It's pledge week in public radio, and the ask is on. So kossacks are declaring that NOT ONE THIN DIME of their money is going to support those "nice polite Republicans."
But if you have cable or satellite TV, you already do support conservative media. And unlike public broadcasters, Fox don't even have to ask. Thanks to your cable company, every week is pledge week at Fox News!
Let me tell you about the FoxTax™ buried in your cable bill.
Cable news is only partly funded by advertisers. The rest comes from license fees: monthly payments negotiated with your cable company and bundled into your cable bill.
How much money are we talking about? The Pew Project for Excellence in Journalism lays the whole thing out in its annual State of the News Media report.
Pew estimates that Fox News took in $475 million in license fees for 2008: nearly half a billion.
So how does that break down by subscriber? Or to put it another way, how much is that FoxTax™ in your monthly cable bill?
[Fox News] was charging an average fee estimated to equal 42 cents per subscriber, a 7-cent jump from 2007.
Remember, that's per month. Some subscribers pay more.
In 2007, Time Warner agreed to charge its customers 75 cents a month,over several years, for Fox News. Nine dollars a year. And that's just for starters. Over time, the FoxTax goes up.
So look.
If you're going to starve NPR, that's your choice. But if the idea is to make sure you're not supporting media with a conservative bent, do the next thing, too - and cut cable.
And to return to our original theme:
Fox News doesn't run underwriting announcements the way NPR and its stations do, but it might as well. And if you're not watching Billo, you're still paying for it. So as a public service, here's your underwriting announcement:
"The O'Reilly Factor" is made possible in part by Subscribers Like You.
Thank you.