Public television pledge drives are an easy mark for writers. See, for example, Eric Williams', If It's Orbison, It Must Be Pledge Month in The Huffington Post (thanks to Current).
It's pretty hard to argue that the long-term impact of pledge on public television's mission hasn't been corrosive of mission (I've been GM of stations doing pledge for 28+ years). People are voting with their feet -- the number of contributors are down, though those remaining have generally been making up the gap. PBS's ombudsman, Michael Getler, has a column on this that goes into more depth than most that you should read. He includes some telling viewer letters. Link: PBS Ombudsman (print version).
Updated 12:30p PDT. --Dennis
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