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Bill Moyers in the New York Times today.

…Mr. Moyers noted, [that] PBS announced an additional version of “Antiques Roadshow” just a few weeks after the Census Bureau released figures showing the number of people living in poverty had risen to more than 46 million.

Moyers also points out the lack of concerted vision and fragmented response by public media to the threats it faces.

In November he called for executives at local stations to come to grips with financing and governance issues that he contends threaten public television’s future.

“We’re just hanging on, leaking away, fraying at the margins, scrambling year by year to survive, hoping all the while for what in an era of trillion-dollar deficits and austerity will never be: more and more funding from Congress,” he said in a speech to his colleagues. “What we need is a makeover of our own” to help “realize the goals of our founders: diversity, public access, civic discourse, experimentation, a welcoming place for independent spirits.”

Many stations are already on that path, said Rich Homberg, president of Detroit Public Television, adding, “I think we need an army of people to read that speech and go act on it.” He said Mr. Moyers has been “an important voice for a long time, and we welcome him back.”