I don’t know how PBS pledge weeks operate where you are but I quit watching some time ago. I do occasionally check in, hoping for improvement. Hasn’t happened. I faithfully listen through NPR pledge weeks because I wouldn’t think of missing what they offer. Not so with PBS. About the only useful program left on in the metro New York area is the NewsHour. The substitutions are lame at best. Do people really want to spend time with singing groups who, after decades of not being together, rejoin for the purpose of money grubbing? Maybe the gray heads in TVLandia want this but I find it depressing. And what about young viewers? Do they share the nostalgia? Enough to share their money?

Let us not forget the bloviators, such as that leftover doofus from the Seventies Wayne Dyer, still pushing the silliness about how we can be anything we want to be. I suppose he believes it because his nugacity has made him successful at getting money for babbling it. His nothingness might be topped by the “doctors” with their magic insights and cures. Harry Potter would have a better chance at improving anyone’s life than they. I have difficulty being specific about them in that I’ve viewed only a few for about ten minutes each. I do know a dermatologist with products to sell got an endorsement from a host/announcer. Infomercials on public television? Other wizards speak authoritatively on alleged medical discoveries about the brain. Mine just snorts and goes off to do something at least somewhat useful.

Why can’t PBS follow the NPR model, doing what is done regularly, with breaks to request money? I’m a monthly sustainer of two public radio stations, but not for any of the public television channels, not wanting to encourage  continuation of what they currently offer during pledge weeks.

I hope you get better where you live.