Paying PBS’ Way

House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) has suggested eliminating federal funding for some Public Broadcasting Service programming. If the PBS stations want to continue unaltered in their present formats, why not let them sell advertising and eliminate the need for public funding?

There would, of course, be a hue and cry from the entrenched commercial broadcasters, of which I was once one, but the fact is that public broadcasters have always competed (for audiences, if not for dollars) with their commercial brethren.

Why not allow all classes of stations to compete, provided the PBS stations do not drift from their cultural/educational/informational format? Viewers who resent commercial interruptions would be mollified in two ways: (1) The commercials would run only between programs, not during; (2) Viewer dollars and those of all taxpayers would not be spent on PBS and those infernal on-air fund drives would be eliminated.

Since commercial TV broadcasters make a fortune on their news broadcasts and are so reliant upon this, PBS stations could be barred from selling commercials adjacent to those news shows. Other restrictions could be in the kind of advertising PBS stations would carry--both in the area of types of products/advertisers and in the style of the ads (institutional versus hard-sell). Further, commercials on PBS would not be permitted to have higher sound levels than regular program audio. Is this an idea whose time has come?

OLIVER BERLINER

Beverly Hills