How Everyone Can Benefit from PBS's New Set-Up

PBS-39 has come up with an interesting change to their business model that may hold some lessons for how we think about public funding for the arts.

The new won't just create programming - it will also sell services to the public, and rent work space and equipment to businesses and filmmakers. Nicole Radzievich describes the changes in her recent piece on Pat Simon:

The PBS39 Public Media and Education Center, the twin anchor with the ArtsQuest Center at Steel Stacks, includes two studios, six editing suites and satellite linkups on property that had been idle since the Bethlehem Steel Corp. plant shut down 16 years ago.

PBS39 will use the facility not only to produce its programming but also to sell its services — shooting, editing and producing video content. It will rent out rooms and satellite connections for business meetings and studios to filmmakers.

So people who would never be able to buy expensive, high quality equipment will be able to rent access to it for much less money.

This concept can be extrapolated onto other creative trades where high overhead costs act as a barrier to entry. I'll use music as an example, since that's what I'm familiar with, but the general idea can be applied to other disciplines.

Teens and college students are always wanting to start bands, but don't have a lot of money. So available practice space is usually limited to parents' houses, random warehouse spaces, and a few music stores that rent practice rooms, like the California Drum Shop in West Bethlehem.

Music equipment is very expensive, so a lot of kids who might be interested in making music aren't able to because their parents can't afford to buy them instruments. Another factor that gives suburban kids a leg up in music is location. Lower-income people tend to live closer in to the core cities. My mom always reminds me that I wouldn't have been able to play drums if my family hadn't moved to Bethlehem Township from the half double house in Bethlehem I grew up in.

I think the big takeaway from this is that the market for rehearsal space in the Lehigh Valley has always been kind of ramshackle. There's a real market for practice space that hasn't been tapped.

What if the Steel Stacks site eventually featured inexpensive rehearsal rooms for musicians? All a potential band would have to do is show up with guitars, instrument cables and drum sticks.

The sort of people who would appreciate this aren't looking for anything fancy - just the basics. Having been in bands, I can tell you that the depreciation costs of good amplifiers and PA systems are remarkably low. This stuff is designed to take a beating.

Nothing I've written up to this point has anything to do with public policy. I think a private business could turn a profit providing the service I described.

But depending on a city's priorities, there may be a role for government to play. Cities have spent a nontrivial amount of money over the past decade trying to attract "creative class" types to stanch the "brain drain" from Pennsylvania's cities. I don't think anyone knows for sure how to do this, but dumber ideas than subsidizing cheap art studio space have been tried.

First and foremost, zoning and noise ordinances need to be accommodative.

Second, cities should consider shifting priorities within their existing arts budgets.

Governments spend some money subsidizing the arts. But it's an open question as to whether they spend it wisely. Sometimes cities subsidize the winners of the art world, who are actually well-positioned to raise money from private and philanthropic donors.

Sometimes the criteria for funding is too subjective - the funders' own opinions about musical excellence and questions about the appropriateness of public funding can color official decision-making.

A more objective way of subsidizing the arts might be to move away from anything that looks like gatekeeping, taste-making, or "picking winners" and simply subsidize access to the means of making art. The public good being provided would be similar to libraries in its intent - expanding access to the cultural surplus for people of limited means.

In practice, this would look like tax breaks or some other kind of transfers for private businesses or non-profits who want to provide inexpensive music rehearsal space - or, if you prefer, darkrooms, film editing equipment, wood and metal shops, jewelry-manufacturing equipment, etc. As in the case of PBS, the key would be sharing the items that cost the most overhead.

In recent years, the city of Allentown decided they wanted to have more restaurants, so they've been subsidizing restaurants. By the same token, there's nothing stopping a city that wants to have more musicians from offering targeted tax subsidies to businesses providing inexpensive music rehearsal space.

The upshot would be to lower the overhead costs of participating in creative activities. Being able to rent access to rehearsal space on an hourly basis would obviate the need for every member of a potential music group to own all the equipment before the first practice. This would make it less expensive for kids to experiment with music as a hobby before deciding to invest a lot of money in equipment.

By lowering the cost of experimenting with various kinds of art, you'd give people the space to discover the hobbies they enjoy, probably leading to more successful job matching at the margins, and more cultural products for everyone to enjoy. But even absent an economic rationale, there are plenty of other reasons to cheer broader participation in cultural life