Are you bothered by the presence of commercial messages on our public airwaves? The voices of public radio and television should be speaking on behalf of the public, not commercial interests. Originally, that was the case. At some point, public stations began broadcasting the names of commercial contributors in exchange for their contribution. Later, they added words that are subjective and promote the contributing businesses. These advertisements now punctuate nearly every program on public radio and television.
There are problems with commercialism in our public media.
The most grave is that advertisers can and do exert their funding power to control the content of the programming. Public financing and control of public broadcasting is the mechanism by which programming that serves the public interest can exist. It is a process distinct from the desire to make money, and produces different outcomes. It must be remembered that it is the process and the relationships between the different parties (the listener, the public, the directors of the station, the producers of the material) that determines the nature of what is broadcast. The addition of corporate sponsorship and commercial messages to public broadcasting results in content that becomes constrained not to challenge corporate interests, and which the public no longer has a sense of ownership or trust in.
When you get a request for donations to public radio, you can use the opportunity to help rid the public airwaves of commercial messages. This example is the pledge I sent:
December 17, 1998:To: Hawaii Public Radio
738 Kaheka St.
Honolulu, HI 96814
808/955-8821, fax: 946-3863.It is wrong for Public Radio to air commercial messages. The public interest must not be compromised by commercial interests. I pledge $0.015 for every hour that HPR becomes commercial-free ($131.40/year), or $131.40 if the HPR membership is given a vote on whether to be be commercial free or not and allowed open on the air debate about the issue.