[thechat] PBS vs. BBC Funding

[Roger Austin]

<delurk>
  For PBS, the stations that carry their programming are separate
organizations with separate funding. (Actually, they purchase
programming from PBS and others.) For example, my local station in North
Carolina both purchases PBS programs and is the source for some PBS
programs. The local PBS carrier is part of the University of North
Carolina system.
  How does the BBC do it? Do they own the local stations that carry
their programming? I wonder if the funding would be closer if you
compared all the local carriers budgets and PBS budget with the BBC
which I thought owned it all.
  Roger
</delurk>

John Handelaar wrote:
> On Thu, 2002-12-19 at 12:06, William Anderson wrote:
>
>>For PBS's total revenue in FY2000, member contributions totaled 23.5%, state
>>government contributions 18.3%, federal grants & contracts 16.4%, business
>>contributions 16.1%, state college & university contributions 6.5% and
>>contributions from foundations 5.5%, totalling US$1.6bn in revenue for PBS.
>
>
> It's also worth pointing out that that's *really*
> not very much per capita, compared with (for example)
> what the BBC rakes in.
>
> [Off the top of my head, the Beeb gets about £1.3bn
> a year.  But don't quote me because that number really
> did come from memory and might be quite old.]
>
> Imho PBS does a pretty impressive job, considering
> what it's up against.