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Public Broadcasting Service: Difference between revisions
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Whereas an NBC or CBS affiliate is owned for profit, such is not really the purpose of a PBS station. Therefore few have the ability to stand completely on their own, receiving only the donations of their viewers and federal grants. Most require a physical presence at or near universities, if only to get a financial discount on their physical plant. Many PBS stations so located also have a reduced overall labour cost than their completely independent counterparts, because they can easily get interns to work in the studios. Many PBS stations also choose to be located close to universities because much of their local documentary programming is easier to create if they are close to local scholars who provide the on-air talent. | Whereas an NBC or CBS affiliate is owned for profit, such is not really the purpose of a PBS station. Therefore few have the ability to stand completely on their own, receiving only the donations of their viewers and federal grants. Most require a physical presence at or near universities, if only to get a financial discount on their physical plant. Many PBS stations so located also have a reduced overall labour cost than their completely independent counterparts, because they can easily get interns to work in the studios. Many PBS stations also choose to be located close to universities because much of their local documentary programming is easier to create if they are close to local scholars who provide the on-air talent. | ||
The practical result of PBS affiliates being wed to universities is that the audience for ''Doctor Who'' in its American heyday was significantly student-based. PBS stations usually offered the strongest signals to campus televisions when most people still received television signals aerially. The effect of ''Doctor Who'' upon student populations in America was thus pronounced just because of the particular channel that carried the programme. | The practical result of PBS affiliates being wed to universities is that the audience for ''Doctor Who'' in its American heyday was significantly student-based. PBS stations usually offered the strongest signals to campus televisions when most people still received television signals aerially. The effect of ''Doctor Who'' upon student populations in America was thus pronounced just because of the particular channel that carried the programme. | ||
== The general shape of PBS stations' buying patterns == | == The general shape of PBS stations' buying patterns == | ||
Although a handful of pioneering PBS stations may have begun broadcasting ''Doctor Who'' with a few [[Jon Pertwee]] stories (Chicago's WTTW showed some episodes in 1975, sometimes without a discernible order), <ref>http://chicago.epguides.com/doctorwho/WTTW.asp</ref> ''Doctor Who'' broadcasting on PBS stations largely began with the Time + Life distribution of [[season 12|seasons 12]] to [[season 15|15]]. These initially appeared as individual episodes, with [[Howard Da Silva]] linking narration at the top of episodes to explain things for viewers who may have forgotten where the narrative had left off. These three seasons were put onto a loop my most of the stations that carried them, because the stations had bought the right to show the episodes a certain number of times. The fact that this initial package ended with ''[[The Invasion of Time]]'' allows us to date general American involvement with ''Doctor Who'' to no earlier than about 1978. | Although a handful of pioneering PBS stations may have begun broadcasting ''Doctor Who'' with a few [[Jon Pertwee]] stories (Chicago's WTTW showed some episodes in 1975, sometimes without a discernible order), <ref>http://chicago.epguides.com/doctorwho/WTTW.asp</ref> ''Doctor Who'' broadcasting on PBS stations largely began with the Time + Life distribution of [[season 12|seasons 12]] to [[season 15|15]]. These initially appeared as individual episodes, with [[Howard Da Silva]] linking narration at the top of episodes to explain things for viewers who may have forgotten where the narrative had left off. These three seasons were put onto a loop my most of the stations that carried them, because the stations had bought the right to show the episodes a certain number of times. The fact that this initial package ended with ''[[The Invasion of Time]]'' allows us to date general American involvement with ''Doctor Who'' to no earlier than about 1978. | ||
