I like the low commercial rate. I like the BBC offerings. I guess it is one of my Go To channels because it won't have Extreme/Xtreem/Xstream shows. No lame commercials. No laugh tracks. Austin City Limits is nicely produced although I don't usually listen to most of the artists featured in that venue.
Why do you watch PBS?
I'm a British ex-pat living in the US and so PBS is a constant source of nostalgia and cultural comfort food for me. It's very reassuring for me to have access to many of the programs I watched growing up - like 80s and 90s British sitcoms Keeping Up Appearances and As Time Goes By, even though they are shown to mark the British people out as some sort of bizarre curiosity! Public service broadcasting is at the heart of British culture and so I like to indulge in PBS to remind me what I have lost culturally in moving here, and see the news through the eyes of the BBC, who - while narrow-minded at times - are still far more objective than the partisan news networks in the US. There's also a wistful pleasure in watching shows like Antique Roadshow which can - quite literally - take me back to the towns and cities of Britain I love so dearly, and make me feel like I never left. My experience is very different from the average PBS viewer here I'm sure and even though it performs lots of essential services already, it performs one more in making me still feel British in America.
I can't give any concrete examples at the moment but back in the day when I had cable TV I much preferred documentary type shows on The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, HBO, etc. over pretty much anything I saw on PBS. To me, PBS documentaries are only a bit more exciting than listening to a High School teacher lecturing. Pretty boring stuff and no pizzazz, but again, that's just my opinion.
I think 85% of anything on PBS is boring like that, while only 50% of "The History Channel, The Discovery Channel, HBO, etc." falls in that category. The companies that have to pay their own way have to keep up the WOW factor -- even if they have to make stuff up, which they do more and more. BUT, there are important exceptions on PBS that you can't get anywhere else ... Nova, Sherlock Holmes (Granada series), a lot of the nature type proggies... (Animal Planet was really going downhill when I cut cable.)
Rick
Rick
I think Keeping Up Appearances is really telling about British attitudes towards class and a good one for showing Americans what drives society in the UK though I always thought Patricia Routledge was better than the writing. I think PBS is guilty of picking British shows that offer a very one-sided view of life in the UK, usually a very comfortable, easily exportable idea of Brits as 'posh from the past'. I buy into it as much as anyone here because it's very reassuring to think of my home as a romantic place but our identity, and most of our TV comedy and drama, is much more rugged and contemporary...though you get more of a sense of that on PBS' Masterpiece Theatre and BBC America. Interesting what you are all saying about how safe and conservative PBS documentaries are, because that's exactly the tone of British TV program they choose to show.
Well, I gotta' say I just watched another PBS documentary via Roku titled "Crash of Flight 447" and it was very interesting. Probably as good of a documentary as most so I guess sometimes PBS does hit one out of the ball park too. The show recently aired on an episode of "Nova" so if anyone wants to search for it online type in "Nova crash of flight 447" and you should be able to find it pretty easily.
For me, PBS can be counted on to consistently air programming that is well done and not crass. Not everything they show is to my taste, but the consistently high quality is a relief when the rest of the broadcast spectrum is so hit-and-miss. Mostly miss. I grew up on Sesame Street and Mr. Rodgers, then discovered Monty Python, Fawlty Towers and Dr. Who, and now enjoy Masterpiece, Great Performances and all kinds of cool documentaries all on PBS.
G
better programs
Discovery Channel, History Channel, Ovation, A&E, have all abandoned their original programming and gone to crappy reality TV, because it's cheap. PBS documentaries are well done and based on real evidence. Commercial stations make mocumentaries. I hate the ones that try to pretend that myths and religious traditions are based on real events, like the Bible and all the ghost, aliens, and monster-seeking programs.
Discovery Channel, History Channel, Ovation, A&E, have all abandoned their original programming and gone to crappy reality TV, because it's cheap. PBS documentaries are well done and based on real evidence. Commercial stations make mocumentaries. I hate the ones that try to pretend that myths and religious traditions are based on real events, like the Bible and all the ghost, aliens, and monster-seeking programs.
