Follow the money with classic rock

Walt Mossberg, the ever enlightening and ever entertaining Personal Technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, had an interesting observation the other day.

"I love how PBS now aims its fund-raising almost exclusively at older Boomers. Specials on the Sixties; Peter, Paul & Mary. Follow the $$$."

He offered the comment as a tweet from his Twitter account:

I love Twitter, by the way, in the way it makes you think about what you want to say. It's technology Haiku: Say what you have to say, say it well, but keep it to 140 characters.

Take a look at the program guide for the Public Broadcasting Station in your area and you'll see what Mossberg is talking about.

Tonight, for example (I'm writing this on a Wednesday) my local public broadcasting station, WENH-TV in New Hampshire, is airing:

• From 8 to 11 p.m. -- "Rock, Rhythm and Doo Wop:" Frankie Valli hosts performances by Little Richard, Jay & the Americans and others;
• From 11 p.m. to 1 a.m. -- "Great Performances:" Eric Clapton leads an all-star blues line-up; host Bill Murray.

To begin with, while I may have stayed up past 11 o'clock in college during the early 1970s to listen some Clapton, there's no way I'd be able to stay up that late to watch him these days, much less even stay awake until the finish at 1 a.m. Wilson Pickett may have sung about waiting for the midnight hour, but these days he's doing it without me.

My favorite of these types of shows is "Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night" from 1988. It comes around on occasion and it's great to see the line-up of performers that includes Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Tom Waitts, Elvis Costello and others. And who can hate the do-wop girls singing background: Bonnie Raitt, k.d. lang, and Jennifer Warnes.

The thing about public broadcasting is that it will always try to reach out to the audience with the money, and right now by and large those are the Baby Boomers with enough disposable income to become a member, make a donation.

But I'm thinking ... if it's the Baby Boomers watching what we consider the classic rock artists of our generation, who is it going to be in 40 years? What great performances are going to air to raise money in, say, 2050?

I guess I'm being cynical in thinking there won't be any because I'm selfish enough about Baby Boomer generation music to think that it just doesn't get any better than that.

Is the PBS of the future going to air a Britney Spears performance to appeal to the 50 and 60 year olds of 2050? Or Akon or blink-182? I can't imagine.

I guess I'm glad I'll be too deaf or too senile or too dead to see it.


Please note: This post also appeared as my Baby Boomer Examiner entry today for Examiner.com.