The average PBS show on prime time now scores about a 1.4 Nielsen rating … [ed., that’s down roughly 30% over the last decade] On the other side of the ledger the audience for public radio has been growing: there are more than 30m listeners now, compared to just 2m in 1980. “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered,” NPR’s morning and evening news programs, are the 2nd and 4th most listened to shows in the country. PBS programming costs more than NPR programming, so NPR has been able to innovate easier and most cost-effectively than PBS within the same tight budget.

makes sense that quality programming would die first. it attracts the kind of people intelligent enough to recognize they are wasting away their life in front of the tv.

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