Why Are There Now Ads On “Public” TV?

“To raise money for noncommercial programming, producers and distributors increasingly allow their corporate underwriters to turn their credits into something resembling regular commercials. Since the mid-1990’s, the underwriter announcements that precede and follow many public television programs (and usually conclude with the narrator thanking “viewers like you”) have gradually adopted many trappings of regular advertising, despite appearing on “commercial-free” television.”