It's almost SPRING again and among other seasonal rituals is my local NPR now heavily commercialized "Public" radio station's first big funding drive of the year where they continuously beg listeners to donate money, used cars, estates or their free time to SUPPORT the station's programming. Immediately following each begging monologue our robot like AD LADY blares out the same four words "SUPPORTED BY" ..... "AND FROM"........... followed by a chain of wordy, often monotonous commercial spots repeated predictably on the dot EVERY FIFTEEN MINUTES day in and day out.
Always prefaced by "Listeners" who supposedly are still considered important contributors but, judging by the deluge of commercial spots, seem to only have the function of providing "ratings" to attract MORE potential commercial "underwriters" . I am old enough to remember when PUBLIC BROADCASTING was commercial free or was able to get by with only a few corporate and foundation ads which didn't detract (and DISTRACT) from the listening or viewing experience.
Then the Congressional Republican activists began their assault on "liberal bias" in PBS and NPR and argued successfully against most FEDERAL funding supporting the public network'
high quality programming. Since then (Newt Gingrich and Jesse Helms) the TV and radio stations have had to seek other sources of financial support from many foundations and increasingly from commercial advertising the same demon which has polluted so much of Western culture, identity and the democratic process itself. (The suspect behind the Brexit and Trump disasters by schooling the public to crave instant gratification in everything, expect life to be "quick and easy" and the right to demand whatever they desire whenever they desire it)
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