I'm curious about PBS pledge drives in your neck of the woods...

Here in Minneapolis, our local PBS station is having a pledge drive. Kind of annoying but I understand.

However, what I don't understand is this: in Minneapolis, during pledge drives, they air the most GOD AWFUL programming imaginable. Stuff like financial programming, really bad concerts, and just plain bizarre things.

I remember they used to air really popular programming like "Anne of Green Gables" and the like during the pledge drives. What happened? It's almost as if they don't want you to watch during their fund raising.

Is it like this in your area?

Andre Reiu (sp?) and Josh Groban and Celtic Thunder and the like. Give me a Brit-com marathon any day instead.

The ones that baffle me are the "Visions of...." shows. I stood and watched one of those for I don't know how long, waiting for them to get to the content of the show. Ooh! An in-depth travelogue of Italy! Cool! But no, it really is just a full hour of helicopter footage with schmaltzy music dubbed in later. :wtf:

Here in Wisconsin I think they air viewer select programs during their pledge drives so the programming is usually pretty good. "Anne of Green Gables" has been a staple and I think I've seen it on in the past year here.

We were just talking about that this weekend in our home.

The programming has been pretty mind-numbing this pledge season. In our neck of the woods it seems like they run 10 minutes of programming followed by 15 minutes of pledges, then 10 minutes of programming and another 5 minutes of pledges and so on. It really is annoying.

Here, there are currently PBS "Beg-a-Thons" underway on both our local stations: Maryland Public TV and WETA-Washington, DC. As in past years, they started this pledge drive around Thanksgiving and will continue clear through Christmas... Non-Stop.

So during this time, they pre-empt the shows everyone likes on Public TV and replaces them with the same "special" programs they drag out for each and every pledge drive: Do-Wop Oldies music, Celtic Woman/Thunder/etc., The colon lady lecturing on eating fiber and probiotics, the brain guy lecturing on how to avoid senility, and every singer who ever recorded a folk song in the 60s.

I used to think their plan was to entice membership donations out of viewers with this programming. Now I'm convinced they're actually holding our favorite shows hostage and torturing us with Do-Wop music until we cough up donations.

generally it's stuff that I don't care to watch. Too many concerts by people I don't know or care for, self-help programs ad nauseum (we were treated to belly dancing for fitness this year), or something that's been repeated so many times that you can't stand another minute of it (oldies music, Celtic women). I'm lucky that I can access PBS from AR and OK, so I can still catch my favorite programs on one station or the other even when the pledge drives are going on.

When one is having a pledge drive, the other usually has their regular programming. So we can switch back and forth, depending on which one is begging each month.

at a time and skip a month, then resume. It is the worst programming imagineable. I can remember when PBS was the network to go to. "All Creatures, Upstairs, Downstairs, really good nature programs. Masterpiece Theatre is just a faint memory and Mystery which used to have really good programs is on again off again.

And they're both as boring as hell during the fund drives.

:puke:

in an attempt to appeal to non-regular viewers.

believe me, these folks know the profile of their perfect contributors: how much they are going to give and for how long.

Knowing that they have those folks in the bag, they tailor there message and programming to those who are at either end of the spectrum (either haven't given yet or getting ready to stop) as they have a pretty good guess as to what appeals to them.

UNC TV is achingly annoying during these times.

We get the usual stuff: Celtic Woman, Lower YOur Taxes!, Brain Fitness. (some of which I find interesting, but not the 15 or 20 mins or so nugget I would like in a 4-hour thicket of begging.)

Sometimes for a really special treat... we get an entire evening of Lawrence Welk! Yuck!

In fairness though, we have had britcoms, Rick Steves, and even Eastenders for a really hard core fan base here.

in D.C. and Los Angeles I've watched quite a bit and around pledge drive time I've seen great stuff... I love PBS.

That one weirdo in a beard...actually there is a line of weirdos in beards. Lectures with that infomercial audience look.

However every year they have a local architectural tour which is fascinating.

Also, concerts by Irish people...Irish Tenors, Riverdance, some Irish babes singing...

incredibly boring concerts by people that no PBS viewer would ever watch. And they wonder why they're always short of funding? Unbelievable.

It's bad enough that reruns of his dreary show still run EVERY Saturday night at 7 pm. During pledge drives (which now are 5 - 6 times a year), they show "special" LW retrospectives.

WHO wants to watch Lawrence Welk? Seriously???

And if it's not him, it's Celtic Woman, Celtic Thunder, Wayne Dyer, Yoga for Arthritis, Doo Wop, and strange financial shows.

During the current drive, the hosts actually announced, on the first night, that their goal was 600k, and as soon as the goal was reached, they'd return to regular programming; if we wanted our favorite, regular shows back, it was up to us, we could have them back the very next night if we just ponied up. Blatant blackmail--tres hilarious!

The rest of us, not so much. This weekend, because of the pledge drive, he was on two of the three subchannels. We've also been getting the Do Wop shows, Celtic Whatever, and a bunch of different health-oriented programs. But, they're also showing episodes of Ken Burns' "The Civil War", and an occasional "Animusic", of which I wish they would more. (They used to show that for a full half hour to hour.) And, they're airing more of Rick Steves than the usual, which I really like. In the past, they have shown concerts by Pink Floyd and Fleetwood Mac. This time around, it's James Taylor/Carole King, Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Chet Atkins. Not too shabby.

I also get in GA PBS on one TV. Looks like a Rick Steves marathon tonight.

I was yelling about this 2+ years ago. Then it was generally one week of boring programming, now it seems to go on for endless weeks! :nuke:

Doo wop(?), Celtic Thunder, Lawrence Welk, etc. Although they did replay Sherlock Holmes on Sunday night.