Wrong Way PBA
Public Broadcasting Atlanta may be headed for trouble. Recently at a meeting, one of their staffers said that pledge drives had just about capped out and that while they were still necessary evils, there was little room for growth. The people who are going to pledge do pledge and those who won’t don’t. Instead, PBA wants to seek more underwriting.
The problem with this strategy is that companies are seeing the demand for their marketing and charitable dollars under ever increasing strain. According to one local culture leader, “It’s hard to ask for money when you know you have to complete with food, shelter, and clothing!” Lisa Cremens of the Metro Atlanta Arts Fund says that many cultural groups are going to see their increases through cultivating individuals and not NGOs or comportations.
With many governmental officials crying for cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, what are we to do? What can be done? I’ve an answer for you.
Want to know the true third rail of American politics? It’s not Social Security. It’s Sesame Street. Threaten that and watch the wrath of Americans fall on you like Andruw Jones at batting practice. This may be the time when we may have to point out that Big Bird is an endangered species. Whether PBA can navigate the changes it needs to make without crashing is another story.
October 13th, 2005 at 6:06 pm
If PBA really wanted to get more pledge donations, they’d move away from the Classical Music format on their radio station, and put on much more news/talk, which is proven to bring in higher rates of donation.
October 27th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
Amen, Joseph G.
Not only that, let’s not forget that 90.1 is owned by the Atlanta Public Schools. It is a huge cash cow for them, the radio station is more than solvent, they want more money for the school system. I’m not suggesting that funding the APS is a bad thing, but let’s get real, if they wanted to be a more popular station and get more pledges tell Lois to lay off the Bach’s lunch once in a while.