An open fan letter to PBS

Dear PBS, I had to cut my expanded cable service and now I have only basic. I don't know if it's because I have no other choices, but I've fallen in love with PBS and now, at night, it's all I watch. Earth on Fire, Hetty Wainthropp Investigates, DCI Banks, NOVA, The Best of Lawrence Welk, Martha Stewart, Shakespeare Uncovered and, of course Downton Abbey. Seriously, it's nice to be entertained again by watching TV. Thank You

Love Hetty. OP do you watch antiques roadshow?
Datalounge is not the PBS email inbox, OP.
Yes, r1! I'd always heard of it, never bothered, but now I enjot it; Market Warriors, too. Reality TV at its best. I know, r2, but with Saturday mail service gone, well, you know.
OP
Lawrence Welk? Good Lord.
DL is dead, just waiting to be buried
I didn't know that Hetty was back on. I rather enjoyed that. Wasn't one of the hobbits on it? Love those programs you listed and I also love MI5, Outnumbered, sorta Miranda, Foyle's War, Wallendar, Dr. Who, Primeval, sometimes Hustle, Doc Martin, Morse, Inspector Lewis for that delicious Laurence Fox, The Cafe, Black Books, New Sherlock Holmes and some I'm forgetting. I like their finding your roots program, too. Can't think of the name of it. Not to mention all the various topics on Frontline, Nova, American Experience, etc. I dropped my cable many years ago and I just don't need it. Also it's great that you can watch lots of shows on the net you may have missed. I almost always miss Market Warriors and just catch it when I have the time. So I'll drink to PBS and PBS-UK.
Yes, r4. Any orchestra whose members all are wearing, for instance, mustard-colored leisure suits, is my kind of entertainment. Say what you will about LW, at least they had genuine talent. Still, it makes me shudder to wonder about what the lone black guy had to endure.
OP
I love Nature as well.
I'm p.o.d at them because they dropped all my beloved Italian mysteries at the end of the year for crap about some dumb priest.
You can watch PBS shows on their iPad app.
[quote]I dropped my cable many years ago and I just don't need it I got an over the air digital antenna to hook up to my TV for Christmas. Despite there being 2 PBS stations in the market NEITHER of them are receivable at my location despite my being able to receive every Telemundo and home shopping station perfectly along with the lousy commercial networks. So, with basic cable I must stay. Very disappointing.
Oh, I forgot to mention American Experience,r5. It's excellent. PBS short documentaries are great,too. I really enjoyed "Soul Food Junkie."
OP
I love Classic Art Showcase.
No other network does documentaries quite like PBS. Frontline, American Experience, America Master, and NOVA. Ken Burns is a master storyteller. I love all of his specials.
People still pay for cable?
Streaming sites have it all for free
CALL THE MIDWIFE is a wonderful show.
I saw the first Tales of The City on PBS a few months after I saw it in London... I wish they'd rerun the old Upstairs Downstairs -- they'd get a ton of viewers.
I watch PBS on my iPhone. Frontline is a favorite.
My father was a big fan of Lawrence Welk and, of course, I kidded him mercilessly about it when i was a kid. Years later, i have to admit that the musicians in Welk's band were really talented. And the singers performed without benefit of AutoTune!
An open letter to OP - Get a blog. We find you tiresome.
R17, is it free? And is it available on Android? I also dropped cable years ago and find that I don't miss it at all. My local PBS stations provide me with enough to watch. I'd like to donate money but I hate the hassling one gets after making a contribution. Does anyone know how I can donate anonymously? I know there are a couple of sites that allow you to donate anonymously, but they charge an admin fee. Short of dropping cash off at the local PBS station, I'm not sure how to avoid getting on their donors list.
R10, I helped out some viewers with DTV reception issues during the switch. Your PBS stations may still have a designated person on staff who can provide useful suggestions ...contact their engineering departments. Classic Arts Showcase is wonderful but sort of obscure. It's a free-to-air big dish satellite feed, which is available [italic]gratis[/italic] to cable and local stations. Brought to you by the estates of the arts fans who invented Adolph's Meat Tenderizer.
The DTV transition was such a scam. I went from being able to receive all local channels to only being able to receive a handful. Channels that used to be a little bit snowy but still watchable are now choppy and impossible to watch. Just a ploy to get people to pay for cable and allow the FCC to make some money selling spectrum.
I had to play with my antenna for a while to get PBS and I am in Washington DC. If I get the 2 out of 4 PBS channels I watch then I can't get one of the main channels like NBC unless I reposition the antenna. C'est la vie. [quote] I'd like to donate money Bah humbug! I donated decades ago and I decided that I am getting one thing free in my life. I never got any student aid throughout 7 years of college. I never got family discounts. I'm not going to be getting some lovely government pension with great benefits. Blah blah blah. THIS is am getting free and I am watching the hell out of it. Let them guilt trip someone else. There are plenty of people with lots more money than I have - let them donate. It's become a status thing to donate enough so you can get your name on a program. Now they let the donors do lame "look at me" commercials for PBS. I guess now that their superior children are grown they need some new baby. Fine. Good for them. Thank you.
R22, I had the opposite experience. I went from the worst reception which made TV viewing near impossible to fabulous reception and all these channels I never knew existed. Maybe you need a different antenna or better converter box. My only bitch is that whenever planes or helicopters fly over I lose reception. I have missed so many key things like the punch line of a mystery that I end up screaming at the sky.
R19 People who presume to speak for everyone else are tiresome.
I appreciate PBS, but they appear to be on the verge of cancelling my favorite show there - History Detectives. It's a very popular show but they've played havoc with scheduling for the last two years. I also wish they'd have picked up the Who Do You Think You Are show that NBC cancelled. Though I do like the Henry Louis Gates genealogy programs.
Yes, try a different antenna--you can make one, the directions are online and it is not difficult. You might have to put it up in the attic though. Mine works pretty good but I lose the signal during a strong wind as well as when airplanes fly over.
bump
Pat Routledge was fired by the BBC with no notice. In an interview, she said her first knowledge of "Hetty" being cancelled was in a newspaper article.
Anyone remember the BritCom with an old priest and younger priest in his first assignment?
R30, do you mean Ballykissangel? Or something like Father Ted which I have never seen? How do I know the names of shows I've never seen? Damn catalogues everywhere.
I don't have cable. I have a Leaf antenna and I get better reception than my neighbor does with cable. I'm not in a flight path but once in a while I get a fraction of a second of interference. A helicopter was searching our neighborhood recently and played havoc with my reception for a couple of minutes. Other than that, no problems. I get all of my local PBS stations and much of my TV watching is centered around them.
"Anyone remember the BritCom with an old priest and younger priest in his first assignment?" If you saw it on PBS, it might have been "Bless Me, Father." Does that sound familiar?
American Experience is the best show on television. Excellent production values, great narratives, and a wonderful insight into Americana.
Canadian viewer who loves PBS
Thanks r33, that was the show.
r30
WBZ reports that black outs are rampant. Looting in some areas and over 100 reported dead. WBZ says they can't leave the studios with mound of snow measuring over six feet. Power is out to tens of thousands of people and the governor has declared a state emergency, where only authorized personnel will be allowed out.
R36, is WBZ the Zombie station?
[R19] I find you more tiresome
I used to live in rural New Mexico. PBS television broadcast live opera from the Met. The sound was also broadcast live on public radio. Hence, you could crank up your stereo and listing to great sound along with the broadcast. Now you have to go to a theater and pay 20 bucks for the live opera broadcast.
I eat straight from my grandma's colostomy bag.
R19
My local PBS station is repeatedly airing Stanley Donen's "Two for the Road" starring Audrey Hepburn and Peter Finch. It's awful but, somehow, the more I watch it, the better it gets. This must have been made to make money off of those like me who weren't satisfied that they never did the wild thing in "A Nun's Story."
Della
Here is a Lawrence Welk clip you folks might enjoy ... heh heh heh ... I had thought Hyacinth was "a fag thing" until my former bf's evangelical Okie cousin made reference to her in conversation while we were visiting Tulsa a few years ago.
http://youtu.be/t8tdmaEhMHE
The%20Britcom%20Addict
lol
I watched "Doc Martin" for the first time last night. What a weird show. I don't know if I've ever watched a series where the lead character is unredeemably unlikable. I think I liked it.
Della
Della -- There was a Britcom called "The Young Ones" where Rik Mayall's lead character was pretty damned unlikeable!
The%20Britcom%20Addict
I've often read, r44 and 45 that, generally speaking, Brit humor and American humor are two different animals. Here in the states, mainstream leading characters in TV series have to have some redeeming characteristic.
Della
I have two PBS stations available in my area and they are both terrible. There isn't anything on. Downton Abbey and once in a while some Masterpiece Mystery. And again, that's once in a great while
[quote] I had thought Hyacinth was "a fag thing" until my former bf's evangelical Okie cousin made reference to her in conversation while we were visiting Tulsa a few years ago. I used to think that too. But I have noticed that everyone who I've ever worked with knows about Hyacinth. Even the crazy redneck republicans. Most people have watched the Brit-coms on PBS
"Earth From Space" on Nova was fantastic.
Della
OP: PBS is always in need of funds. If you can afford to do so, you may show your appreciation by giving a donation to your local PBS station.
Pantsy
When cable TV emerged in the 1980's it was presumed that PBS would go out of business. Now that most "quality" cable networks have devolved to being shrills for shitty reality shows, PBS seems to be the only quality programmer left on the dial.
Aloysius
Eldergay thread!
Bump for PBS.
In Chicago, WTTW, the main PBS carrier, has three digital channels for those of us with free TV: The regular WTTW, WTTW Prime, which replays the prime time shows all day, and the Create Channel, which is all home improvement, cooking, crafts, travel, etc. There's a second PBS station affiliated with the City Colleges of Chicago.
I live in Iowa, and IPTV has an excellent variety of shows. We also just have antenna reception (chose not to get cable, and still get NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and several other channels as well via digital antenna), and we get 3 IPTV stations, the regular one, IPTV Learns, and IPTV Create. My favorite show (aside from Downton Abbey) is This Old House. The have barely strayed from their original intent; showing practical, interesting home improvement work. I only wish the shows were longer than 22 minutes.
and their endless begging for money.
r56, within the industry the Fund Raisers are known as Beg-A-Thons.