PBS Adds New Benefits for Corporate Sponsors

Struggling to attract donations, the Public Broadcasting Service has been giving corporate sponsors better deals and greater visibility, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Companies such as Arby’s and Macy’s, instead of receiving a traditional brief thank you at the end of a PBS program, now work with PBS on multiple ventures. For example, PBS has licensed the use of characters on its shows to be used in products such as kids’ meal at fast-food restaurants and to appear on a float in Macy’s Thanksgiving parade.

Such deals have raised concerns among watchdog groups that public television is becoming too commercial. While public-television directors acknowledged the potential danger of this, they said that corporate sponsorship has not intruded on their programs’ content or quality.