Quote :

"Big Bird, or actually Sesame Workshop, needs a taxpayer subsidy like Oprah needs to have us buy her a couch. A quick look at their 2009 form 990 that they filed with the IRS(the most recent I found) shows total revenue of $130,606,413. It lists $7,968,918 of that revenue as coming from government grants. In addition, the form states that at the end of 2009 Sesame Workshop had net assets of $351,131,137. That's right, $351 million dollars. I don't care that Sesame Workshop's president, Gary Knell, made almost $750,000 in 2009. I don't care that writer Joseph Mazzarino made over $650,000 or another dozen or so employees made well north of $200,000. But they can do that without a goddamned taxpayer subsidy."

http://fishfearme.blogs.com/fish_fear_me/2012/10/big-bird-is-part-of-the-1bert-and-ernie-too.html

This is interesting... I actually read a couple articles on this today. Essentially Sesame Workshop makes so much money then why do they need to be continually funded by government grants?

I find the irony that the Occupy people are now using Sesame Street in images saying they are the 99% when in fact if you look at the earnings of the top employees, they are in the 1%. If you make more than ~$344,000 a year, you are in the 1%.

http://www.examiner.com/article/big-bird-s-a-one-percenter-inside-sesame-street-s-tax-return



[Edited on October 6, 2012 at 8:15 PM. Reason :  ]

10/6/2012 8:04:34 PM

Grants = need based hand-outs now?

[Edited on October 6, 2012 at 8:14 PM. Reason : ?]

10/6/2012 8:14:09 PM

TBQH someone from CPB (which provides most of the funding for CTW) actually remarked that they could do fine without Federal funding: They'd just need to remove access to the most underserved areas to make it all work.

10/6/2012 10:58:05 PM

Romney is going to fix the government $8MM at a time

8 million

so about .0002% at a time

10/6/2012 11:07:13 PM

It's worse than that

see when funding for public broadcasting is gone, there won't be that part of the budget to trim anymore

he'll eventually need to chip away at the military and entitlements

10/6/2012 11:11:29 PM

The issue is that government is funding and giving grants to businesses that are fine without it. Imagine if they gave grants to Maury.

10/7/2012 12:09:07 AM

I wasn't aware that Maury served the purposes of education and of providing an outlet for non-advertiser-friendly performance art.

10/7/2012 12:38:05 AM

Not all grants are need based and many are competitive

10/7/2012 12:47:39 AM

the 1% needs all the help they can get.

10/7/2012 12:56:48 AM

Lets not touch defense, medicare, or social security, though.

10/7/2012 1:14:40 AM

I don't understand why liberals defend Sesame Workshop in light of this. The point about Gary Knell is 100% valid.

Can someone give an intelligible reason that Sesame Street wouldn't be able to serve the under-privileged children of the world paying their CEO $150k versus $750k? Inequality in the private sector isn't in the interest of the government, but inequality as promoted by the organizations it funds sure as hell is.

10/7/2012 10:13:08 AM

Well it ignores the nature of what a grant is

But really, it's dumb because of how little money we are talking about

10/7/2012 10:16:03 AM

Not saying that I agree with federal funding for PBS (although it's something less than a drop in the bucket--entitlements and DoD need attention first)...but Sesame Street and PBS are not synonymous. The former is a subset of the latter, and i doubt that PBS on the whole is as financially secure as what's almost certainly their most successful enterprise.

10/7/2012 12:24:08 PM

Quote :

"entitlements and DoD need attention first"

I agree... the fact that Mitt Romney won't touch the touch the defense budget is facepalm worthy. I thought this was worth mentioning because I have had a bunch of my friends posting pictures and blurbs on facebook about Big Bird being one of the 99% and all this other BS without knowing how much the top earners of Sesame Workshop make.

10/7/2012 1:01:16 PM

These are the types of images I am seeing posted everywhere (facebook, etc). Its kind of funny knowing how much some of the employees make.

10/7/2012 3:19:53 PM

^ yes, i find this completely valid criticism

I have not been happy with the years of conservative reign, nor the propaganda they find acceptable at this juncture, but the left-leaning population have been trying their darnedest to show that they're just as immune to self-awareness.

I mean, honestly, this seems like the same stuff we see from teacher's unions. This is propaganda with extremely suspicious conflict of interest at the root of it. Do you know who I don't trust to take an objective view of Sesame Street's funding? That's right, Big Bird.

I'm not saying I support Romney's position, but does Romney support Romney's position?



The fact of the matter is that both sides are wrong.
- the right is wrong for failing to talk about defense and entitlements
- the left is wrong that, on principle, there is room for outrage at cuts to Sesame Street

I mean, let's look at it this way, if PBS is too wonderful of a thing to cut federal funding for, how can we be reasonable enough to decide on a national level what should be covered with health insurance?

10/7/2012 4:08:27 PM

Quote :

"The fact of the matter is that both sides are wrong. - the right is wrong for failing to talk about defense and entitlements - the left is wrong that, on principle, there is room for outrage at cuts to Sesame Street everything besides defense"

10/7/2012 4:35:20 PM

Quote :

"Can someone give an intelligible reason that Sesame Street wouldn't be able to serve the under-privileged children of the world paying their CEO $150k versus $750k? Inequality in the private sector isn't in the interest of the government, but inequality as promoted by the organizations it funds sure as hell is."

I'm none too good at 'splainin stuff, but...

Sesame Workshop is a highly successful and long lived brand. Managing the licensing, messaging, etc. necessary to Sesame Street's continued success obviously requires talent which, of course, costs money. Average CEO is 200-400 times greater than average worker pay (depending on which study you use). I don't think this qualifies as the inequality you're looking for.

Speaking for myself (and I would imagine a lot of others), I am not at all outraged that Sesame Street CPB (or anything else, really) should be considered for cuts. I am outraged that, in an ostensibly serious discussion, Sesame Street CPB funding cuts somehow rises to the top as a serious solution to budgetary issues. It's like picking up pennies in a parking lot and thinking you're a great saver.

I couldn't give a specific definition, but I would not consider income as the defining characteristic of whether someone falls in or out of 'the 1%' (the literal definition notwithstanding). It's more subjective than that.

[Edited on October 7, 2012 at 5:35 PM. Reason : ]

10/7/2012 5:08:28 PM

No line item exists for Sesame Street
They would not be cutting Sesame Street
They would be cutting money to CPB which, through grants that Sesame Street applies for and are awarded, some money flows to Sesame Street.
No one is saying its a big deal if they lose those $8MM, but its disingenuous to imply that they did not rightfully win those grants just because they don't need them to stay solvent. Often grants are for specific reasons and if you can demonstrate that you can do what the goal of the grant is, you can get the money. It often has nothing to do with need.

[Edited on October 7, 2012 at 5:30 PM. Reason : N]

10/7/2012 5:29:49 PM

Naturally, it seems that the one guy wasn't the only example of high executive compensation at PBS.

http://newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2009/09/29/survey-npr-ceo-made-1-3-million-bucks-year

Quote :

"Former NPR C.E.O. Kenneth Stern, who departed in 2008, is atop the pubcasting list, receiving $1,319,541 as part of his four-year contract. Another former exec, PBS C.O.O. Wayne Godwin, who served from 2000 to 2008, was paid $398,063. Current PBS C.E.O. Paula Kerger, $534,500, up from $424,209 at end of fiscal 2007. "

I understand these people arguing that NPR funding is so little of the federal budget. Yes, but executive compensation should be proportionally less. Exxon is very large, it makes sense that their CEOs get paid a lot, and possibly the most.

But let's take this revenue figure, from the OP, $130M for what I take it is Sesame Workshop. PBS itself appears to have about $570M of revenue in 2010. The thing I quoted above would seem to be the most relevant for PBS as a whole.

So let's do a fair comparison. Let's look at something academic in nature. Say... NC State.

Annual Budget: $1.01 billion
Chancellor's salary: $420 million

I know that people tend to think of "1%" as a very small number. I don't frankly. I don't think anyone in business does. In business, 1% difference in revenue or expenses can translate into 30% of profits. I think 1% is a very large number although, admittedly, it depends on the context. In the context of NC State, any given faculty 1/2000th of the teaching staff, or about 1/8000th of the total staff.

The reason the NC State chancellor (and all other UNC chancellors) make so little in comparison is that their position is inherently public and this is true for all similar public figures. So cry me a river. There is every reason in the world to not like the top pay of PBS, and yes, use that as a problem point for federal funding. The idea that the PBS head honcho made $1.3M out of a $500M budget is a little off-putting. The idea that the Sesame Workshop exec was paid fully 1% of their total budget in certain years is particularly troubling.

Granted though, Romney would probably advise increasing the CEO pay, if anything

[Edited on October 7, 2012 at 5:55 PM. Reason : ]

10/7/2012 5:52:33 PM

$1.3 M for a CEO for a company of that size does not seem outrages to me, but I don't know enough to put that in perspective. So I decided to look for input from people who do.

http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=6637
NPR gets a great score

I'm confused though, they list CEO salary as $480k. Looks out of date.

[Edited on October 7, 2012 at 6:24 PM. Reason : .]

10/7/2012 6:20:26 PM

Post.

10/7/2012 8:44:15 PM

10/7/2012 9:47:41 PM

Romney indirectly helped PBS as governor, but now he's changed his mind...

Quote :

"At least Big Bird can take comfort that Mitt Romney once helped fund PBS. As governor of Massachusetts, Romney signed a bill for a film tax-credit program that resulted in funding for, among other things, Boston public-television giant WGBH and other producers of public television. The program still provides a good deal of funding for its recipients, which get $1 in film tax credits for every $4 spent filming movies and programming."

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2012/10/06/romney-helped-pbs-as-governor.html

http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2012/10/05/mitt-romney-helped-create-subsidy-for-movies-while-governor-despite-supporting-cuts-for-pbs/8eOiaAyx59AYhWPrnH4wNL/story.html?s_campaign=sm_tw

10/7/2012 11:12:46 PM

CPB, PBS, NPR, and Sesame Workshop are all private non-profit organizations and are not "inherently public" in the way a public university is inherently public. CPB comes the closest to being to being an actual government organization: it was created by the government, it receives almost all of its funding from the government (of which at least ~95% is required by law to be distributed in support of public broadcasting), and the board is politically appointed. However, CPB employees are not government employees. The other organizations (PBS, NPR, Sesame, etc) are separate and independent from CPB. Pictures such as ^^ don't really tell that story (but who's really surprised when it's from our resident dumb-fuck).

As near as I can tell, CPB is the only public broadcasting related organization funded directly by the federal government--about $420 million in 2010. Member stations (which are independent of both CPB and PBS) may receive funding from state and local governments. CPB has a summary of public broadcasting funding across various organizations and sources. Tax derived money (federal, state, and local) makes up about 40.6% of public broadcasting funding. The report doesn't explicitly say, but the report is likely limited to CPB, PBS, and member stations; other organizations such as NPR, Sesame Workshop, PRI, etc. are not included.

PBS' revenue in 2011 was $475.2 million. Of that, $22.3 million is from "grants and contributions". Assuming all of that comes from the CPB, only about 5% of PBS' budget could be said to be 'government funded' (though, as dtownral would point out, these are grants). Some of the money PBS receives from its member stations for content ($183.2 million) is indirect government money. I would estimate about 20% of PBS' revenue is government money (direct and indirect). Only about 5.7% of PBS' 2011 budget went to administrative costs, including the 0.1% of PBS' budget that is Paula Kerger's salary (I think you have your salary numbers confused).

NPR's 2011 revenue is $173.8 million, of which only about 2% is in the form of government grants. Roughly 38.7% of NPR's revenue comes from stations purchasing content. Assuming 40.6% of that money originated as government money, somewhere around 18% of NPR's funding is ultimately sourced from the government (direct and indirect; federal, state, and local government). NPR paid its CEOs about $930k, or about 0.5% of its revenue, in 2011.

Government's role in public broadcasting is certainly a subject worthy of debate. But, let's at least not pretend that anything--up to and including the complete elimination of CPB's funding--would ever have more than an at best marginal impact on the federal budget and national debt.

---

Quote :

"I'm confused though, they list CEO salary as $480k. Looks out of date. "

It is a little weird. Looking at NPR's tax documents, most of Stern's $1.3 million was $800k in severance pay. The incoming CEO (Vivian Schiller) got nothing in 2009, $480k in 2010, and $572k in 2011. Schiller replacement got $316k in 2011.

10/7/2012 11:22:27 PM

Interesting points here...

Quote :

"http://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=6637 NPR gets a great score I'm confused though, they list CEO salary as $480k. Looks out of date. "

Or it might not be. CEO salaries are notoriously hard to put a number on. Many of the vehicles they're paid with (like preferred stock options) might not even be something you or I could coherently appraise, and any outcome can depend on things like assumptions about the market. Some years can include departing bonuses or golden parachute payments. We could be looking at one number in one place and a different number somewhere else.

10/8/2012 12:02:00 AM

WHY DOESN'T HOME DEPOT PAY THEIR CEO $150K SO I CAN GET NAILS FOR FREE

10/8/2012 10:49:11 AM

^^^ I can pretty much guarantee that Romney's statement wasn't based on any of that information.

He knew the right-wing perception is that public media is liberal, and needed to blow that whistle to rally his supporters.

That's why Romney won the debates... he correctly recognized that it's far more of a platform to energize his people that explain philosophies.

10/8/2012 6:58:35 PM

Quote :

"That's why Romney won the debates... he correctly recognized that it's far more of a platform to energize his people that explain philosophies."

Agreed, and this describes to a T how Obama got elected in '08.

10/10/2012 4:12:59 PM

A former WUNC employee told me they waste tons of money and time there. He was horrified when he learned that his own mother had donated to a pledge drive.

10/11/2012 2:48:53 AM

Isn't WUNC completely listener funded?

10/11/2012 8:04:04 AM

They have received $78 mil from the state over the last 12 years, and in at least one instance have been caught shelving a documentary critical of legislators in order to protect this money.

10/11/2012 11:22:59 AM

Ah

Any federal grants?

10/11/2012 12:01:53 PM

You made the claim, you do the research.

10/11/2012 12:10:58 PM

No, I asked a question because I had a vague memory of them mentioning it during a pledge drive and I couldn't find anything on their website except a mention that they are listener funded.

What was the documentary they shelved?

10/11/2012 12:12:59 PM

It was some sort of clusterfuck regarding censorship of a story criticizing Alcoa's polluting of the Yadkin River. The republican legislature made them promise to avoid any more coverage of the issue. A perfect example of why public sources of funds result in just as much corruption as private ones.

WUNC gets $3.4mil/year from the feds and $10.7mil/year from the state, not counting numerous grants, which are obscured for obvious reasons.

Less than half of their budget comes from private donations. However, it's likely that most of those donations are from corporations that aren't publicized. I'll bet Alcoa even gives them a chunk of change.

At least with private media you can watch the commercials and figure out who they're taking money from.

[Edited on October 11, 2012 at 12:30 PM. Reason : .]

10/11/2012 12:22:35 PM

Some would see that as a perfect example of how bringing everything to the state level just increases corruption, and had they had access to federal grants to replace the state money they would have been able to show the documentary.

(But I don't know enough about the documentary to even know if that was why it was shelved)

10/11/2012 12:26:19 PM

http://www.newsobserver.com/2011/03/13/1049897/unc-tv-may-feel-a-chill-in-funding.html

It wasn't so much the coverage that was at issue, it was the fact that the reporter had her own friend paid by the opposition (some of whom were Republicans as listed in the article above) to do a story on Alcoa, and then used political maneuvering to get the piece aired with absolutely no oversight first. So yes, some people were a bit upset and the reporter got fired and the piece was pulled, after it aired. It wasn't so much angry Republicans shut down UNC, as Republicans were on both sides of this story, but that the reporter was shady as fuck on how she went about it.

10/11/2012 12:32:55 PM

It was shelved(and apologized for) because Alcoa's 50-year federal license to dam the river was up for renewal.

10/11/2012 12:33:25 PM

It's a good thing for certain things in our society to not be entirely profit-driven, especially things that service disadvantaged communities like PBS and the CPB. Those communities I'm talking about aren't the ones you're thinking, I'm talking about the stations in Bumfuck, Kansas that are pretty much the only reason rednecks there know how to count. Just like roads, education is something that when left entirely to the market simply will not reach a broad swathe of people outside of wealthy or high-population-density areas.

And considering the benefit PBS has been dishing out for 40 years, it's probably the single best investment the government makes. Also, it would take about 43,700 PBS's to close the deficit. The fact that it's the only program Romney has suggested cutting should tell you something about just how thoroughly detailed his plan is that he wont show us.

Fun fact: TLC used to be a public network too, started by NASA. Then Reagan privatized it. Now you can tune in and watch Honey Boo Boo because white trash starefests generate more ad revenue than educational programs for children.


[Edited on October 11, 2012 at 2:03 PM. Reason : .]

10/11/2012 1:59:46 PM

Here's a fun debate tip:

Calling your opponents or viewers bumfuck rednecks is sure to win support for your cause.

Have you actually watched PBS lately? It's all pop music concerts and bad British crime drama. Hardly the realm of the intellectual elite. Their news programming is laughable and unwatched. Jim Lehrer proved his incompetency during the debate.

10/11/2012 2:09:50 PM

I'm the one advocating FOR the bumfuck rednecks getting roads and public education stations. Maybe you should have watched a bit more PBS as a kid, smc, your reading comprehension is terrible.

10/11/2012 2:14:35 PM