I happen to watch public television more than anything else. I'm also a news junkie, so I watch a lot of CNN.
If you had to pay separately for just PBS, probably, sadly, not a majority of Americans would do that. So there's many channels, whether it's Discovery Channel or C-SPAN or many, many others, that just aren't viable.
It might be hard to remember this far back, but once upon a time, some of us hoped that public TV would develop into a smart, sophisticated, civilized alternative to commercial TV - not a cheap imitation of it.
We were only allowed to watch Sesame Street and Mr. Rogers and 3-2-1 Contact!
I was only allowed only to watch public television until I was 12 years old.
In most cities, it doesn't cost much to put your own show on a local access channel, so you get all sorts of strange stuff on the air.
I just am a huge fan of PBS. They've taken great risks from great shows.
One of the towering people in this industry said, why don't you go and make a five-year contract with somebody, make yourself several million dollars and put it away, then go and do whatever you want, work for public TV if you want.
