11.15.2005
Public BS Desperate For Fund$
How low will PBS stoop to grease money out of your wallet?
The local PBS TV stations run ads that would make a crooked televangelist blush. A couple of them are aimed at older viewers. The less offensive one shows Grandma baking cookies in her kitchen, while her grandkids, a cute boy and girl, are watching Sesame Street. In the voice-over she reveals that she is leaving part of her estate to the Public Broadcasting System so that it can provide her grandchildren with quality programming after she is gone.
Of course, Granny won’t be around when her grandkids become rebellious teens into drugs and all sorts of godawful stuff. PCP, not PBS, will be on their minds.
Another ad has a pleasant shill talking nice to older viewers, asking them to remember PBS in their wills. Some of those viewers are sitting at home, all alone, and here is this person on TeeVee acting as their friend, trying to get some hot cash from their cold bodies. Ghoulish or what?
The latest ad now presents PBS as saving marriages. Yup, by watching public TeeVee you can prevent divorce.
In the spot a married woman talks about a program presented by PBS about John Adams or some other historical fart from the days of early America. The program showed the strong love between Adams and his wife. After the program was over, both husband and wife were moved by the story, sitting there in the dark of their living room, only the streetlight outside providing any illumination.
That special show inspired that couple to mend their differences and become closer together. It made them realize what was important in life.
Gee, I wonder if the PBS science program, NOVA, re-unites couples after it runs a show about the spread of genital herpes?
# posted by Stan Spire @ 6:04 AM 
