THE CIPB PROPOSAL FOR A
PUBLIC BROADCASTING TRUST

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The time has come to restructure the public broadcasting service as an independently funded public trust, comparable to the Red Cross, U.S. International Olympic Committee or Little League Baseball. This would take it off the federal dole, remove corporate advertising, stop the desperate search for money, and free public broadcasting to pursue its mission with editorial integrity.

To support innovative, diverse, noncommercial programming for both national and local audiences, an independent public broadcasting service would require at least $1 billion in insulated annual program funds, in addition to current levels of operational support from state governments, individual subscribers, and foundations. Corporate donations would be briefly acknowledged and restricted to general system support.

Structure
A new Public Broadcasting Trust (PBT) would replace the President's patronage appointed Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It also would take over the satellite distribution systems now administered by PBS and NPR. In contrast to the CPB, the PBT Board of Trustees would be insulated from direct political pressure.

The PBT would have nine members with appointments made by representatives of the public broadcasting community (3), educational community (3) and President's Commission on the Arts and Humanities (2). The PBT Managing Director would be the ninth member, selected by the original eight board members. All members would serve staggered six-year terms. Participants in the nominating process would include representatives of public television and radio stations, independent producers, and associations for school administrators, teachers, academics, librarians, and school boards.

One half of the PBT's funds would go into commissioning, producing, and distributing programs as part of a national service to local stations. The national television service would be administered through a Television Program Department, itself divided into a Division of News and Public Affairs and a Division of Cultural and Educational Programming.

This programming, with funds for promotion, would be offered to local public stations free-of-charge. Thus, the Department would provide for a daily in-depth news program, documentaries, specials and coverage of special events as well as arts, entertainment, dramatic, and children's programming. Consistent with the unique mission of public broadcasting, there would be a premium on public affairs and cutting edge artistic presentations in prime time.

Within the Program Department, there would be a National Independent Program Laboratory, with a director and its own advisory board. This Laboratory would support independent productions for consideration by both local stations and the national service. The other half of the PBT's funds would be passed through to local television and radio stations to produce and acquire programs of interest to their specific communities. Since local program production is disproportionately costly, this fund will support productions that few stations now undertake for their community.

In addition, there would be a Radio Department to distribute funds to national programming services, like NPR and PRI, as well as independent producers. The Radio Department would commission new programs as well as support existing programs, all of which would be offered to local stations via satellite. The Radio Department also would make grants to local radio stations to produce national programs and program segments. These would be offered to local stations for their own choosing.

Funding
At present the U.S. enjoys a $1 to $2 trillion budget surplus. Just one to two percent of the surplus ($20 billion), invested at five percent interest, would provide $1 billion a year to fund public broadcasting programming in perpetuity. With voter ignorance high and participation at an all-time low, what a wonderful investment in our democracy that would be. This makes it very clear that the main obstacle to this reform is not lack of funds, but lack of political vision.

The supporters of Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting believe that any proposal for funding a Public Broadcasting Trust must respect the following criteria: Is it fair, is it sufficient, and is it reliable? We generally favor proposals that tax corporate profits rather than citizens and consumers for public broadcasting services. The following revenue sources would each provide the $1 billion per year needed to endow the trust: a five percent tax on factory sales of digital television sets, a five percent tax on the sale or transfer of commercial broadcast licenses, a two percent tax on annual broadcast advertising, a two percent annual spectrum fee, or a modest tax on the auction of up to $100 billion in digital spectrum. Any smaller combination of the above also could produce the $1 billion required to support the trust.

Local Community Accountability
The culture that governs the current system has been years in the making and, without structural intervention, will persist. New measures are needed to protect public service broadcasting from censorship by state and community-level politicians and to ensure that boards are truly diverse, have a clear sense of mission and recruit and reward station managers for measurable public service, rather than profit-making ventures.

The thrust of these new measures would be to empower local communities to actively oppose censorship and advocate for the full diversity of their programming needs. For starters, stations would be required to observe existing FCC rules and regulations. This would include posting board and committee meetings widely and making them open to the public. This also would include providing members of the public with easy access to complete public inspection files, including financial reports and correspondence with viewers and listeners. A properly functioning Public Broadcasting Trust would supervise random accountability audits. There would be procedures to identify non-compliance and to facilitate compliance on threat of loss of funding.

It is essential that boards be chosen in such a manner as to ensure diversity by race, gender, age, community, and field of service. A diverse board would make policy discussions broader and more inclusive, better survey the interests of public constituencies and provide easier access for station promotion efforts. Boards also must be educated and equipped to provide effective oversight of management on behalf of the community. A possible contribution to this goal might be to establish a system for subscriber election of board members.

Another requirement would be to empower community advisory boards to perform their designated function. They would have routine access to active program proposals, ongoing production schedules and alternative program sources. They also would be engaged in active outreach to the community to solicit evaluations and assess needs. All of this would be guided by a program policy developed by the BOD. And, of course, all of this would be subject to final approval by professional management and staff. Finally, the PBT would provide financial incentives for local program development.

Government Accountability
The proposed PBT would be accountable to both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government. The General Accounting Office would conduct a biennial financial audit to ensure fiscal responsibility. Every 10 years there would be an investigation, hearings and a report with suggested legislative changes prior to renewal of the mandate. Both a Presidential Commission and Congress would be involved in the process.

Forces for Change
Advocates for U.S. public broadcasting have long recognized that its financial dependence has compromised its editorial independence. Despite congressional sponsors, past proposals to establish a public broadcasting trust have been defeated by a combination of forces: a powerful National Association of Broadcasters, timid politicians not willing to confront commercial broadcasters or risk independent voices in the public arena, a divided public broadcasting community, and the narrow base of reform movements.

There are several forces for change these days which give hope that such now could be accomplished. In 1998, House Telecommunications Subcommittee leaders Billy Tauzin and Edward Markey designed a bill (later withdrawn) to create a permanent PBS trust fund, abolish the CPB and phase out commercial underwriting messages. The Gore Commission on the social responsibilities of digital broadcasters strongly recommends that Congress create a trust fund for public television and eliminate "enhanced underwriting" by corporations. A December 1998 poll by Lake, Snell, Perry & Associates found an overwhelming 79 percent of the American public favoring a proposal to require commercial broadcasters to pay 5 percent of their revenues into a fund to support public broadcasting programming.

Looking Forward
Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting (CIPB) is dedicated to creating a national coalition to build grassroots support for this proposal. At the same time, CIPB local chapters are working to democratize the governance and programming of their community's public broadcasting station (s). CIPB acts as a clearinghouse on the activities and accomplishments of these local chapters and on programs available for airing both nationally and locally.