Last week, a friend of mine told me he never understood why the government funded PBS in the first place.
Sesame Street is marketable and could be bought out by Disney or Nickelodeon in a second. The same goes for all of PBS’s best shows. So why should taxpayers fund PBS?
“Believe” is the most overused buzzword of political rhetoric, so I will avoid it. But I
really think PBS should be subsidized by the government. Here's why.
PBS is a cheap way to educate. There's way more of your tax dollar going to war machines than to this frivolous arts-n-farts station. Yes, it's run by aesthetes and Ivy League intellectuals. But that should be a point of national pride. The History Channel now airs "Did Aliens Build the Pyramids." The Learning Channel airs "Say Yes to the Dress." If you let the market choose your programming, sooner or later, it will lead to Honey Boo Boo.
Henson Kept Big Bird Safe from For-Profits
It’s true that
Sesame Street (produced by CTW, the Children’s Television Workshop) could get bought out by Disney - in an instant. In the 1980s, when
Michael Eisner came to Disney and started its corporate expansion into resorts, hotels, cruise ships, Broadway shows, TV networks, stores, sports teams, etc., he also made a deal with
Jim Henson to buy the Muppets.
But not the
Sesame Street Muppets. Henson created Big Bird
for CTW and owned the copyright. Henson refused to sell Eisner the
Sesame Muppets, which included Big Bird, Oscar, Bert, Ernie, Grover, and Elmo. Half of all licensing money from these characters went to CTW, for
Sesame’s autonomy and survival. Licensing these character was the financial lifeblood of
Sesame Street at that point.
CTW’s
Sesame Street started in 1969 as a grand experiment to see what would happen if you gave
all children (inner city, rural kids, and suburban alike) entertaining pre-school lessons as a head start. When you consider the alternatives, this is an awfully cheap way to educate and unite kids all over the country.
Henson Was a For-Profit
Sesame Street was a great social experiment that came out of the liberal 60s. But in many ways, the show was a product of free market capitalism. Jim Henson, a successful businessman, donated his services to the show. He didn't get a paycheck for it. For Henson, it was worth doing – for free. The show's funding came from private philanthropy in the beginning, the Ford Foundation and the Carnegie Foundation. They put up the hundreds of thousands necessary to do research, hire education specialists, artists, and so on. CTW was
not originally publicly funded. It
did receive some public funds later, but then eventually became independent on the sale of toys (remember those $30 Tickle-Me Elmos?). So if private business is responsible for
Sesame Street, why do we need to fund PBS?
The thing is, you need
both sides - public
and private - to make
Sesame Street. The show was the brainchild of
Rosemary Ganz Cooney, who was at the time an employee of New York’s channel 13, the nation’s first Public Broadcasting channel.
Sesame Street was the kind of thing no other network would dream of – clearly – and no network would even
air. It is
sui generis, original, and produced by a company that doesn't want to make a profit; it wants to keep achieving its mission of teaching lessons. It wants independence. No other station would offer CTW a home without strings attached. PBS’s lack of economic motives was
imperative. PBS offers a home to strange shows that just want to do something positive.
That's why Jim Henson didn't let Michael Eisner buy Big Bird. Oh Eisner
tried, and he made Jim Henson pretty “annoyed,” according to a 1990
Washington Post article, trying – in Cooney’s words. According to the book
Street Gang, when Henson told him Sesame Street characters were
not on the table, Eisner relented and invited Cooney and Henson for “a peace lunch.” Cooney said, “Michael was absolutely being just his most charming self... but then out of the blue, he said something that stopped Jim cold... he made some reference to the
Sesame Street Muppets...Jim turned to Michael and said, ‘You did it again!’” This was a man who never seemed angry - getting angry.
And according to a 1991
Forbes article, when Disney’s lawyers finally realized they couldn't get the
Sesame Street Muppets, “Disney wanted to limit their use, presumably to enhance the value of the Muppets it was buying.” Disney wanted to see
less Big Bird, in order to get
more profits for Mickey. That's the way the free market works, baby. It's a zero-sum game, and the strong squash the weak. In
a 1991 Newsweek article, a Henson source said Disney lawyer
Jeffrey Katzenberg countered Henson’s plea for a “fair deal,” by saying, “Fair deal! Get out of the ‘60s, pal. You’re in Hollywood now.”
CTW could sell itself to Disney any day of the week if it wanted to. It
pointedly does not want to. It wants to remain independent, to listen only to its creators’ consciences and its panel of educators and researchers. If
Sesame Street were bought by Disney, it would be subject to Disney's shareholders' opinions. Shareholders of a global entertainment conglomerate like Disney probably care about a lot of nice things but none more than money.
For Innovation, We Need Both
The public television system is above all else an opportunity. You may not like most of the shows on PBS –
Downton Abbey or
Antiques Roadshow or
Jim Lehrer or
Barney - but the PBS infrastructure needs to stay available for innovation. For
the next Sesame Street. For innovations that will bring us all together as a nation, make us better, stronger, and smarter. We need the potential for informative programming to come into poor neighborhoods. We need the potential for a new big idea that will, perhaps, make our teens decide to major in math and science and stimulate our economy. I don't know what
the next thing will be, but I know the networks won't air it. They'll air
Millionaire Matchmaker and
Real Housewives.
Sesame Street was an
amazing moment in our national history, aspiring to unite all kids in a shared love of learning and a shared wonder at what America could do. It came about because of a unique
partnership between the free market and a governmentally-funded station. We need
both to give us another
Sesame Street. If you shut down the public part of the equation, you're dooming the next generation to a future without that opportunity.
Big Bird won't get fired. CTW makes its own money. That's not the issue. The issue is – in 1969, who else would have aired a crazy idea like Sesame Street if not PBS?
Awful all around, for all of them.
I think the US covers are so much better. They are more subtle and more artistic. I was pleasantly surprised!
— Radhika.
Such a thought provoking and in-depth analysis of the work, AMPruteanu.
Its clear from this that America is way better than the UK!!
Go team America!!
Yay!!!
UK = visit a dentist already!!!
Jimmy Nowhere: when they pay me for that, I’ll give them that. Until then, though: Nyet!
Have you seen the UK cover for Knut Hamsun’s Hunger?
It’s awful.
Never judge a book by its cover they say….
Obviously they’re never read the Necronomicon ;)
They have tails you know…(Brits that is)
My cousin/brother Jeb told me so.
I’ve even heard that some of the books they read have plain covers with just the name of the book on it!! Sometimes only down the spine!!!
They have big dusty old libraries with these plain covered books and people actually read them!!! 80
Its a mad, mad world and no mistake!!
It isn’t that one set of covers are better or worse than the other it is good that publishers recognise the different sensibilities of 2 seperate sets of readers. perhaps we could work on the spelling next.
P-lease! Don’t get me started on the spelling!!!
I’m pretty sure they learnt modern English from us Americans (You only have to read Charles Dickens to understand how backward they were before we educated them on modern English)
I love the accent though; “Aw-roight Mary, spare us cupla bob!”
so twee…
“seperate”
“Aluminium”
“Honour, Colour.”
An obsession with the letter ‘u’ maybe?
(If you line up lots of u’s it kind of looks like teeth:
uuuuuuuuu
They have wooden teeth you know….
F.A.C.T.
(The Queen mother did in fact had plywood teeth)
Actually judging from the perspective of which books I would be more likely to pick up to read the blurb – for the most part (perhaps one exception) I prefer the UK covers. Could not always tell you why. I certainly wouldn’t presume to say the US covers are awful (well one or two really put me off) but simply that they do not attract me in the same way.
Great article!
The ignorant/rude/offensive people in the comments? Not so much.
Or person, should I say.
This is strange: in the years since I’ve been following TMN’s Tournament of Books, this marks the first time that I’ve preferred the US editions over the UK. Except with “Freedom” and “So Much for All That.” That giant bird drives me nuts.
You should compare covers of the John Cleaver series by Dan Wells. They’re also in Germany (and look at the cover from Taiwan from the first book).
Great piece; I find it fascinating that although we English and Americans are very similar in many respects, that there are also some beautiful finite differences that make us wonderfully unique.
I can’t agree on this whole spelling deal though! – ‘English’ grammar on the whole is an organic entity and changes have appeared throughout the 20th Century on both sides of the Atlantic. Hundreds of words are added to the Oxford English Dictionary every year, I’m sure the same applies state-side…
NB: The American spelling ‘Aluminum’ is in fact scientifically correct; When this new material was presented to English engineers, they, in their wisdom changed it!
(The queen Mum did in fact have very bad teeth though i’m sure they were spruce not plywood!!)
vive le difference as they say…
> I did think that the Necronomicon post was funny though!!
Like it or not, ‘Dwayne the Rude’ is one funny guy!
We are very good at laughing at ourselves over here ;)
200 years ago Noah Webster changed the spelling when he did his dictionary.
Generally, the UK covers have a little more tone, but adaptability to local tastes is a dine idea.
Comments (above) about dumbed-down American spelling are pointless and incredibly self-defensive!
Is oversimplification really the first principle of everything in the US?
“fine idea”, of course.
Generally the American covers are more artistic.
What’s clearly noticeable though is the fact that 90% of UK covers have snippets of acclaims or praise from sources, be it newspapers or other authors. This plays as a major selling point for the books from my study of the UK market.
As an American, I could not say which is better–we are all culture bound. I can critique the art tho.
The Brit ROOM for instance offers great claustraphobic effect with the gradient as if looking through a window and the strectched text on ROOM give the effect of a magnifying glass. So that house is really small. The Am. ROOM suggests a child and maybe an angry child which I don’t find as interesting.
The Brit FREEDOM has vertical text which is harder to read. The Am FREEDOM has eye catching text and nice colors.
SO MUCH FOR THAT on the Brit ver is harder to read than the Am. but the opposite ti true of the next book, SUPER SAD.
To Dwayne Davies:
The British fascination with the letter ‘U’ is actually a very successful innovation on their part.
It makes drawing the ‘U’ to a Scrabble rack much less of a threat.
^ U’s used to be V’s – (Ancient stonemasons found it easier to carve a V than a U.)
I live near a city called Bath, Roman Name: Aqvae Svlis
V’s like, 4 points, U’s only 1 point :(
I therefore blame the Romans for my poor Scrabble scores.
There is one big difference between the US and UK. The UK still publishes a lot of quality writing,= and has many excellent bookstores. The US tends to publish cookbooks, romance novels and self-help trash. The difference may be that the British still teach English in schools. Most people here in the US find People magazine challenging.
Just pop in any American bookstore–what do you find. Anything BUT books and then cookbooks and self-help trash.
Dear Dwayne Davies…
Give it a break. Or get a job. You obviiously have too much time on your hands given the number of off-topic posts…
I thought the good ‘ol US would be crushed in this one, but I’m pleasantly surprised to see that we faired pretty well. I’m one of those nerds that would lean towards purchasing a book (or any product) just because of the design. I appreciate the insightful reviews after each example.
me being neither American not English i would say i have unbiased opinions and I think for all the books except for freedom i prefer the UK book covers are much better since I am guilty as charge of judging books by their cover i would have choose the UK ones every time (except for freedom) without even knowing which one it belongs two!!!!!
~Cuz Diamond is nothing but coal that did well under pressure~
You can’t really tell from the picture, but the UK Super Sad… has a coloured foil effect that, IMHO, works very well.
IMHO:
“The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake”: US. US version reminds me of the paintings of Wayne Thiebaud: Happy, but with a haunting quality. The UK version looks like a still life with cake, lemons, and human being. That’s kind of creepy when you think about it.
“Room”. UK. A hauntingly beautiful quality about it. Little house draws us into picture, and might draw me into the book itself. The US version is more scary-creepy-disturbing.
“A Visit from the Goon Squad”. US. I like Jennifer Egan, and the bigger her name is on the book the more likely I am to read it. The UK version is just kinda’ weird with the letters falling like coal on an umbrella. What’s that about?
“Freedom”. US. It’s pretty, and it has a whole bird and not just some lame feather like the UK version.
“So Much For That”. US. Bold colors and torn picture suggest more than a place setting where if you look closely the knife has been replaced by a box cutter (or is that a fountain pen?). I like orange in books. It reminds me of my copy of “A Clockwork Orange”.
“Super Sad True Love Story”. US. A tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top title deserves a similar cover. The UK version is too muted and convoluted in tone. The US version is as in-your-face as the title.
jeez, could’ve you have been ANY more bias against the UK??
could’ve been a good article…
wasn’t
I am a writer and I design my own book covers completelty by myself. Who else knows better than me how to visualize the content of my manuscript?
Completelety = completely
Hehe, completelty
I find it interesting that for the “unbearable Sadness of Lemon Cake”, the UK cover emphasises the “Sadness” whereas the US cover emphasises the “Lemon Cake”. Far be it from me to draw any conclusions from that. :-)
Reading some of these comments are quite funny, “Visit a dentist already” & “Plain covers with only the title down the spine”, guys come on, really? Don’t believe everything you hear. The U.S version of most of the books are better, which is a shame really as it’s the covers that draw you in, oh well, I think more time needs to be spent deciding on the cover designs over here in Britatin.