My PBS station has no clue
They killed my favorite shows
I watch a lot of PBS. We have two channels here in Miami and I watch them both, but one, I watch more than the other.
I mentioned to a cousin one time that I watch a lot of PBS and she asked, "You like to watch nature shows?"
No. I like to watch all the British tv - Britcoms, dramas, things like that. And I watch a lot of cooking shows. I can barely boil water, but I find them relaxing. When I ran into Lidia Bastianich at Whole Foods in NYC not long ago, I was excited.
I didn't approach her, but we did rub elbows - literally - it was very crowded in the store that day.
Anyway, I'm writing about PBS's lack of marketing knowledge, or at least one of my PBS station's lack of being able to hold donations.
Two times they had money or access to donations from me and they blew it and didn't make an effort to keep the donations going.
This bothers me no end because they take all their programs off the air for weeks on end and have these nonsense telethons, asking for money to support their stations. They literally antagonize their viewers by taking their favorites shows off and then asking us to donate to keep the shows on. A form of extortion.
Anyway, I was donating $25.00 a month to one of the local PBS stations but all at once, they took my two favorite shows off the air. Not just my favorite shows on PBS, but of all of tv - Doc Martin and Escape to the Chateau. I could watch those reruns of both shows forever.
It bothered me so much that I emailed the station and told them I no longer wished to donate due to the fact that they removed my shows.
I expected them to call me and try to keep me donating and I would then make a deal to split the cost and use half the money for a streaming service or something and let them keep the rest. But you know what they did? They emailed me back and said, "Done, starting next month you will no longer be charged."
They didn't even try to keep what they had - the first rule of business - keeping your current customers! And they didn't call to see if it was really me wanting to cancel my affiliation with them.
And some months before, I was donating one of my cars. But they never came to pick up the car - a Mercedes! I waited a couple of weeks, but they never showed up.
I finally called them and told them they had to come by the end of the week and get the car because I was leaving town for a few weeks . They said they could not come and get it, so they lost the car. They didn't even try to talk me into not canceling the donation.
So twice, they had donations that they are on tv begging for non-stop and when they had these donations in hand, the cavalierly just gave them up.
I don't ever like to use this word, but they were STUPID. Totally Stupid.
That's how you don't run an organization that relies on charity to stay in business.