{"id":30453,"date":"2017-03-17T20:34:36","date_gmt":"2017-03-18T00:34:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=30453"},"modified":"2017-03-17T20:34:36","modified_gmt":"2017-03-18T00:34:36","slug":"how-much-is-big-bird-actually-worth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=30453","title":{"rendered":"How Much Is Big Bird Actually Worth?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Steven Hayward posted an article at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.powerlineblog.com\/archives\/2017\/03\/how-would-you-like-big-bird-served.php\" target=\"_blank\">Power Line<\/a> today about President Trump&#8217;s plan to cut funding for <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Public broadcasting\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Public_broadcasting\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Public Broadcasting<\/a>. The article illustrates the fact that in some cases, executives of <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Nonprofit organization\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Nonprofit_organization\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">nonprofit organizations<\/a> make salaries that don&#8217;t sound as if they are appropriate for an organization that is nonprofit.<\/p>\n<p>The article reminds us of two conflicting statements made by <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"NPR\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/NPR\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">NPR<\/a> about their budget:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">On average, less than 1% of NPR\u2019s annual operating budget comes in the form of grants from CPB <em>[the taxpayer-funded <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Corporation for Public Broadcasting\" href=\"http:\/\/www.cpb.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">Corporation for Public Broadcasting<\/a>]<\/em> \u00a0and federal agencies and departments.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\"><strong>\u2026Federal funding is\u00a0essential\u00a0to public radio\u2019s service to the <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"United States\" href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?ll=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667&amp;spn=0.1,0.1&amp;q=38.8833333333,-77.0166666667 (United%20States)&amp;t=h\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"geolocation\">American<\/a> public<\/strong>. Its continuation is critical for both stations and program producers, including NPR. . .\u00a0Elimination of federal funding would result in fewer programs, less journalism\u2014especially local journalism\u2014and eventually the loss of public radio stations, particularly in rural and economically distressed communities.<\/p>\n<p>Both of those statements cannot be true. I have no idea which one is.<\/p>\n<p>The article further reports:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">According to tax filings \u2014\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/990s.foundationcenter.org\/990_pdf_archive\/132\/132655731\/132655731_201506_990.pdf?_ga=1.158731005.650004095.1469723584\">the most recent of which covers 2014<\/a>\u00a0\u2014 then-president and CEO <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Mel Ming\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mel_Ming\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Melvin Ming<\/a> was paid more than $586,000 in salary and benefits in the nine months before retiring, which included a $37,500 bonus and $18,700 in benefits. The year before that, Ming cleared $672,391 in salary, bonuses and benefits.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">That\u2019s\u00a0<em>five times<\/em>\u00a0the average pay for <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Chief executive officer\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Chief_executive_officer\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">CEOs<\/a> at nonprofits, according to <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Charity Navigator\" href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Charity_Navigator\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"wikipedia\">Charity Navigator<\/a>. (It\u2019s twice as much as the CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting gets paid.)<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">The average compensation for the other 10 top officials at <a class=\"zem_slink\" title=\"Sesame Workshop\" href=\"http:\/\/www.sesameworkshop.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"homepage\">Sesame Workshop<\/a> in 2014 was a very handsome $382,135 \u2014 which is about six times the median household income in the U.S.<\/p>\n<p>Big Bird is big business. The article states:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">Last year, Sesame Workshop had\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sesameworkshop.org\/wp_install\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/Seasame-Workshop-and-Subsidiaries-6-30-16-15-FINAL.pdf\">$121.6 million in revenues<\/a>. Of that, $49.6 million came in distribution fees and royalties and $36.6 million in licensing of toys, games, clothing, food and such. In 2014, only 4% of its revenue came from government grants.<\/p>\n<p>I suspect there are other programs on Public Broadcasting that would do quite well if they chose to market items related to their television shows. I truly think it is time to give the free market the chance to work its magic in the area of Public Broadcasting.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Steven Hayward posted an article at Power Line today about President Trump&#8217;s plan to cut funding for Public Broadcasting. The article illustrates the fact that in some cases, executives of nonprofit organizations make salaries that don&#8217;t sound as if they &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/?p=30453\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1671,3357,10705,10706,8897,3207,5658,2015],"class_list":["post-30453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-corporation-for-public-broadcasting","tag-donald-trump","tag-national-endowment-for-the-arts","tag-national-endowment-for-the-humanities","tag-nonprofit-organization","tag-npr","tag-pbs","tag-united-states-federal-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30454,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30453\/revisions\/30454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rightwinggranny.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}