Public Broadcasting Service

The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is a non-profit public broadcasting television service in the United States. PBS is affiliated with National Public Radio, American Public Media, and Public Radio International through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a entity of the federal government. Each member station is owned independently but they share programming and funding which means they show similar programs.

PBS, along with NPR, has been accused of aiming its broadcast toward wealthy, elite segments of the American population while neglecting others, who nonethless pay for the programming. When Congress debated cutting funding for NPR and PBS, House Democrats appealed to the children's programming on PBS such as Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (1968-2001) and Sesame Street (1969-present). Puppets of Sesame Street characters were brought into the House chambers, and Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA) commented: "Oscar the Grouch has been friendlier to the Sesame Street characters than President Bush." [1] Most of PBS's programming, however, is aimed at children as they feed over 12 hours of children's programming every day of the week versus 6-8 hours of adult programming.