A Caffeine Jolt for PBS Fund-Raising

A CAFFEINE JOLT FOR PBS FUND-RAISING
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Maria Aspan]
Last week, in its first non-media-related commercial venture, the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) announced a partnership with Green Mountain Coffee Roasters. Green Mountain has produced and packaged a PBS Blend, which is being sold by Green Mountain and the PBS Web site, shoppbs.org, in a brand licensing arrangement. PBS will also make the coffee available to its member stations as a way to keep staff awake and alert -- and a product to offer during on-air fund-raising pledge drives. Some media critics see the coffee deal as veering into dangerously commercial territory for the public television company. Jeff Chester of the Center for Digital Democracy, a Washington-based nonprofit organization, wrote in his blog (democraticmedia.org/jcblog/) on Thursday that commercial ventures like the coffee deal were “a short-sighted and short-term strategy” for PBS that threatened “to undermine the rationale for taxpayer support.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/11/business/media/11pbs.html
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