A few weeks back, I wrote about timidity at PBS, America’s public broadcaster. I was complaining about the rejection of a recent documentary of mine, and other films dealing with controversial content. I was pleased to hear from Channel 13 , the public TV station in New York which did carry my film that it scored well in the ratings. Finally, presumably, I was giving at least part of the public, something it wants! But is PBS? Not according to an unlikely source, the May 17th Chronicle of Philanthropy (http://www.philanthropy.com) that serves people who give and want foundation grants. “Warning Signals at PBS” is the cover story, reporting that the number of contributors to PBS stations is going down (even as the size of many donations go up.)

This means fewer people are watching — and giving. In l999, there had been a 7.5% decline in contributions since the record year of l993 when five million people contributed to America’s 347 public TV stations. “The drop-in donors is due partly to a loss of viewers to cable television, ” the magazine reports quoting industry analysts. “But they place much of the blame on public television itself.”