PBS funding fight goes back to Mr. Rogers

Things were simpler back in 1969, when "Mr. Rogers" went to Washington.

Fred Rogers, host of the Pittsburgh-based show that's best known as "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," was there to testify at a Senate hearing and to defend the newly formed Corporation for Public Broadcasting against a Nixon-administration proposal to cut its proposed $20 million in federal funding in half.

All Rogers had to do was talk in that soothing voice of his about how his show dealt with the "inner drama" of children, not violence, and John Pastore, the Rhode Island Democrat chairing the hearings, looked ready to slip out of his suit jacket and into a comfy cardigan.

"I'm supposed to be a pretty tough guy, and this is the first time I've had goose bumps in the last two days," Pastore told him before suggesting "you just earned the $20 million."

The late Rogers' May 1, 1969, Senate performance is posted these days on CPB's website, www.cpb.org, talisman of an age when the politics of public TV were a little more touchy-feely - if not actually Mr. McFeely - and when it seemed as if all anyone in public television had to do when its funding was tied to the railroad tracks was trot out Rogers or Big Bird and watch the knots untie themselves.

These days, CPB's appropriation helps fund both the Public Broadcasting System and National Public Radio, with the lion's share going to local stations, $430 million. Of that, the amount going to support public TV works out to about $1.03 per American per year, according to PBS.

It's a cost that the U.S. House apparently decided last month was too high, voting to cut funding to CPB altogether in 2013.

Their constituents may not necessarily agree, according to the results of a survey PBS released yesterday.

Conducted by "the bipartisan polling firms of Hart Research and American Viewpoint," it found 69 percent of those polled opposed the elimination of funding for public broadcasting, including 89 percent of Democrats, 69 percent of independents and 56 percent of Republicans.

Among the 42 percent surveyed who said deficit-reduction should be the nation's No. 1 priority, 60 percent opposed eliminating the CPB's funding.

- Ellen Gray