There is now an entire generation that has come of age with no memory of the time when public television was called “educational” television. We are rapidly approaching a moment when the term “non-commercial” will be equally inappropriate for what we see on public television. Today there is no shortage of commercials on public television. They aren’t called commercials, of course, and their design is generally—though not invariably—more discreet, or at least less offensive, than the commercials seen on commercial television; but the proliferation of sponsor “spots”—some of them fairly elaborate in the number of products that are promoted in a very short time-segment—brings to the public-television screen more and more of what everyone recognizes to be plain old commercial advertising. In fact, if not in name, so-called non-commercial television is far more commercial than it was a generation ago. It is also less educational and more political.

The incursion of the commercial into “non-commercial” television might be considered less objectionable if it resulted either in a decreased use of public funds or in notable improvements in the quality of programming on public television, but there is no sign of either development taking place. Indeed, everything seems to be moving in the opposite direction. According to a recent report in The Wall Street Journal, what we can now expect from Jennifer Lawson, the new national programming chief for the Public Broadcasting Service, is the introduction of “game shows and situation comedies.” Not surprisingly, these “non-commercial” clones of standard commercial-television packages are said to be “oriented to public service and increasing people’s knowledge”—words that are no doubt meant for the ears of Congress, which next year will have to re-authorize the taxpayers’ share (about 18 percent) of the public-television budget. But all the twaddle about “public service” and “knowledge” cannot disguise the fact that such changes in programming are designed—just as they always are in commercial television—to improve ratings. And only a mind nurtured on public television could believe that the drive to improve ratings has ever led to an improvement in quality.

The truth is, the general intellectual level of what is seen on public television is abysmally low already.

The truth is, the general intellectual level of what is seen on public television is abysmally low already. Except for the actual news segments on “The MacNeil/Lehrer News-hour,” which are superior to most of what can be seen on network news programs, there is hardly any reason for intelligent people to watch the regular programming on public television at all. And even on the MacNeil/Lehrer program, all the talk plummets into the usual liberal bathos whenever it turns, as it often does, away from hard news to consider some cultural or social issue of current concern. The coverage of the arts on MacNeil/Lehrer is simply laughable—real criticism is invariably rejected in favor of upbeat, feel-good endorsements of whatever the trendy development of the moment happens to be—and the only thing to be said for those ghastly, maudlin “essays” by sundry caring, liberal sob-sisters of both sexes is that they come at the very end of the hour and are thus easily switched off.

The situation is no different with what is often claimed to be the jewel of public television—“Masterpiece Theatre.” What had begun as a remarkably successful series of dramatizations of great novels—the unforgettable version of Henry James’s The Golden Bowl was probably the finest thing of its kind ever shown on television—long ago degenerated into little more than soap opera with a British accent. The cause of this change is hardly mysterious. Something more popular, which is to say something on a lower level, was wanted, and the people in charge of programming were no doubt confident that so long as they could continue to wheel on the cultivated presence of Alistair Cooke to lend some intellectual gloss to these soaps there would be no complaints.

Now, with the promise of game shows and sitcoms on public television, the aping of the commercial networks by PBS can be expected to take a quantum leap. Sooner or later the question will have to be faced: Who needs this stuff? If public television is now obliged to imitate more and more elements of commercial television to keep its audience from disappearing, isn’t it time to reconsider the whole role of public television itself?