertisers. Right. So if company X is screwing over this town's water supply, but they advertise with all of the broadcast networks

that are commercially driven, those those networks' news might not mention it. But public broadcasting will probably do that story and will let everybody know. Yeah. That's the idea. So it's important for everybody to have public broadcasting. And that's why the smaller ones are supported by the larger ones.

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. PBS on the other side. We mentioned Mr. Rogers, Nova. Man. So good. Growing up, that was a good one.

Wasn't Cosmos on PBS? I think so. I think it was originally. It seems like a very PBS-y show. Sure. That turtleneck. Masterpiece Theater, of course. This old house, the Frugal Gourmet.

Who was that? Was that Julia Child or Jacques Pepin? Oh, I immediately thought Julia Child. But now you have me wondering. We'll find out. OK. I'll get to the bottom of this, Chuck. You mentioned McNeil-Lair Report, Evening at the Pops.

Sesame Street, probably the most legendary. Not probably. Definitely the most legendary kids show of all time. And PBS gets about 200 million viewers annually, representing 82% of US television households. So they're big. It's one way to put it. They're not like.

I mean, I know you think of PBS as like the sweet little like publicly funded thing, but that's big stuff. Like if they took in ads, they probably wouldn't have to sweat it at all. No. But that's a double-edged sword because then they lose their public value if they start taking in ads allegedly.

Which, again, is why some people have it really stuck in their craw that they have underwriting at all. It's Jeff Smith, by the way. Never heard of him. Frugal Gourmet? Yeah. Well, not in the 70s, it wasn't. Was it?

Yeah, it said he released a book in 1984 called The Frugal Gourmet. He's the only person associated with it. Jeff Smith, it sounds like an alias to me. It really does. Maybe it's Jacques Papin is French for Jeff Smith. Yeah, it says Jeff Smith, 1939 to 2004 apparently. He said Jeff.

Right. Jeff the chef. Jeff Jeff. He was the Frugal Gourmet. He was, according to the Seattle Post Intelligencer, TV's original celebrity chef. Oh, wow. He wasn't that big of a celebrity, apparently.

How about that? So PBS has 350 member stations as of now. And they are in all 50 states, plus Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, and American Samoa. Yeah. They've got their own member stations. Pretty neat. And they, for the record, get about 7%

of their funding from CPB. Right, but just like with the NPR model, local affiliates pay to carry Antiques Roadshow. As they should. Man, if you want to get some viewers, just have an Antiques Roadshow marathon. Do you watch it? Have you ever seen it?

Yeah, I have seen it. So good. It's just, it's like how it's made. You just get sucked in. It lulls you into its trap. Well, that's like, I mean, our own article at House of Works has a little sidebar about the sound of NPR, how it was parodied with delicious dish on Saturday

Out Live. So famously, but that's the thing. I used to listen to public radio on the radio during my commutes before I even really knew what I was listening to because I didn't want to wake up to a lot of noise. Oh, yes. And it was just so soothing.

It just kind of eased you into the day, huh? Yeah, absolutely. And it still does. I still listen to it. Poor news, but largely because I want to hear. The voices? Yeah, man. Are you into AMSR?

The second cup. Oh, is that still around? I think so. With Lois Ritesis? Oh, God bless her. Second cup concert. You ever looked up pictures of these people? I know people freak out about us, but yeah, it happens.

But you should see these people. I looked up Lois Ritesis, and I think I expected her to be like 400 years old. Yeah, she's not? Nope. I've no, I guess I've never seen a picture. She's 27 now. Diane Rehm is 30.

Yeah, they'd like to hang on to folks, you know? Here we go, she's been doing that show for. Since the 80s? Amazing. We should be so lucky, right? Hey, ear lips, the God's ear. OK. OK.

So Chuck, there's a couple of things going on here, OK? There are. You're getting into the sides? Yeah. So one of the things that Congress likes to do every about five years is say, you know that public broadcasting, that left-leaning commie dribble? Yeah, why are we paying for that?

Yeah, why? And so I was reading this dude named David Boaz, or Bose, BoAz, take your pick. He's one of the higher ups at the Cato Institute, Libertarian think tank. He hates public broadcasting in America. Yeah, most Libertarians do. Like, it really gets to this guy.

And he makes a couple of pretty decent points, right? Like, to him, it's a transfer of wealth from the average taxpayer up to produce entertainment that the upper middle class typically consumes, even though it's intended for everybody. And so from, like, a taxpayer standpoint, I can kind of understand where, if you didn't agree with, if you thought that this was leaning against you ideologically

and taking your taxpayer money, I could see how something like that would drive you bonkers. Yeah, sure. To me, though, I think everybody kind of assumes that public broadcasting in the West leans a certain way, typically leftward. But supposedly, study after study, find that they may be slightly left leaning,

but they're typically a lot closer to neutral than they're given credit for. Yeah, there have been. Overall. Yeah, there have been some things that have happened over the years. Notably in 2011, NPR president at the time and CEO Vivian Schiller had to resign, or did resign at least,

when there was a video, undercover video in a meeting where one of the executives called Tea Party members seriously racist, racist people. Right. It was a big deal. In fact, most of the stuff, when you look up, NPR controversies is all dated at 2011 for that reason. It was a big stink.

Well, when they got rid of Vivian Schiller, they specifically said that under her watch, some controversies had really gotten out of control, and they just no longer thought she could lead any longer. Yeah, and so there was a study, researchers at Duke University did a study of a Twitter network of NPR, and basically did all this Duke University-style math that I won't bore you with, but to analyze whether or not

NPR was left leaning or not. Right. And it wasn't just NPR. They did this with a lot of news outlets. And I think they never actually posted. The New York Times didn't. There was a blog about all this. Never posted where NPR fell, but they were asked.

And one of the researchers said NPR resides somewhat to the left of center. But further to the right, then Katie Couric, the Washington Post, the LA Times, or Brian Williams. And that was using their algorithm. And then NPR kind of hit back and said, in fact, Steven Ski. We are way further left than Brian Williams. Steven Ski wrote an article for The Wall Street Journal

and said, in all these surveys, most listeners consistently identify themselves as the middle of the road or conservative. So a lot of people are like, well, wait a minute. That can't be true. Right. And so they did. They got the actual numbers from those surveys.

And 28% of NPR's audience said that they were conservative or very conservative. 25% middle of the road and 37% liberal or very liberal. So 53% are middle of the road or conservative. 62% are middle of the road or liberal. So it's not as heavy. And this isn't their programming. This is their audience.

Right. But it's not as heavy left as some might have you believe. Yeah. And just because that's their audience, I mean, that kind of suggests that it is a little more left-leaning because people tend to go seek out stuff that supports their own beliefs rather than challenges it. Probably. Hets off to the middle of the road

conservative once they listen. Yeah. You know? Sure. You want to take another break before we get back to it? Yeah. OK. MUSIC

On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair.

Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back

to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road.

OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles, stuff you should know. So I think it's almost really just kind of more a matter of perception. We were talking about whether NPR is left-leaning or not. Right. Or public broadcasting in general.

I think it's probably a little bit left-leaning, but it's not how, you know, it's not like the Info Wars of the Left. Right. You mean CNN. The thing about criticizing NPR, though, is you can go one way. You can say, oh, it's a little left-leaning.

But if you look on the other side, you'll find people like Noam Chomsky, who say, you're getting mired down in the details. He said, if you really listen to NPR or you watch PBS and you listen to the stuff they're saying or the people they're having on as experts, it's the same that you're going to find on cable news. And I think one NPR, former NPR correspondent,

basically said that NPR runs press releases for the Pentagon. Right. Noam Chomsky was saying it was basically structurally there to support the status quo. Where if they're presenting a debate and both sides of the debate, it's all still very structured within the status quo. They're not bringing in somebody who's like, well,

all of this is moot point. We need to completely redo the structure of our economy or something like that. They don't bring in outside voices like that. They bring in voices that exist within normalcy or whatever. So there's a whole camp out there that tend to say, you remember that thing that Lyndon Johnson originally did, the reason why he founded the Corporation

for Public Broadcasting to kind of keep a clamp down and criticism and to keep things within a reasonable spectrum? Well, he succeeded. I kind of tend to agree with that. Yeah, I feel like they usually provide counterpoints. Right. They definitely provide counterpoints,

but it's all that counterpoint is something that's still within the bounds of normalcy. Yeah. There's not somebody coming in and saying, forget either point. We just got to throw everything away and start over again. I think the point is that it's lacking really, really outside viewpoints.

Right. You know what I'm saying? Outside the status quo. So this has all come up in the news more recently because this year when Trump proposed his budget proposal, which is not settled or anything by any means. In fact, NPR people are like, let's just settle down. This is round one.

But the proposal at least called for the eventual complete abolishment, is that a word? Yeah. Of public funding for PBS and NPR or for CPB. Right. And again, you've got people on both sides saying, good. Great. Let's just get it over with.

Yeah. And eventual meaning they wouldn't just pull. It would be gradually over time. Right. Which, of course, makes more sense than just like. Just doing it all at once, tearing the bandaid off? Yeah. And like I said, I've always been a big supporter

of public broadcasting. But I thought maybe just be free from those shackles finally. Maybe the public would step up where you get hurt. And apparently where PBS and NPR are both kind of trying to voice most of their concerns is that, of course, your big cities are going to be fine. Right. But it's the smaller market member stations

that rely way more on the CPB funding that are going to be most hurt. And these are the people that need this stuff the most. Right. These rural communities need public broadcasting. Right. So it's hard to argue with that point, you know? It is, for sure.

There's actually a historical lesson in here. You can look to New Zealand for this. Like back in the late 80s, they tried a deregulation experiment. But they had one channel, TVNZ, in the whole country. And the government said, you know what? You guys are done with the teat of the government. Go sell some ads. And they tried this experiment.

TVNZ actually came out as, I believe it survived. But it was worse for the wear as a result. And ironically, this deregulation opened a space for a true non-profit, non-commercial television called New Zealand On Air that actually came and thrived in the wake of this transformation for TVNZ from public broadcasting to commercially driven. Interesting.

So it's not necessarily going to work out well for the people who listen to NPR or watch PBS if they go to completely commercially driven programming. And the whole reason that you have the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ostensibly is because commercially driven journalism wasn't getting the job done before. Right.

And it certainly isn't now. Newsrooms being cut. News that is on cable being more and more polarized one way or another. And it's just shouting match after shouting match. If you really watch the news, the only people, aside from some of those old Died in the World news people on NBC or CBS's Nightly News,

the only ones really doing real journalism are the ones who are working for public broadcasting. At the very least, they're the ones who are trying the hardest, for sure. Yeah, you could totally make that argument. But at the same time, we're in a weird limbo state where everybody's ticked off, right? Because PBS and NPR are not just not fully publicly funded.

Right. And they're not just advertising driven. Right. They're a combination of the two that compromises them two different ways. Right. Which is why both sides are saying one or the other. Right.

I tend to feel like they should just go completely publicly funded. And we should adopt something like a British model where it's like you're funded for the next five years. Go do the public some good. And you can't have any underwriting whatsoever. Yeah, well, I mean, it's interesting in that most of Europe and Britain definitely went that other direction,

like you mentioned at the beginning. And in that one article you sent over, talking about ways it's done, public broadcasting in other countries as a whole. And they were talking about the BBC. And they said, who is the average? Can't remember who they asked, but who's the average BBC viewer? And the answer was every British citizen.

Right. It's a much different deal. Sure. You know? Yeah. And the BBC's criticized too for being a government mouthpiece in a lot of ways too, but they're also critical of the government in ways that other people aren't.

And they'll also put news on at a time when everybody is home to watch it. Right. That kind of stuff. So the future of broadcasting, public broadcasting, isn't as simple as like, are they going to be publicly funded or not? It's whether or not they're still viable.

In 2015, the median audience age was 54 years old. And in 20 years before that, it was 45. It's a pretty, pretty big age change. Yeah. I mean, at least it wasn't 74. Like it stayed exactly the same. Right. The same people just got 20 years older.

Right. So they are getting some younger listeners, but it's the way that especially people under 35 years old consume media is radically different than their parents. Yeah. And there's plenty of people out there who are younger, who qualify as quote unquote millennials. Sure.

Who are like listening to stuff that NPR puts out. They're listening to the huge, huge slate of NPR podcasts. Right. There's a ton of podcasts that NPR puts out. A lot of their radio programs are repurposed into podcasts. Yeah. And so there's a lot of younger people who are listening to it. The problem is that poses a conundrum

to the public broadcasting model as it stands in the US, though, right? Well, yeah, I looked at the top 20 today on iTunes just to kind of see. And NPR had eight of the top 20 shows as of today. That's stiff competition for us. Hidden Brain, This American Life, Planet Money. I guess Estown and Serial both count, right?

They would qualify because they come out of this American life stable, and that's where it got its start. Their highest ranked show today was Ted Radio Hour at number five. Incidentally, we were at number four. Oh, good, good to know. But yeah, I mean, eight shows in the top 20, but it does pose an interesting conundrum for them.

I know when they were started to dip their toe into podcasts, and then once podcasts started generating revenue via ads, they weren't quite sure how to handle all that stuff. No, and part of the problem is if you're a small local affiliate, you've paid a lot of money to get fresh air on your airwaves. You don't want some 20-year-old going and listening to it on the new WizBang NPR app that the city slickers came up with.

You want them listening to your station so that you can get their donations. So for a while, NPR had an embargo on even mentioning the fact that there were podcasts out there on air. Yeah, right now I think they say that it's OK to mention that an announcer hosts a podcast, but they don't say like, hey, go download the podcast, go to iTunes or Apple Podcasts.

Right, they say that they hosted podcasts. Well, it's a legit concern, but my whole thing is you can't fight on demand listening or viewing. You just can't fight it. You can't tell a 26-year-old, no, you need to tune in from 7 to 9 a.m. to listen to us. They're like, what is this tune in that you speak of? What is 7 to 9 you speak of?

No, it's true, and if you're fighting against it, you're going to lose. Yeah, because that's the beauty of podcasts. What's sad is looking at it from the outside, it looks like NPR and PBS get this because NPR has its own apps, PBS has an on-demand video app as well. It looks like the larger institutions get this, but I don't see what anyone's doing to save the local affiliates,

the small-town ones that are really going to be the first to suffer, or if they're just being sacrificed as canaries in the coal mine, in which case that's just the way it's going to roll because the kids in those small towns are still going to listen to NPR, they're just not listening to it on the radio any longer. Well, but then there is a segment of people that would say, well, you know what, dims the brakes, and if your little

member station goes out of business, then that's called changing times. Okay, but let's take this back to you. I remember my example where Corporation X was poisoning the water in your small town, and no one outside of the town knew about it, and Corporation X advertised on the networks, the local news, so the local news weren't going to take them on, that's why you need that small, tiny affiliate who

not have to worry about funding and advertising so that they can do good journalism and expose that corporation to the rest of the town. Well, if that small radio station or that small PBS affiliate drives up because of the NPR app, Corporation X gets away from poisoning the whole town, nobody knows, town dies, gets blown over by dust, and it's like it was never there. I wonder, and certainly there are people in NPR corporate that

are way more knowledgeable in trying to solve this. Peter Fulkenflick. Than me, but I wonder if they could like on the podcast. Peter Overby, David Fulkenflick. I combine the two into one super host, one super correspondent. One super group, they're like, damn Yankees. I was on a plane flight with them one time, by the way.

Were they rowdy? They weren't in first class, but I remember being like however old I was when that came out, 15 or 16, 17, something like that. Were you really? And like Jack Blade was sitting on one side of me, Ted Nugent was in front of me, Tommy Shaw was behind me, and it was like I was part of the band, I was sitting in the middle of these. That's really cool.

I was like legends, and I thought, man, I love Night Ranger, and I love sticks. Right. But I hate you, Ted Nugent. He's reading. I remember specifically, I'm reading a hunting magazine. Yeah. Oh, I can believe that. It's just fantasizing.

Yeah. I'd rather be hunting. Well, I can tell you Ted Nugent is not listening to this particular episode, especially now. So my idea was maybe like, I wonder if they could encourage via the podcast, say, hey, we know you enjoy us on your podcast, but why don't you donate Monday to your local member's affiliate, even though you don't consume it through there to keep the cause alive?

Right. Yeah. I mean, that's just my dumb outsider's opinion. Well, what if you turn local affiliates from broadcast-based, like, you know, you've got to spend a lot of money on a transmitter and uplinks and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. What if you just turned them into news bureaus, like they were for investigative journalism and reporting for local, and then that local stuff could be kicked up the line, you know,

some local reporting appears on the national edition of Morning Edition or whatever? What if you just turned them all into news bureaus instead, and then they just went completely to online consumption? What if, like, the head of NPR just, like, swerved off the road, was like, oh, my God, that's it. These guys figured it out. So getting back to their new models, their NPR1 is the app, and about 40% of their users are under 35, that coveted demo, but here's the thing, they did some surveys, and they

said a third of those users seldom listen to traditional radio, but 25% said they, because of the app, were starting to listen to more terrestrial radio, which I'm not sure I get how that works. Well, I could see just being like, oh, I didn't know this was here, wait a minute, there's like a whole radio station that has this, I'm going to go check that out. I could see that. And then there is Passport, which you mentioned was, I don't think by name, but that's the PBS video on demand service that you get, if you donate to your local station, I think

$5 a month donation will get you access to Passport, and that's, if you wanted to binge down Naby, you could have done that via Passport. Right. Did you watch that? I saw an episode or two, I just never tickled my gizzard. Okay. I loved it, big fan. Yeah, I know, a lot of people did, I didn't hate it or anything, I didn't shoot the TV

when it came on. Yeah, you didn't go out and sit. Or shoot my Passport app. And then the other big shake up in recent years, last year in 2016, Sesame Street made the big jump over to HBO after 46 years on PBS. And there were a lot of mixed feelings about this. Some people saying, oh man, what a drag, you're now on a pay station and these kids that can't afford cable TV and HBO maybe, that really need Sesame Street, can't watch it anymore,

are these new episodes at least. And Big Bird said TS, I got some money. Big Bird said, you want Sesame Street to stay on the air and this is the only way it's going to happen. Yeah. And you can watch these episodes nine months after they air on HBO. So to me, it's kind of a win-win. Sure.

I thought that was cool that Big Bird went in and negotiated that, that PBS still got episodes after a certain time. Yeah, good for you, Big Bird and Elmo. So to me, Chuck, this is my thing, I think public broadcasting should be 100% public. The idea was when you bought a television set, there was a tax on it that went specifically to fund. Oh yeah? Public broadcasting.

I think I knew that. So it got looped into the appropriations process. So they have to go beg for the money every year. If it were publicly funded through some sort of tax that was designated just for it. And there was also, this is a really big point too, this is how it was originally supposed to be. It was shielded from government meddling by a nonpartisan board of directors whose entire job it was was to keep the government out of public broadcasting.

And they could just focus on good, unfettered journalism. That would be the ideal. And I don't think it's too late to go to that model. I think commercial broadcasting shows that there's a huge need for it. But in the U.S., it's in this weird limbo state, is it commercial, is it publicly funded? There's so many easily fixed problems with it, but you have to go all one way or all the other to me. Do you know what would be great and also a disaster now that I've thought about it for

a half a second? Is if you could like, when you go to pay your taxes, you could select a box that say, I would like a portion of my taxes to go to funding public broadcasting or to funding schools, that wouldn't work. Well, if it was just what they relied on, it might not work. But why not add it on there? Could do it as well in addition to less public broadcasting. I got a few little facts here though.

We got some more public broadcasting. I just looked up NPR's own like interesting facts about NPR. All things considered, their very first episode was covering the 20,000 person protest of the Vietnam War, featured a 24 minute sound portrait of the protest. The very first thing they ever did, it was pretty ballsy. Can we say ballsy? I don't know. We'll find out how many balls we have.

Sure. We're not NPR. I heard Terry Gross, she was on a Mark Marin episode and she talked about kind of a bit of a desire to be free from the shackles of the restrictions of being on NPR. Oh, yeah? Yeah. Mainly she said when they do like readings from an author and they have to really go in ahead of time and say, hey, you can't say this word from your reading on the air

and stuff like that. She doesn't want to get up there and just feel foreign, feel foul. Right. That's not Terry Gross' style. No, but she also doesn't want to be like, by the way, you can't say the B word. Yeah, exactly. NPR had a lot of firsts, one of them, Susan Stamberg. All Things Considered Host in 1972 was the very first woman to be an anchor for a national

news broadcast. Oh, that's cool. The Simpsons, that's special love for them. Terry Gross, Bob Boylan, Robert Siegel, and Carl Cassell have all been- Carl Cassell. What did I say, Cassell? Mm-hmm. Geez.

You're thinking of Howard Cosell. I was. Carl Cassell, they were all on The Simpsons. Yeah. Yeah. And then Morning Edition had some other names before they settled on that. Morning Air, First Things First, it's not bad. That is pretty good.

Very NPR. Sure. And then this sounds so NPR, it's probably why they didn't do it. Tweed jacket. Starting line. Yeah, that's not too bad. I think Morning Edition's good. I think it's the best.

And then finally, Bob Boylan's great, great show, Tiny Desk Concerts. David, listen to those. No, but I'm familiar with them. Oh, man, it's just the best. He had a band called Tiny Desk Unit, and that was why he named the show Tiny Desk Concerts. One of the great music shows. For clearing that up. Of why it was named that?

Yeah, I had no idea why. Well, I mean, it's named that because they perform in his NPR office at his, like, nearest- Right. That's what I thought, but it's still- Yeah, sure. Is this desk like a miniature? Right. I've got one more for you.

So there's this 2011 study that found that of 14 Western democracies, the United States was the only one to rely almost entirely on commercial broadcasting to inform its citizenry. That's precarious. Interesting. I know that same article you sent did a lot of studies that found that those countries, those other countries are generally much more well-informed about news events. Traffic accident? Everybody knows.

Yeah. If you want to know more about public broadcasting, go listen to NPR, watch PBS, and decide for yourself what you think about them. And in the meantime, you can also type those words in the search bar at HowStuffWorks.com. Since I said search bar, it's time for listener mail. This is from Aeron in Miami, A-R-O-N. I think it's just Aeron. I don't know.

Okay. Aeron. The great key in Peel Skit. Yeah. Hey, guys. Just got into podcasts a couple of months ago, and I'm a catch-up fan. We did a- remember that catch-up podcast? Sure, yeah.

It's a good one. I'm a firm believer it belongs in a pantry, not the refrigerator. I've had many debates about this, mostly while intoxicated, but that's beside the point. Many things work well in contrast, like a frosty beverage with buffalo wings or crunchy potato chip alongside a softer sandwich, but who wants to dip a hot french fry into cold catch-up? I gotta agree with this guy. Yeah?

Yeah. He said, to be clear, my claim is based solely on memory, however, I recall Heinz introducing their fridge fit catch-up bottle in 2006. During a debate about pantry versus refrigerated, someone on the other side pointed out it was not either to refrigerate after opening for best results, refrigerate after opening. It was like not either or. I'm not sure what he's saying there. Who knows?

Still confusing. I was completely for it. I've never seen such verbiage on a Heinz bottle before, and then it dawned on me. Heinz had just hit and released the fridge fit bottle. Of course, they will direct you to keep this in the fridge. It's part of the marketing strategy. There's nothing to do with the best way to enjoy the catch-upy goodness. This guy was wasted when he wrote this.

Yeah. It's becoming clear. There's nothing in the middle there. But he said that, thanks for the information entertainment, and remember, say no to refrigeration of catch-up. A. A. Ron. Thanks for that. A. Ron.

Read the sentence. Maybe it's me. No, no. I heard you say it, and it sounded like you were reading it correctly. Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks, A. Ron. We hope you feel better in the morning.

If you want to get in touch with us, like A. Ron did, you can tweet to us at S-Y-S-K podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuffyoushouldknow. You can send an email to stuffpodcast.howstuffworks.com and always join us at our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit howstuffworks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90's called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and

choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90's. We lived it and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90's called on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help and a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to say bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.