PBS stands for public broadcasting service, and refers to a group of television stations through the United States and through parts of Canada that are non-profit and privately owned. Unlike most standard stations, PBS is known for broadcasting shows without commercial interruption. In order to afford purchasing television shows, PBS stations gather member funding and funding from commercial sponsors, who may be able to run an ad prior to a show. Most of the funding for PBS comes from the federally funded Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

PBS began to air shows in 1970, and has aired on many local stations over the years, over 350 at last count. These do not work the same way a station like ABC or FOX does. A PBS station may not always air the same programs as does other PBS stations, and they certainly don’t stick to the same broadcast schedule. While you can find American Idol or other programs of the FOX network on at the same time throughout the country, you might find Masterpiece Theater airing on a different night and in a different time slot from station to station.

A few PBS stations do produce their own programming. WGBH in Boston produces several well known educational shows, like Nova and Frontline. But most PBS stations do not produce much in the way of original programming and therefore make no profit when shows are syndicated or released on DVDs. Instead the PBS station merely licenses the right to use the program a given number of times.

PBS has no central news or program department, so availability of certain programs on PBS stations will vary. Certain programs seem to always be available on most stations like the children’s programs, Sesame Street, and Arthur, and evening programs like Nature, Mystery! and Masterpiece Theatre. Other programs may require both member and corporate sponsorship in order to fund the money needed to pay for licensing fees.

PBS has also always been known for licensing British productions, often less expensive than their American counterparts. If you wanted to find Monty Python’s Flying Circus on television, you looked for it on your local PBS station in the 1970s. Many Masterpiece Theatre productions were also initially produced by British television, usually through the British Broadcasting Company (BBC).

Membership in PBS is a principal means by which individual stations pay for programming. Initially, membership drives were conducted once yearly. Now many stations may conduct drives three to four times a year. These drives are often considered a nuisance by viewers because they often pick the favorite shows for rebroadcast and then interrupt them frequently with pledge breaks. As annoying as pledge breaks may be, they’re necessary, now more than ever.

When PBS first began airing shows, there was minimal competition. Now whole networks are devoted to documentaries, to news with liberal or conservative bents, to British television productions, and to children’s programming. Little of this existed when PBS first became popular and was only competing with three other main networks: ABC, CBS and NBC. With satellite television now providing people with hundreds of channels, PBS loses a little viewership every day, and often fails to provide unique television.

PBS has also been criticized as having a liberal bias, or a conservative one, depending upon whom you talk to. Many attempts have been made to cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Some viewers are also annoyed that PBS now airs commercials before and after programs, since one of the hallmarks of each station was its claim to not airing commercials. Many also feel that programming has declined in value and interest, though others still feel the long time running children’s shows are definitely worth watching, and that the occasional evening show is unlike anything else on television.