Out with the old, out with the good?

Last week, when pundits on all gradients of the political spectrum mourned the demise of William F. Buckley, Jr., several lauded the consistently high quality of his talk show, "Firing Line." One columnist, in fact, noted that the erudite and conservative Buckley managed to draw quite a respectable number of viewers to PBS on Friday nights and in so doing racked up a tenure as host that was two years longer than Johnny Carson's on the "Tonight Show."

Obviously, this fun fact was intended to be a tribute to Buckley's on-air persona, but I wonder, in the light of a recent essay by Charles McGrath, whether some of the credit shouldn't accrue to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I say this because the The New York Times piece, "Is PBS Still Necessary?," (Sunday, February 17) argues that it may be time to pull the plug on publicly funded television programming and hand off Ken Burns to cable. After all, McGrath points out, these days there is a cable channel devoted entirely to everything viewers used to love about PBS: history, science documentaries, classic movies, cooking shows, home improvement, and Britcom reruns.

(Public radio, McGrath concedes, is a different matter altogether, a medium that has managed to survive, thrive, and multiply its listening audience exponentially.)

As my checkbook shows, I am a loyal supporter of public broadcasting---two local public radio stations and the Buffalo-Toronto PBS channel---as well as a subscriber to cable television with an extra movie package, and I have to say that any idea that PBS's long-running programs can simply be parceled out to new homes on cable makes my remote shoot red death rays. The problem is, if PBS's glory days are behind it, so are cable's, as ratings have become all.

Take the case of A&E, formerly known by its full title, Arts & Entertainment: It was supposed to be cable's version of PBS, and indeed in the beginning its scheduling was chock-a-block with reruns of PBS's "Mystery!" and "Masterpiece Theater." Nowadays, its primetime log is rife with true-crime shows and back-to-back episodes of "Intervention." (While Jane Austen's "Emma" did her share of intervening, I don't believe she would be comfortable on A&E these days.)

Bravo was initially a haven for viewers who enjoy movies outside the mainstream and arts programming. About all that's left of that promising beginning is "Inside Actors Studio." The rest are mean-spirited "reality" competitions like "Top Chef," "Project Runway," "Make Me a Supermodel," and "Real Housewives of...(fill in the blank)." Bravo's movie lineup has become the Independent Film Channel---for which movie buffs must pay a surcharge.

One must also pay extra for BBC America, to which I subscribed briefly in hopes of being able to watch series like "Prime Suspect;" what I got was "How Clean Is Your House?," the transatlantic version of "Antiques Roadshow," "Torchwood," and "Hotel Babylon"---dreck with a British accent.

"Flip This House" is not in a class with "This Old House;" for all his "Bams!" Emeril Lagasse can't beat "America's Test Kitchen." How do you suppose "Dora the Explorer" and "Arthur" would stack up against "Sponge Bob Square Pants" in kiddie prime time on the Cartoon Network? Could the Disney Channel lay claim to "Sesame Street" and the Children's Television Workshop without preschool educators' firing a shot? What news and public affairs channel would willingly take on "Frontline" but agree to give its producers a free hand? Does a cable channel even exist that would run "Great Performances?" The idea of live theater, classical music, and opera as pay-per-view is ludicrous; that kind of programming was why public television was created, to air the kinds of programs that commercial television would not.

Please note that I said "would not," not "could not."

I'm old enough to remember TV's so-called Golden Age, the black-and-white days of "General Electric Theater," "Playhouse 90," "The Twilight Zone," "Alfred Hitchcock Presents," "See It Now," Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts, not to mention all those marvelous half-hour comedies and Steve Allen's "Tonight Show." Just as bad money drives out good, bad shows drive out good---why should cable be any different?

Do you imagine (to return to where I started) that if William F. Buckley was still here, his "Firing Line" would survive a smack-down with Hannity-Colmes on Fox? I don't think so, either!