PBS Launching Streaming Service on Amazon Prime | Hacker News Reader

PBS Launching Streaming Service on Amazon Prime

hollywoodreporter.com

59 pointslaurex53 comments

I really hope PBS is working with other service providers (Apple? Google Play?) to bring the same programming. I don't want to pay Amazon tax (additional $10 per month prime fees) to be able to use this service.

I hope so, too. I wonder if PBS is going strategic with this to build wealth.

I know that they're also putting useful free content on YouTube. They have a channel called "PBS Space Time", which I've seen HN folks here sharing to engage in physics discussions (i.e., especially quantum).

There are a few good PBS channels on YouTube. I'm a big fan of "Eons".

It seems similar to what they did with HBO and Sesame Street. It's revenue stream since they know they can't depend on government funding. I don't think PBS has gotten greedy; they're just looking for ways to survive.

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/b-is-broke-why-sesame...

PBS Space Time is in part crowd funded via Patron though. I know I backed it for a long time

IIRC, PBS already has their own “Passport” streaming option. This is just a play to expand their potential audience. But if you don’t want to deal with Amazon, you’re free to deal with PBS directly.

Per their FAQ[0], this doesn't apply to every member station. It's also notably cheaper than other streaming options ($5/mo or $60/yr minimum donation) for ad-free content.

[0]: https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/5000692392-w...

If this one makes it clear what is and isn't available if I pay for the service, isn't full of useless "clips" crowding out real content, and lets me filter out stuff that's just Youtube videos, I'll take it over Passport (assuming the "what is available" suffices).

Then again the Amazon Prime app has similar problems so probably it won't be any better.

Check and see if your local PBS station has implemented Passport. Passport is a streaming service specific to PBS and there is no tax aside from the $60 or more annual donation to your local station. Public media needs your help.

I don't want to pay Amazon tax (additional $10 per month prime fees) to be able to use this service.

If your kids want to watch new episodes of Sesame Street, you already have to pay an HBO tax (varies by geography).

Since 2016, children whose parents can afford HBO get to watch current Sesame Street. Poor kids have to wait for nine months for sloppy seconds on their local PBS station.

Meanwhile, PBS and Sesame Workshop wonder why there are people who don't like how corporate "public" television has become.

Side note - parents whose kids have Hulu also get to stream hundreds of episodes of old Sesame Street. I consider this format (streaming, rather than over-the-air HBO or PBS) an advantage, not a disadvantage.

There are no commercials, it can be started or paused on my kid's schedule, and the content is basically the same: there are still the same 26 letters in the alphabet, and The Count only uses 21 numbers, and the developmental subjects are largely the same for kids today as they were 10 or 20 years ago...no need to re-write the textbook each year. True, parents don't get to enjoy visits present-day celebrities, but on the other hand, they might prefer a bit of 90s nostalgia.

I agree that it would be far better if this streaming service were available to everyone for free just as broadcast TV is available.

I've found PBS' scattershot streaming strategy really frustrating. There are a few new things I'd like access to, and some of the older programing that's still unmatched (pre-Elmo-takeover Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood) but it's hard to figure out where to get all of it. They have Passport but seem to go out of their way to make it hard to figure out WTF I'd actually get paying for that. Full back-catalog, no BS, PBS streaming would be an easy $Netflix/month from me.

Their day-to-day OTA schedule doesn't appeal to me very much, but streaming the handful of current things I want on my own schedule, and access to their killer back-catalog, would be a no-brainer addition to my monthly media spending.

> If your kids want to watch new episodes of Sesame Street, you already have to pay an HBO tax (varies by geography).

You specified "new" so you're not wrong per se, but it's worth clarifying: new Sesame Street episodes are exclusive to HBO for six months[1], after which they become available on PBS.

I don't think this is a big deal. Sesame Street content isn't particularly timely, so why should a child care if he/she is six months behind? To be honest, I'm pretty surprised HBO agreed to it in the first place—it feels like they're getting the short end of the stick—although I of course don't know the financial details of the agreement.

[1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/sesame-street-will-now-p...

new Sesame Street episodes are exclusive to HBO for six months[1], after which they become available on PBS.

I went with nine, based on Wikipedia. Not having kids, I don't know which is correct.

why should a child care if he/she is six months behind?

Because children have friends, and they talk to them, and no parent wants to have their kid be the one left out.

I don't think this applies much to 3 and 4 year olds.

You'll be surprised.

My son never watched "Paw Patrol" but can describe some of the main characters, from his friend in preschool.

Why does PBS need to be "working with other service providers", which mostly do not pursue the public interest, in order to bring their programming online? If they have content on catalog that's fully paid for and controlled by them (and I do understand that this is not the case for some nominally-"PBS" content), they should just throw it up on the Internet Archive and link to it from their website. The video-publishing monopoly of Google/Apple is not something that we should be encouraging, IMHO.

If they have content on catalog that's fully paid for and controlled by them... they should just throw it up on the Internet Archive and link to it from their website.

There's already a PBS streaming app on AppleTV and other platforms. I'm not sure why/if PBS is doing this.

If the current PBS app dies because of the Amazon deal, it'll be at least the second streaming app PBS has killed.

Chances are, they're doing what HBO, Showtime, et al. have already done -- they're offering their content on multiple storefronts, as well as their own. It's relatively hard to get a customer to add their credit card to your page, but Apple, Amazon, Google, etc., already have your payment info and eyeballs.

Yes, they are. Two years ago I worked on a project to open up their catalog to streaming services. It was an interesting project. Python 3/Django/Postgres/Redis.

PBS content should be free everywhere

> PBS content should be free everywhere

Then PBS needs a lot more money. They operate on about $445 million per year in total, and that gets split between PBS and NPR: https://www.cpb.org/aboutcpb/financials/budget

That's not enough, and it's a bit lower than public broadcasters in other countries who manage to make things free everywhere.

Well, especially since the Trump administration is again trying to zero out all funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting:

> “PBS and our 350 member stations across the country have earned bipartisan Congressional support over the years due to the high value the American people place on the services we provide their communities. For a modest investment of about $1.35 per citizen per year, public television provides school readiness for children, support for teachers and caregivers, public safety communications and lifelong learning through high-quality content.

> “For the 16th year in a row, Americans named PBS and member stations #1 in public trust among nationally known institutions. The same survey revealed that Americans rank PBS and our member stations second only to the country’s military defense in terms of value for taxpayer dollars. PBS and its supporters across every region of the country will continue to remind legislators that federal funding is critical for public television to do this essential work.”

http://www.pbs.org/about/blogs/news/pbs-statement-on-adminis...

To be fair, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a mess. It's so bad that member stations are defecting.

Los Angeles is a good example. It used to be like most other cities - A single, large PBS flagship and one or two secondary stations. That flagship bolted because CPB can't keep its finances in order and is demanding crazy amounts of money from the member stations.

There are a surprising number of very good public television stations across the country that are not part of PBS/CPB.

I'd be happier with PBS if the programs created with my tax dollars weren't spun off into "independent" companies that then make millions on the intellectual property that my tax dollars created.

WLAE, in New Orleans, was set up by some local lay Catholics in the late 70s. It now has an arm’s length relationship with CPB and the other affiliate for reasons not totally due to finances.

Seriously, especially since it's funded with tax money. I watched a good amount of PBS when I was younger since we couldn't afford cable. This should be available free online through a government maintained portal.

Contact your representative to ensure PBS has the necessary funding to do so. They are working on over the top streaming [1].

PBS could not afford Sesame Street, which is why it's on HBO now [2].

Disclaimer: Staunch supporter of PBS and other public broadcasting (streaming now I guess?)

[1] https://current.org/2018/06/pbs-and-stations-working-on-firs...

[2] https://www.vox.com/2015/8/13/9149091/sesame-street-hbo-pbs

PBS may be "funded with tax money", but apparently the funding doesn't go far enough as to allow for complete independence. It's a common story, that also explains why crowdfunded video projects have been mostly a failure - but I do wonder how the costs can be so high, when so many people publish self-made videos on social media sites for no payment at all other than some pretty nominal "monetization" revenues.

Some content is developed as a co-production with other broadcasters, so the rights will be complicated by that.

Only ~20% comes from tax money. The rest is provided by CPB and private sources. If you don't want it to turn into another corporate-captured YouTube, viewer-subscriber model is the only way to go.

Wikipedia says of CPB: "The CPB's annual budget is composed almost entirely of an annual appropriation from Congress plus interest on those funds."[0]

So that portion should still be considered tax revenue.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporation_for_Public_Broadca...

Or you could increase the portion that comes from tax money, a model proven successfully in dozens of countries.

That’s hard. They have a lot of educational programs, and, at least in the US, that implies a liberal bias.

They should be more honest about their other funding sources. They accept advertising, but couch it as "underwriting".

Agreed that free viewing should be included in our tax dollars, but it's not likely to happen without Fred Rogers to convince our representatives. Especially with a loud minority of our citizens convinced that PBS and NPR are biased.

Does this content differ from what is already available on the PBS app with the paid "Passport subscription"?

Anecdotally, I've got a PBS Passport account and I don't see Milk Street in my library. But it could well depend on one's geographic location or local station.

I do wonder if this will be revenue positive or negative for them. I’m paying $5/month for passport (though I think it’s tax deductible...)

I am not an accountant, but my accountant yells at me enough to impart a few pieces of wisdom.

This is a common misconception of "donations." Only the excess of the "donation" minus the fair market value of the "gift" is tax deductible.

So a $120 donation that gets me a nice $20 tote, will have a tax-deductible receipt of $100.

So for a video streaming service I'd expect none of it to be deductible, because if you look at other TV streaming services, you pay $10/mo for the service, so the fair market value of PBS passport might actually be higher than the donation amount.

It's not clear from this article.

I'm going to take a guess and say that it might be the same content, or very similar.

As long as this doesn't effect the free streams of News Hour to youtube or accessing FrontLine off their website for free.

Bob Ross? Mr. Rogers? Charlie Rose?

Sadly, today, PBS is an infomercial for ancillary products, so it makes perfect sense that they have been partnering with Amazon.

(You don't get rich by producing a show for PBS, but plenty of people have gotten rich(er) through the promotional power of parading their own products on national tv inside a pseudo 'non commercial' bubble.)

As a kid watching Arthur and Dragon Tales, they would have ads for 7-eleven afterwards, due to them being a sponsor.

I didn't really realize it as a kid, but it's kind of weird that an ostensibly public project was promoting a place that sells the least healthy food on the market.

Unless your channel was different than mine, yes they had ads but they were quite benign compared to other channels. In addition to being very short and infrequent, the ads never attempted to sell a product—they just stated the company name and how proud they were to support PBS.

I'm sure these types of ads can have some psychological effect, but it's hard to see them inspiring a child to start begging their parents for a certain product.

You're not wrong; the ads for 7-eleven (if I remember correctly) were some dude walking around, and then the logo, followed by the line "Oh Thank Heaven!".

I doubt my habit of eating unhealthy fast food all the time stemmed from those commercials. I just found it a bit bizarre.

> I just found it a bit bizarre.

Put another way: lots of government projects are a cooperation of public and private interests. Highways contain billboards, for instance.

I don't have a problem with these types of projects, provided they don't turn into pure corporate giveaways of public money. I really think PBS has struck a good balance.

Wait, is Amazon the US government now? Should I send my tax money to Amazon instead? This is not cool, we should not have to pay Amazon money to watch our publicly funded television.

I don't buy that PBS doesn't "have the money" to make programs freely available. Running radio antennas back in the day costed money. At the very least, PBS could seed torrents, or upload to YouTube. I understand that neither of these methods are exactly free from any cost, but at least give us the choice.

PBS already limited free access to its streaming content. You only had access to a handful of most recent shows without a paid Passport account. Much of what PBS has in its catalog is licensed from the BBC. Streaming those programs for free in perpetuity isn't a realistic option.

Not all PBS money is government money.

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