Made possible by--

by James Ledbetter

As American public broadcasting celebrates its thirtieth anniversary, US government spending remains a meager $1 per citizen each year, compared with over $30 in Japan and nearly $40 in Great Britain. But since taking over Congress in 1994, Republicans have threatened to eliminate the government subsidy altogether. Yet, as this engrossing history by Village Voice press columnist James Ledbetter reveals, the radicalism which permeated both the vision and the practice of public television in its early days has long since withered. Obsessive harassment by the Nixon and Reagan administrations saw public television's management repeatedly compromise editorial freedom in a forlorn attempt to maintain funding. But the funding cuts could not be stalled and public broadcasters turned more and more to private sponsorship for their programs - to the point, Ledbetter demonstrates, where they are now as much in the pocket of US corporations as their commercial rivals. Rather than join those who cal