Butler: Big Bird Brouhaha Unlikely to Affect APTS Appropriation
Recent furor about Sesame Street character Big Bird advocating for COVID-19 vaccines is unlikely to derail America’s Public Television Stations requests for increased federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said APTS President Patrick Butler in a virtual talk hosted by The Media Institute. “I don’t think this is going to be a particularly long-lasting controversy,” Butler said.
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Sesame Street and other public TV properties want to ease children’s concerns about their safety if they get vaccinated, Butler said. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called a tweet from Big Bird’s official account about the character being vaccinated “Government Propaganda ... for your 5-year-old.” “I think Sen. Cruz may have been having a lot of fun here,” Butler said. “I don’t think this is going to have much of an effect on our funding going forward.”
Capitol Hill legislators are negotiating about proposals to increase CPB’s funding by $90 million, Butler said. The House approved a funding proposal, and a Senate version is undergoing “serious negotiations,” Butler said. That discussions are on the amount of an increase rather than on whether there should be a funding increase is positive for public TV, he said.
Public TV stations need the additional funds to make up for $100 million deficit in purchasing power created by several years of inflation in which funding wasn't raised and $300 million in needed infrastructure improvements that stations “have no way to pay for,” Butler said. He said APTS didn't succeed in its efforts to get funding for those improvements in the recent infrastructure bill approved Friday. “This was a disappointment,” Butler said. “Congress was focusing on other kinds of infrastructure needs than ours.” APTS will try again in future legislation, he said.
APTS members also need to fund their conversion to ATSC 3.0, which Butler has said will allow public TV stations to use their spectrum for national projects and additional funding sources. Public TV stations are broadcasting in 3.0 in nine markets, and Butler expects “an accelerated pace of transition” to start next year. He said commercial ATSC 3.0 consortiums such as Pearl and BitPath worked with public TV stations on sharing arrangements for the transition, but he conceded that public TV spectrum demands can make the hosting requirements difficult. Public TV stations will be “substantially transitioned within three to five years,” Butler said.
Butler declined to predict when the Senate will reconfirm FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel and confirm commission nominee Gigi Sohn but said APTS gets along well with both of them. “I hope Congress can get to this before they go home,” he said. Public TV stations aren’t “over-regulated,” Butler said. The FCC has worked to eliminate many out-of-date regulations, Butler said, comparing them to “barnacles.”
Butler said COVID-19 highlighted the importance of PBS stations to governments and the public, because of station efforts on educational datacasting, covering local governments, and disseminating public safety information. “State governments have begun to understand in ways they never did before just how essential public TV stations can be in the education of our children,” Butler said. “While we would never wish the pandemic on anybody, it has focused considerable favor and attention on public television.