Today marks the end of an era. The last episode of Reading Rainbow will air:
The article goes on to blame the Bush administration (this is NPR, after all) for establishing such an attitude. Personally, I think the NEA should have been disbanded years ago, and it's absurd to continue the program in the face of the current economic stress. Furthermore, it should not be television's job to teach kids to read (or even to love reading, as the article claims.) That's the domain of people like me.
Political invective aside, however, I have to say that the demise of the show makes me sad. My family didn't have cable TV until I was 13 (I remember this because they got cable WHILE I was away at summer camp. The injustice!) So I grew up on public television programming, for the most part. Reading Rainbow was one of our favorites, and I doubt that anyone my age, even the ones who grew up with cable, wouldn't be able to sing the theme song if prompted. Remember? "Butterfly in the skyyyyyyyy . . . "
And now you have something to sing for the rest of the day.
The show's run is ending, Grant explains, because no one — not the station, not PBS, not the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — will put up the several hundred thousand dollars needed to renew the show's broadcast rights.
The article goes on to blame the Bush administration (this is NPR, after all) for establishing such an attitude. Personally, I think the NEA should have been disbanded years ago, and it's absurd to continue the program in the face of the current economic stress. Furthermore, it should not be television's job to teach kids to read (or even to love reading, as the article claims.) That's the domain of people like me.
Political invective aside, however, I have to say that the demise of the show makes me sad. My family didn't have cable TV until I was 13 (I remember this because they got cable WHILE I was away at summer camp. The injustice!) So I grew up on public television programming, for the most part. Reading Rainbow was one of our favorites, and I doubt that anyone my age, even the ones who grew up with cable, wouldn't be able to sing the theme song if prompted. Remember? "Butterfly in the skyyyyyyyy . . . "
And now you have something to sing for the rest of the day.
