The GOP tries to cut funding for public broadcasting — again:

WASHINGTON — House Republicans yesterday revived their efforts to slash funding for public broadcasting, as a key committee approved a $115 million reduction in the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that could force the elimination of some popular PBS and NPR programs.
On a party-line vote, the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees health and education funding approved the cut to the budget for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes money to the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio. It would reduce the corporation’s budget by 23 percent next year, to $380 million, in a cut that Republicans said was necessary to rein in government spending.
The reduction, which would come in the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, must be approved by the full Appropriations Committee, and then the full House and Senate, before it could take effect. Democrats and public broadcasting advocates began planning efforts to reverse the cut.

Public broadcasting is an idea that was born in an era when Americans had three channels to choose from. Today they have hundreds, if not thousands. Satellite radio offers people the same dizzying number of options, and broadband providers are gearing up to offer to HDTV directly through the Internet. With such a proliferation of news and entertainment, there’s something so archaic about this debate over government-subsidized programming. Is there a commercial market that needs subsidies less?