Viewers Like You: Community Norms and Contributions to Public Broadcasting

• DOI: 10.1177/106591290305600207
• Date: 01 June 2003
• Author: Stephen Knack,Martha Kropf
• Published date: 01 June 2003
• Subject Matter: Articles

About 90 percent of public television stations and 88

percent of public radio stations rely in part on viewer

contributions. At least once each year, most of these

stations embark on a “begathon”: the periodic drive to raise

funds from “viewers (or listeners) like you.” These fundrais-

ing drives provide a key portion of many stations’ budgets.

In FY 1998, membership contributions comprised on aver-

age 23.8 percent of television stations’ income, and 30.3

percent of radio stations’ income (Konz 1999).1

The logic of collective action (Olson 1965) suggests that

public broadcasting stations and programming will likely be

u n d e r p rovid ed if public broadcasting relied solely on

member contributions. Public broadcasting is a non-rival

good: large numbers of people can “consume” the good

simultaneously with no reduction in average benefits. More

importantly, it is nonexcludable.2Contributions intended to

influence the level and quality of public broadcasting are

inconsistent with rational, self-interested behavior, because

the cost of contributing will exceed the expected benefits to

an individual from increased provision of the public good.

However, if all viewers chose to free ride, the quality of

public radio or television would be substantially reduced,

and many stations would cease broadcasting altogether.

This is the classic collective action problem: maximizing

behavior of individuals leads to sub-optimal outcomes for

the group. Indeed, some scholars do argue that public

b roadcas ting is underprovided becau se of its lack of

resources (e.g., Rowland 1993: 172).

Despite the argument that public television is underpro-

vided, public broadcasting does receive substantial member

support, with subscribers donating approximately $519

million to public radio and television in 1998 alone (Konz

1999). In the data analyzed herein (for 1993), the average

contribution per household in the television market area is

$3.26, and 6 percent of households contribute. Why is

there community support for public broadcasting, even

though members of the community can obtain the benefits

of public television without contributing? We explore the

hypothesis that giving to public broadcasting is determined

in part by the strength of “civic norms” that limit the oppor-

tunistic behavior of individuals in large-numbers prisoners’

dilemma settings. Norms are “expectations about action—

one’s own action, that of others, or both—which express

what action is right or what action is wrong” (Coleman

1987: 135). By “civic” norms we mean norms prescribing

the choice to “cooperate” and proscribing the choice to

“defect” when larger numbers of cooperators lead to more

socially efficient outcomes. We proxy the strength of these

norms by creating an index of behaviors and attitudes using:

(1) community census response rates, (2) community voter

turnout rates, and (3) a measure of the proportion of a com-

munity’s citizens who believe that most people are honest.

We also examine alternative explanations for charitable

giving. Some of these come from the literature on collective

action, namely hypotheses concerning the impacts of group

size, religious group membership, selective incentives, and

asymmetry of demand (Olson 1965; Hardin 1982: 72).

Other explanations come from the literature on charitable

giving (a specific form of collective action), namely the

effects of tax deductibility, government funding “crowd

out,” and the role of income and education.

Our findings provide evidence linking civic norms and

giving to public broadcasting. Education and income have

i n d i rect effects through strengthening civic norms. Depending

187

Viewers Like You: Community Norms and

Contributions to Public Broadcasting

MARTHA KROPF, UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI–KANSAS CITY

STEPHEN KNACK, THE WORLD BANK

The logic of collective action (Olson 1965) suggests that public broadcasting may be underprovided, because

non-contributors are not excluded from receiving the benefits. Why do so many individuals voluntarily con-

tribute to public television, even though they can obtain the benefits of public television without contributing?

We explore the hypothesis that giving to public broadcasting is determined in part by the strength of “civic

n o rms” that limit the opportunistic behavior of individuals in large-numbers prisoners’ dilemma settings. We

also explore a variety of other explanations for charitable giving and collective action, including group size, tax

d e d u c t i b i l i t y, crowd out, and selective incentives. Our findings provide evidence linking civic norms and giving

to public broadcasting. Education and income have indirect effects through strengthening civic norms. We find

some evidence that selective incentives increase the average size of contributions among those who contribute.

1This percentage has not changed since 1993, the year for which the data

for this study were compiled. It was 23.9 percent to television and 29.5

percent to radio.

2With the advent of cable television, exclusion is technically feasible. Vi e w-

ers of PBS stations on cable systems must pay a fee to the cable operator.

The PBS stations receive no operating income from cable systems, how-

e v e r. Even these stations thus rely on voluntary contributions from mem-

bers who cannot be prevented from viewing if they fail to contribute.

NOTE: The authors would like to thank Laura Langbein and Dennis

Coates for their helpful comments. We would also like to thank

Robert Putnam and the Public Broadcasting Service for generously

providing some of the data.

Political Research Quarterly,Vol. 56, No. 2 (June 2003): pp. 187-197