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Entitled PBS web visitors are upset about sponsorship messages on online video. Oh no, someone is paying for you to freely consume things you want! How awful for youuuuu. These sponsored messages are totally scary, of course, because PBS consumers are apparently weak-minded prey and might start suddenly shopping at Goldman Sachs or Chevron. And yet you don't hear them complaining about the constant sponsorship of PBS by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which is the gift of a profiteering insurance man, banker and aggressive real estate developer, whose grandson is rabidly anti-union.
Don't you understand? Sponsorship isn't advertising, because why would ANYONE develop feelings about a person or group based on who they donate to??
I work for a PBS show and I, too, was put off by the ads. But here's the funny thing about PBS programing is that it still cost money to produce and with membership giving at somewhat less than robust levels that money quite simply has to come from somewhere. Perhaps a more productive solution would be to begin a campaign to demand other sources for funding of public media: a TV tax, ending corporate welfare, a bake sale? But until we come up with a solution at least PBS has figured out someway, however uncomfortable it might make us feel, to keep it's programing on-line and free for everyone to access.
They do kinda have a point about the Chevron ads though.
Ugh, for decades now I've been putting up with ads every single night at the start of the News Hour. Thank god some Angry Person On The Internet has finally verbalized my many years of pent-up righteous fury.
Why can't they just refuse to start the video until you donate a dollar?