Begging for Dollars

We are in the middle of the fall OPB Membership drive. I think they do four membership drives a year; it may only be three; it feels like 10 or so.  I personally do not refer to them as Beg-a-thons.  The reason for that sobriquet is that is exactly what they have become.  It is an incessant, hour after hour, begging for support.  I harkens to the telethons for Muscular Dystrophy in their attempt to pull at your heartstrings, but they miss on so many levels, primarily because of the recipient of the support.

I know that the vast majority of their funding comes from membership and I know that these membership drives have been their preferred method of garnering said membership but I suspect that it drives people away as much as brings people to them.  I speak from experience as I find it impossible to overcome my disgust for their fundraising to actually support them financially.

I have decided what bothers me about OPB’s fundraising.  Let me explain:

Day-to-day programing

First off, every program begins and ends every darn show with commercials.  Oh, I know they are referred to contributor notifications but I do not buy it.  These contributors have become so bold as to actual use the same promotions as they use for commercial televisions (called advertisements) for their contributor promotional spots.  I know that these contributions only fund the production of the program and not the local station but that is neither here nor there in this conversation, it is still advertising despite what the public broadcasters pretend.  When I see these promotional notifications, I feel that I am “paying” for the broadcast just as I am paying for a commercial broadcast by sitting through the commercials.

Second, and most importantly, in every break between programs, there is an inevitable local representative of the OPB station beg, beg, begging for more money.  You cannot go from one program to another without some form of begging, often annoying and unseemly.  You think I exaggerate: I think not; for several years, they have been pushing a program (I believe it is called the Legacy Program) to leave OPB money in your will.  Thus, they are saying not only do we want you money now but we want your money when you die.

Fundraiser

Obviously, that begging is not enough; they do their periodic beg-a-thons, calling them membership drives.  Keep in mind, membership at the levels they are recruiting you for gives you no rights of membership other than a magazine and first-in-line for the next fundraising drive.  Oh, for some of the “memberships” you might get an overpriced DVD, CD, and/or audio disc.  But I digress.  You membership is nothing more than an effort to get money from you and does not give you any rights to participate in any programming decisions in a meaningful way.

During this membership drive, they offer “special” programming, generally musical in nature to attract you to watch said programming to increase the “membership” participations.  What does it really mean?

1. Interspersing said special programming, usually every 20 minutes or so, with an interlude of 10 or so minutes of intense sales pitch for said tchotchke or another to get you to “become a member”.
2. This special programming seems to repeat itself every single fundraiser, quarter after quarter, year after year, until either the tape wears out or, I suspect, they run out of tchotchkes to sell/give away.
3. One begins to wonder if OPB is supposed to be providing quality programming, and if they consider this to be quality programming, why they only offer it during membership drives.
4. During the membership drive, they actively interrupt selected regular programming.  Not some of it but all of it.  Thus driving away their regular viewers, albeit they seem to be careful not to interrupt any of the cultured programming they seem to want to protect.

Oh, I know that OPB gets most of its support from these “memberships” but if that is the case, they need to rethink their model for the current world.  After all;

• They are already accepting commercial advertising and have done so for several years.
• Begging is not acceptable to the majority of viewers.  Hence, the low level of support.
• They are no longer the only source of similar programming.  All they need to do is look around them to see that there are a plethora of sources providing very similar programming: at a profit.

P.S. I wrote about OPB only because it is the one I know.  I am sure that it is exactly the same for other public broadcasters but I cannot speak without knowing for certain.