Forum - View topicAnime on PBS.
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vashna
Posts: 1313 |
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While I was browsing a few days ago, I came across a very old thread on a defunct forum about a San Diego, California area PBS channel that broadcast Neon Genesis Evangelion and Robotech a while back. That got me thinking. Though I do not at all want to get into a political debate about whether or not, I was wondering what you guys thought of an idea like this. Interestingly enough, my local PBS outlet has an agreement with NHK, though they only show they've ever actually brought over was the NHK Nightly News. Strangely enough, the news broadcast is redone with BBC personnel, and is read by a woman who I believe to be from Wales. With the agreement, and the fact that my local PBS actually has a sound studio and has subtitled Russian and Polish films before, I thought it wouldn't be too much trouble to get some NHK-shows.
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Nerv1
 Posts: 601 |
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Actually, the KTEH channel in San Jose broadcasted Evangelion back in 2001(that when I first watched it). I do agree with you though, if the PBS channels can get broadcast rights to anime easily, I don't see why they shouldn't try to show it. For all we know, a lot of people might actually watch it.
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Andrue
Posts: 79 |
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Would def watch Gundam after Arthur or Sesame Street.
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KanjiiZ
 Posts: 661 Location: Central Coast |
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If Phoenix never got on air on PBS when Media Blasters got it, I don't really see anything else that's going to appear on American shores anytime soon.
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vashna
Posts: 1313 |
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Ah, awfully sorry, it must have been that San Jose station I had heard about.
You know, Phoenix is listed as being broadcast by PBS on Wikipedia, but a quick search of PBS' own website shows nothing. In fact, anime is barely mentioned there, except in passing. Were they supposed to show it and never did? |
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KanjiiZ
Posts: 661 Location: Central Coast |
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I'm not sure if PBS ever had a deal to air it on TV (and I believe it never did air). Phoenix is one of those rare occasions where an anime was funded by an American company.
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EricJ
 Posts: 876 |
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(sigh)...I live near one of those big-city stations that make their own shows--Ours doesn't have the time to dig up their own pioneer local-station reruns and British imports to fill time.
(Of course, on our other station, you have a 1 in 3 chance of tuning in at random and watching "History Detectives" or "Alan Alda's Scientific American". It's been hard for PBS micro-stations to find late-nite cult-filler in these new cable days, with BBC America grabbing up all the Doctor Who and Are You Being Served? reruns...) |
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Wren486
Posts: 3 |
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Ahh, yes. I do indeed remember those Sunday nights watching such "rare" titles like Ruin Explorers, Lain and Evangelion on public-supported KTEH (I lived in the Bay Area during that time).
But just like any other public-supported station, you also had to put up with these series marathons in which two KTEH reps. would interrupt between episodes and hammer you with, "If you don't pledge money to us, we'll pull the plug on our anime block". I remember one time they had a Lain marathon and they mentioned that pledging $100 was a "modest" amount (which wasn't too bad considering that you would get a Lain poster to go with it -- pledging $150 or more got you a Lain DVD or VHS). Seeing as how the block didn't last too long, I don't think they received much financial support from viewers. It would be nice to see a resurgence of anime airing on something like a PBS channel, especially with the growth of anime since 2001. But they do need to reach out to those who have a lot of money; it's no surprise that a lot of the shows that actually stay on PBS are catered to the Baby Boomers and up - people who have retired and are willing to spend money supporting those older shows. |
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vashna
Posts: 1313 |
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It’s the same here, mostly with Alan Alda’s Scientific American. Strangely enough, the other broadcasts you’ll find, especially late at night, are news shows. Two of them are from the Irish state media and the German Deutsche Welle service. In both cases, they are a translation read by a BBC representative. The third is…another NHK broadcast. A BBC representative, like I mentioned before also reads the NHK news. We do have a lot of Baby Boomer-oriented programming as well, of course.
For what they’re paying for their locally made shows though, which they complain aren’t popular, I can’t imagine they couldn’t license a lesser-known Funimation show or something like that. |
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EricJ
Posts: 876 |
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We have probably one of the last local stations that still does locally-filmed programming (city-interest stories, cooking/how-to and high-school trivia-bowls)...Probably because they were one of the first stations in the area to go HDTV three years ago before the analog-changeover, and there wasn't as much to show at the time.
Except for OTHER local HDTV PBS stations that had to create local-culture documentaries (eg. a Virginia station's Pocahontas documentary, a Louisiana station's cajun-cooking show, etc.), because they didn't have anything HDTV to show yet either, and had to stick together. Which just starts to get you depressed about how "local programming", even for network affiliates, became extinct when all the UHF stations turned into CW, Pax and UPN, late-nite movies vanished when infomercials paid the bills and greedy studios locked away all their vintage movies for video, and now stations exist today for no other reason than to have a news department. But when local PBS stations became too commercial and organized to show late-nite Monty Python reruns anymore just because they wanted to....it was the first step on a long, slow sink into the tarpit.
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Wren486
Posts: 3 |
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I'm not sure if there has been any animation that's ever aired on a PBS station that was meant for a mature audience. Maybe animation just isn't something they feel is far-reaching enough to a public broadcast audience? I wish I knew exactly how most PBS stations pick their broadcasting, but I'm pretty sure local demographics are always the big reason. Historically, the San Francisco Bay Area has always had a sizable Asian/Asian-American population, and I think this was one rationale for KTEH to green-light its anime block during that time. But it could also be because there were enough fans in that area who requested the station to broadcast anime, and the station got enough responses to give it shot. Since ADV and Geneon (then Pioneer) were small companies back in 2001, it probably also meant that it was cheaper for KTEH to license those shows for broadcasting. So if a station were to contact Funimation to request their cheapest show, it might cost a little higher than what it cost KTEH. But that would be my best guess. It certainly wouldn't be impossible if enough people were to contact a PBS station and ask for them to air anime. |
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