AR PTV Network Drops PBS

[Mark Jeffries]

Claiming that Trump taking federal money away makes it impossible to pay the $2.5M membership fee to stay with PBS, the Arkansas Educational Television Commission is dropping out of the net as of July 1 and rebranding from PBS Arkansas to "Arkansas TV", claiming that they will have a strong emphasis on local programming (and they can get those Brit mysteries, cooking shows and Lawrence Welk reruns from other sources and do), but on the other hand, no "Sesame Street," no "NewsHour," no "Frontline," no "Masterpiece," no Ken Burns, no "Great Performances"--in other words, what makes public TV public TV:

https://apnews.com/article/arkansas-public-television-sever-ties-

AETC is the first state PTV network to drop PBS--Alabama attempted to drop the net earlier this year, but relented after complaints from viewers and pols. In less urban areas, these state networks own almost all of the non-com licenses and have a virtual monopoly on PBS programming or lack of, thanks to the net never really doing any serious attempts to make themselves a presence on cable or making their Passport streaming service anything more than a pledge drive premium.