Public TV Seeks Broad New Powers

Public television broadcasters have asked the government to allow them in the future to raise money a new way: by charging viewers for “Barney & Friends,” “Nova” and other noncommercial programs. The Public Broadcasting Service and the Washington-based lobbying group for the nation’s 203 public stations want federal regulators to grant them broad new commercial powers as stations make the transition to digital technology, a new form of broadcasting, beginning next year. Using digital technology, a TV station will be able to offer viewers as many as five or six channels simultaneously. The public stations say they will reserve at least one channel for free broadcasts but that they have asked the Federal Communications Commission to enable them to use their extra channels for money-raising purposes. Among other ideas, public stations could lease some of their excess capacity to commercial broadcasters, said Nancy Neubauer, a spokeswoman for America’s Public Television Stations, the stations’ trade group. The commercial broadcasters then would be free to air programs and advertising of their own choosing. Neither APTS nor PBS officials have estimated how much revenue their digital TV ideas might generate.