As Membership Declines, Public TV Tweaks Practices

Public TV members are contributing more money to PBS than they did a year ago, but the number of givers continues to dwindle. Members contributed nearly five percent more during the past nine months than they had at the same point last year, according to PBS research, but overall membership fell by more than two percent.

With most station reporting, December 2001 pledge proceeds boasted a 16.5 percent increase, up nearly $5.5 million from the year before. The March drive was up 13 percent over last year, for a $6.8 million bump. And while the June numbers are still coming in, early reports suggest an increase as well.

Public TV will not, however, meet its goal of a two percent increase in the number of members, thought Altman reports the system is losing members more slowly (2.1 percent) than last year (4.2 percent).

Steady membership loss since 1993 prompted PBS five months ago to launch an ambitious, multi-year membership reinvention project to overhaul public TV's approach to its largest funding source, individual giving.

Reported in Current July 8, 2002

CIPB Comments:

It appears that public broadcasting's base continues to shrink to those best able to contribute money. This portrays the upper-middle class bias in PBS programming and member station services. This bias is perhaps no more apparent than during the televised pledge auctions, which consist principally of luxury items for the well healed.

If PBS hopes to expand its membership base, it has to reach out to the working- and under-class audiences which number in the tens of millions. This would mean programs that educate such people about their world and the sources of the social problems they face on a daily basis.