TEACHOUT ON PBS CULTURAL PROGRAMMING

posted by James Reel

Even if you have reservations about the politics of the Wall Street Journal, that publication does come through with some interesting cultural coverage. An example is Terry Teachout's recent column about how to fix the cultural programming on PBS. Here's his main indictment:

What went wrong? PBS evolved over time into a viewer-driven, ratings-conscious enterprise and discovered along the way that high-culture programming is (a) hugely expensive to produce and (b) not nearly as popular as "Antiques Roadshow." Hence the slow but steady shrinkage of airtime devoted to the fine arts, and the increasing trivialization of such cultural programming as does manage to make it onto the network.

Teachout outlines what he'd do about it here.