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PBS lemmings

26 comments on PBS lemmings

PBS lemmings
: Somebody is finally doing this story: PBS pledge weeks used to be just dull. Now they are horrendous exercises in bad taste and bad sense — worse than anything on network TV. They expose as a lie the belief that PBS viewers are smarter, better educated, and have more taste than the rest of us. Nope. PBS viewers are culture trash.

The Wall Street Journal lists the top 10 pledge programs:

1. Doo Wop 50

2. 3 Tenors — Los Angeles

3. Suze Orman: Courage to Be Rich

4. Les Miserables

5. 9 Steps for Financial Freedom with Suze Orman

6. Riverdance

7. Yanni: Live at the Acropolis

8. Rock, Rhythm and Doo Wop

9. Suze Orman: The Road to Wealth

10. How to Live Forever with Gary Null

It’s all cults and cultural crap.

Compare that with the Top 10 network shows and tell me that PBS viewers deserve to be snotty.

When I was as TV critic, I couldn’t stand the witless twits who’d brag to me that they watched only PBS. But I guess they were all happier than I am in life. For they have Deepak Chopra.

26 responses to “PBS lemmings”

  1. Jennifer Martinez Avatar
    Jennifer Martinez

    I don’t know about their other shows, but their kid programs are good, my little boy watches some of them.
    Their evening news can put you to sleep if you have trouble sleeping.
    Jennifer Martinez sends

  2. submandave Avatar
    submandave

    My wife and I have a running joke concerning the ubiquitous Doo-Wop presence on PBS. However, it does seem that the PBS top-10 are very musically heavy compared with the networks. And in PBS’s defense, I did see an excellent piece on Pearl Harbor historian extraordinaire Gordon Prange (At Dawn We Slept).

  3. .glyph. Avatar
    .glyph.

    Thank you for posting this; every so often it’s necessary to freshen up one’s disgust. Now I remember why I stopped watching network television! Both lists area bunch of crap as far as I can see.

  4. finnesota Avatar
    finnesota

    PBS has lost many of its core viewers to cable, so the notion that their audience is richer and smarter is just as tired as Suze Orman’s get rich quick pitch or Yanni’s moustache.
    Still, you’re never one to miss an opportunity to bash public tv or radio, Jeff, so I give you props for consistency. Way to go and long live The O’Reilly Youth.

  5. Steven Avatar
    Steven

    I watch Nova and occasionally frontline. Nova is outstanding, the rest is crap.

  6. ....a moment with Easycure Avatar
    ….a moment with Easycure

    Is that the McLaughlin Group channel? I think that’s the only show on there I can identify.

  7. Interloper Avatar
    Interloper

    Why do so many people want to live forever with Gary Null? He must be quite a guy.

  8. Dan Avatar
    Dan

    My wife and I refer to PBS as “Television for Old People,” or sometimes “It’s British, so It Must Be Good!” The staggeringly unfunny British comedies PBS puts out (when they could be showing “Yes, Minister”) continues to floor us.
    But Jeff, the NY Times list misses the worst of the PBS sins: the ballroom dancing programs! These are truly mistifying….

  9. Paul Avatar
    Paul

    heh- And these are their “good” shows.

  10. hugh macleod Avatar
    hugh macleod

    Eh. PBS hasn’t had a decent biz model since I was in college (yeah, that long ago).

  11. Charlie Avatar
    Charlie

    The thing that annoys me is the constant begging. They actually spend more time on the begging than they would on commercials.

  12. Sgt. Mom Avatar
    Sgt. Mom

    In San Antonio, the PBS station, KLRN repeated “Le Miserable” INCESSANTLY during their begging for dollars week… and curiously, interesting programs turn up for sale in video catalogues WAY before they’re ever broadcast on KLRN. OF course, they have never had the good taste to hire me, even though I have applied several times. Friends who worked there say they may have done me a favor anyway….

  13. albo Avatar
    albo

    I guess their core demographic is 55-year-old Volvo-driving, mesclun-eating liberals. So they’re giving their audience what they want.
    In 15 years my generation (the tail end of the Boomers) will be watching PBS and this will be the list:
    1. Hip Hop 50
    2. 3 Skanks — Los Angeles (Courtney Love, Sheryl Crow and Madonna)
    3. Paris Hilton: Courage to Be Rich (By Having a Rich Family)
    4. Les Miserables IV – Revenge of Cosette (This Time it’s Personal)
    5. 9 Steps for Avoiding Employment with Paris Hilton
    6. Slamdance
    7. Dave Matthews: Live and Annoying at the Acropolis (Special 6-hour Jam Session)
    8. Rock, Rhythm and Doo Wop – Let’s Listen to Grandpas Record Collection!
    9. Paris Hilton: The Road to Rehab
    10. How to Live Forever by Going Vegan with Dennis Kucinich

  14. bryan Avatar
    bryan

    actually, they don’t show “Les Miserables,” they show the 10th anniversary concert. The actual stage production is worth the trip to see. The rest of the list is crap.

  15. peter Avatar
    peter

    Its time to face the fact that with 150 channels of all sorts, PBS just isn’t relevant any more. They could be, but with a few exceptions, the programming sucks. Stale British dramas and comedies. Uh, I’ve got BBC America. Maybe they’ll pick up The Office in about ten years when everyone has seen each episode 20 times.

  16. Jettison Avatar
    Jettison

    IMO, NOVA’s “The Elegant Universe” earned PBS’s keep. The rest is crap though.

  17. Jettison Avatar
    Jettison

    Oh, the Benjamin Franklin movie was good. But that was a few years ago.

  18. Anonymous Avatar
    Anonymous

    Intelligent people don’t sit and watch pledge drives on PBS. They program their VCRs and watch the Jim Lehrer News Hour, BBC News, Frontline, and Now with Bill Moyers — more credible news sources than any of the info lite celebrity junk that fills the network and cable news shows.
    Holding up Survivor, CSI, Friends, and Monday night football to illustrate how much better network TV is than PBS is laughable.

  19. mario Avatar
    mario

    To the above poster:
    It depends on what you define as “junk.”
    One could say that BBC news, Now With Bill Moyers,
    etc., could be considered “junk” also.
    Blatantly one-sided, partisan, politically motivated programming that could be SEEN to be on the same level (or worse) than any Big Three Network or Fox News Channel broadcast could ALSO
    be seen to be “laughable.” (Maybe not Lehrer, but that is just MY opinion.).
    It all depends on what one considers as “credible”
    news sources, too. To you they might be credible, to others they might not be. So get off the high horse and stop telling us ignorant peasants what or what is not “credible,” or “junk,” will ya?

  20. Gina, Los Angeles Avatar
    Gina, Los Angeles

    Nice try, Jeff. Surely you’re joking that these network shows show greater intelligence than the PBS programs you list. They’re all a sorry lot. Truth is: Intelligent people don’t even know what most of the shows on either list are.

  21. ronnie Avatar
    ronnie

    Gina,
    Truth is: Intelligent people don’t even know what most of the shows on either list are
    It seems to me that most intelligent people would be aware of current events and popular culture, whether or not they choose to partake from the offerings of that popular culture. I have about 500 vinyl LPs and about 500 CDs and not a single Britney Spears or Michael Jackson album, but I know who they are.
    I can identify all but one show on each list. I have no idea who Gary Null is, and I don’t know what Two and A Half Men is about. Frankly, there are more shows on the network list that I would watch. PBS likes to portray itself as high culture but its offerings tend more towards the pedestrian than the esoteric. There are exceptions, Austin City Limits and Soundstage are fine musical performance shows, but I’m sure you could find some more ‘roots’ Celtic dancing than Riverdance and then there’s Yanni. Yanni??!! I’d rather watch the Austin City Limits Stevie Ray Vaughn retrospective for the umpteenth time than some MOR pablum like Yanni.

  22. Gina, Los Angeles Avatar
    Gina, Los Angeles

    Quite true, Ronnie, more along the lines of what I really meant to say. I actually regularly check overnights and weekly ratings online or in the paper to see what America is digesting, and it never ceases to amaze me. Advertising dollars or pledge breaks, the programs that hold the center of gravity in America are jaw dropping scary. What’s more jaw dropping scary: 75 years ago people still knew the art of conversation, reading, cooking, hobbies . . . . I’d rather see the WSJ cover that horror.

  23. JorgXMcKie Avatar
    JorgXMcKie

    Ah, yes, the good old days. I, unfortunately, remember some of the good old days (not 75 years ago) and, trust me, Sturgeon’s Law was still in effect then. (Sturgeon’s Law: Named after science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon. When acquaitances of his said they never read science fiction because, “90% of it is crap,” Sturgeon [a master writer] replied, “Of course it is, 90% of *everything* is crap — that’s what you pay to get the good 10%.” Which leads to Jorg’s Corollary: The more crap, the more good stuff.)
    There was some good stuff and a whole lot of crap. That includes conversation, unless, perhaps you were seated at a Round Table at the Algonquin. Having never been so fortunate, it is my perception that way over 90% of most conversation is crap.

  24. Gina, Los Angeles Avatar
    Gina, Los Angeles

    JorgeXMcKie: Touche.

  25. CharlesWT Avatar
    CharlesWT

    “…the ballroom dancing programs! These are truly mistifying….”
    Watching ballroom dancing use to be worse than watching paint peel until the female dancers realized that clothes were an unnecessary accouterment. Now, it’s only worse than watching grass grow…

  26. Bill Peschel Avatar
    Bill Peschel

    That’s one reason why I’m glad to be living in this era and not in the old radio days (or even growing up in the ’60s, the era of three channels and “Gilligan’s Island.”
    Thanks to the Internet, I have access to just about anything my little heart desires. I can listen to They Might Be Giants and read Marcus Auerius downloaded from Project Gutenberg. If I want a classic movie, I can watch the newly restored Robin Hood (like I did last night), and, yes, even go to the movies to watch “Kill Bill.”
    While I regret seeing few works have a big effect over the culture, I am glad I don’t have to put up with the krep that infests television and most of the magazines.