Katy Perry pulled from Sesame Street

[FRPLG]

Originally Posted by skinsguy

That's not true at all. Sesame Street IS more privately funded than what they were when they started out in the sixties. In fact, their format change (to Elmo's World) was the result of low ratings. CTW isn't funded solely on charitable contributions. In fact, I'd argue that the CTW relies more on a commercial based market than what they did twenty years ago.

Perhaps I didn't communicate my point very well at all. I am assuming you believe ratings mean something to PBS and SS in the same way they mean something to for profit networks and shows. They simply do not. The ratings are a measurement used to set ad rates. Since PBS doesn't have ad rates the ratings are useless to them in that way. They do use the ratings in an evaluative manner to measure the impact of their content and help them make changes to stay relevant (stay on air essentially). They certainly do not put Katy Perry on their show in skimpy clothes to increase ratings since increasing the ratings in such a manner is useless to them. It provides them no value or insight. They don't get more money from advertisers because of high ratings. All ratings do for them is help measure whether what they are doing is popular. They're smart enough to know a bump in ratings because of the Katy Perry flap doesn't give them any data to make decisions on content.