The National Program Service:
A New Beginning?
Matt Jackson
Doctoral Student
Department of Telecommunications
Indiana University
[log in to unmask]
919 West 2nd Street, #15
Bloomington, IN 47403
(812) 323-8291
Submitted to the Media Management and
Economics Division of AEJMC
April 1, 1997
The National Program Service:
A New Beginning?
Abstract
In 1992, PBS replaced the Station Program Cooperative (SPC) with the National
Program Service (NPS). This paper compares programming and funding trends under
both systems to determine if centralized decision-making has brought about the
desired changes. The results suggest that NPS has had some impact, but that
these changes are mostly due to cost-cutting measures. Corporate underwriting
and station fees have not grown as hoped. Local autonomy and limited funding
have prevented NPS from creating a network identity for the PBS program service.
The National Program Service:
A New Beginning?
Introduction
From its earliest inception, public television in the United States has been a
decentralized endeavor. It was not until the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967
established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) as a central funding
source with limited authority over autonomous local stations that the federal
government played any significant role in public television's development. The
CPB in turn created the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in 1969 to manage a
distribution network and provide funding for national production (Day, 1995).
In 1973, President Nixon forced the CPB to relinquish power over PBS to the
local stations. Federal funding which previously had flowed from the CPB
directly to PBS was instead disbursed (and dispersed) among the countless local
stations. In need of a mechanism to pool their funds to purchase national
programming, the stations and PBS created the Station Program Cooperative (SPC).
Under this plan, each year the station managers would meet and vote on which
programs should be funded by PBS.
By the late 1980s, many flaws were apparent in the operation of SPC. Most of
the complaints centered around the mechanism by which decisions were made: the
democratic voting system resulted in a heavy emphasis on station-produced
programs at the expense of independent productions; voting inherently reduced
risk-taking and innovation; controversial programs did not get funded; producers
had to wait up to a year to receive funding; and clearance rates were low,
resulting in a lack of national identity, reduced ratings, and reduced corporate
underwriting.
In 1989, the PBS member stations voted to eliminate SPC and allow PBS to
appoint an Executive Vice-President of Programming and Promotion who would
choose which programs should be funded for the National Program Service (NPS).
Essentially, the PBS stations voted to replace their democratic system with
centralized decision-making in hopes of addressing many of the foregoing
problems.
The first broadcast season under the new system was FY 1992. More than five
years have passed since NPS replaced SPC. The purpose of this paper is to
evaluate the effects of that change on PBS programming and to see whether
centralized decision-making has eliminated the problems associated with SPC.
This study will compare levels of funding and types of programming for the last
two years of SPC (1990-91) and two of the first three years of NPS (1992, 1994).
Reliable data for 1993 and after 1994 were not available.
The results of this study suggest that NPS has had some impact on the types of
programs produced, but that these changes are mostly due to cost-cutting
measures. Rather than taking greater programming risks, NPS has continued to
focus on low-cost programs to produce more total hours of programming with the
same amount of money. Corporate underwriting and station fees have not grown as
hoped. Moreover, the limited funding of NPS and the diverse needs of 351
stations have prevented NPS from creating a network identity for the PBS program
service.
This paper will begin with a discussion of the circumstances which surrounded
the creation of the SPC and its eventual demise. It will then compare levels of
funding and program production under SPC and NPS. The paper will conclude with
an analysis of the impact of switching from SPC to NPS.
The Rise and Fall of the Station Program Cooperative
On May 23, 1953, KUHT, licensed to the University of Houston, became the first
educational television station to go on the air. Within two years, fifteen more
noncommercial stations were operating across the nation. Even before KUHT began
transmitting, a chief concern was programming. The high cost of television
production meant that stations could not sustain service to their communities
without a source of national programming. The Ford Foundation, through its Fund
for Adult Education (FAE), created the Educational Television and Radio Center
(later known as NET) to supply programs to public television stations.
Originally conceived of as a distribution center, NET quickly began to
coordinate production as well (Blakely, 1979).
As more stations came on the air, regional networks developed as well. By
1968, there were six regional networks distributing instructional programming.
The National Instructional Television Center in Bloomington, Indiana became a
national library for instructional programming. All of these production centers
were competing with NET for the limited supply of stations' funds. Many of the
existing stations were funded by states or universities to serve educational
needs. As Rowland (1993) points out, "State funding has always been predicated
on the educational and instructional potential of public broadcasting" (p. 179).
A tension developed between these small stations which wanted instructional
programming, and NET and the large community stations, which wanted to produce
general audience programming (Blakely, 1979).
In 1967, the Congress passed the Public Broadcasting Act (Pub. L. No. 90-129)
to enact the recommendations of the Carnegie Commission, which had issued its
report earlier that year. The law created the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting (CPB) to oversee a new, federally supported public television
system. The CPB was not allowed to create its own programming, so it
established the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) to oversee production and
coordinate the interconnection of the existing stations. Much of the production
money was directed toward NET and a few large community stations such as WGBH in
Boston and WETA in Washington, DC. NET and these stations became the major
program suppliers for the system (Day, 1995).
Soon after the creation of CPB, President Nixon took office. He did not like
what he perceived as the anti-administration programming being produced by NET
(Blakely, 1979). In 1972, Nixon vetoed funding for CPB and forced a
reorganization of the system. More funding was to be passed through CPB
directly to the local stations in the form of Community Service Grants (CSG).
PBS was turned into a membership organization controlled by the local stations.
This structural change had a profound effect on public television. Lashley
(1992) writes, "PBS was changed from a highly centralized 'fourth network'
managed by national officials to a highly fragmented and decentralized
membership organization comprised of public television stations. Station
managers were expected to exercise discretion that was more responsive to the
tastes of local audiences than national public broadcasting officials" (p. 88).
Nixon had correctly predicted that shifting decision-making authority from
national officials to local station managers would result in more conservative
programming and fewer political programs.
Much of the money and decision-making authority was now in the hands of the
station managers. But there was nowhere near enough money for stations to begin
producing their own programs. They still had to rely on national programming to
attract viewers and fill out their schedules. So in 1973 the PBS member
stations voted to form the Station Program Cooperative (SPC). All 152 stations
would participate in a series of voting rounds to choose which programs to fund.
They would pool their resources along with funds from CPB and the Ford
Foundation (Katzman, 1975b). The hope was that SPC would provide a
"cost-effective method for purchasing and distributing programming that
satisfied the unique tastes of each public television station and its public"
(Lashley, 1992, p. 89).
Stations continued to use SPC from 1974 to 1990. During this time, there were
many complaints. Local stations, dependent on state dollars, underwriting, and
viewer donations, took few programming risks. Richard Moore (1975) points out
that,
The financial condition of each station becomes the determining factor in what
passes for program planning and decision making in public broadcasting....Public
broadcasting will continue to be dominated by political rather than programming
interests so long as the 'integrity' of public broadcasting is identified with a
system in which the collectivity of the bureaucracies, as represented by the sum
of the licensees, has the controlling voice in national programming policy (p.
21).
Day (1995) echoes this sentiment: "Strong leadership can articulate a clear,
precise purpose; a committee produces rhetorical mush....To avoid a monolith,
[the system] created a bureaucratic monster--inefficient, uneconomic, and
unwieldy--and pronounced it good because above all else, it was demonstrably
'democratic'" (pp. 5-6).
After studying SPC in its first year of operation, Katzman (1975b) found that
stations were extremely conservative; choosing previously successful programs
and the cheapest offerings, while rejecting innovative or ambitious projects.
This had a secondary effect of discouraging underwriters from supporting the
development of new programs since they might not air nationwide. Katzman felt
the structure of SPC precluded risk-taking:
It is difficult to imagine a scenario in which this type of voting procedure
can support innovative programming. In fact, it is difficult to imagine how
this type of voting procedure can do much more than sort through old programs to
determine which stations want which. It is a case of the sum of the parts
adding up to less than the whole. A single decision-making entity, or a
deliberate body meeting face-to-face, might ponder questions of balance,
diversity, innovation and quality; but the accumulated decisions of 150 entities
creates a statistical force toward the known, the safe, the cheap (1975b, p.
45).
Why, given all the criticism of SPC, did it last for 17 years? The answer lies
in the decentralized nature of public television. Once stations obtained power
over programming (and the funds to procure programming), they were loathe to
give it up. After Nixon had demonstrated the ability of politicians to coerce
the CPB, stations saw SPC as a "heat shield" which would insulate programming
decisions from political pressure (Hoynes, 1994).
Moore (1975) writes that the SPC represented the very essence of the system,
stating that public television is:
based on the principles of decentralization and a collective expression of
choice regarding national program scheduling. The perfect expression of these
principles is the Station Program Cooperative....The one heresy that public
television cannot tolerate is the emergence of a strong individual or group with
the resources to generate imaginative and popular programming free of the
extraordinarily dense filtering system represented by the sum of the stations
(p. 20).
Similarly, Day (1995) notes that local stations "oppose the emergence of strong
national leadership. Their motives are akin to the feudal barons of earlier
times who made certain that a weak and compliant king sat on the throne in
England" (p. 6).
It should come as no surprise that stations wanted to retain as much power as
possible. In her study of public television, Lashley (1992) points out that,
"In all organizations, goal attainment--surviving and accomplishing the stated
objectives or mission--has primacy. Although the public organization is
certainly no exception to this rule, what is exceptional is that all too often
managers of the public organization must trade off the attainment of stated
goals in favor of survival goals" (p. 1).
Eventually, the stations had to admit that SPC was inefficient and inflexible.
In the rapidly expanding media environment of cable and VCRs, public television
could not afford to keep a system where programming decisions took up to a year
to make. In the last four years of SPC, PBS lost 12 percent of its audience
(Klinghoffer, 1991). In 1990, the PBS member stations voted to disband SPC and
allow one person at PBS--the Executive Vice-President of Programming and
Promotion--to choose most of the programming that would make up the National
Program Service (NPS). Jennifer Lawson was the first programming executive and
FY 1992 was the first year under the new system.
SPC or NPS: A rose by any other name...
Comparing individual programs produced under SPC or NPS would be a difficult,
subjective task. Instead, this study looks at objective measures such as levels
of funding and types of programs produced. No claim is made as to whether the
quality of individual programs has improved or declined. But objective measures
can reveal certain trends under the old and new system.
Funding
Funding data is available for fiscal years 1990-92 and 1994 (Table 1). Fiscal
years 1990 and 1991 represent the last two years of SPC. Fiscal years 1992 and
1994 both represent NPS under the direction of Jennifer Lawson. Total funding
in FY 1990 was $257 million. The budget increased 3 percent in FY 1991 and 13
percent in FY 1992. By FY 1994, funding had declined 11 percent from the FY
1992 level. The FY 1994 budget was $266.9 million, just $1.3 million more than
the FY 1991 level.
Stations were consistently the largest contributor to SPC and NPS, contributing
more than 30 percent of the total budget. In FY 1991, when federal funding
(excluding CPB) and miscellaneous funding dropped by more than $12 million,
stations contributed an additional $11 million to make up the difference.
Between FY 1992 and FY 1994, station contributions to NPS fell more than 18
percent even though total public television income remained constant at $1.4
billion annually.
Corporate underwriting accounted for between 27 and 31 percent of the
programming budget for all four years. CPB support declined by more than 40
percent during the first year of NPS, but it has since climbed by more than 16
percent to contribute almost 10 percent of the total budget. Funding from other
sources (educational associations, unions, etc.) rose by 89 percent during the
first year of NPS, but has since leveled off at about 20 percent of the total
budget.
Programming
The total hours of programming produced has been increasing at a slow but
steady rate, from 1500 hours in FY 1990 to 1645 hours in FY 1994 (See Table 2).
PBS codes programming into one of seven categories: children's, cultural, public
affairs, science/nature, educational, how-to, and sports. Children's
programming, which declined by 14 percent in the last year of SPC (FY 1991),
grew by almost 65 percent in the first year of NPS (FY 1992). Between FY 1992
and FY 1994, this category remained relatively constant at just more than 15
percent of all programming hours.
Cultural programming hours have declined sharply since NPS was instituted. In
FY 1991, the last year of SPC, 422 hours of cultural programming were produced
(27 percent of all hours). This fell by 22.5 percent in FY 1992 to 327 hours
(20 percent of all hours). By FY 1994, the number of hours had fallen an
additional 12 percent to 288 hours. This represents a 31.8 percent decrease
since NPS replaced SPC.
Public affairs programming accounted for 37 percent (560 hours) of the schedule
in FY 1990. In the last year of SPC, this increased 22 percent to 686 hours (44
percent of the schedule). In FY 1992, the first year of NPS, an additional 40
hours were added, so that public affairs made up 45 percent of the schedule.
This increased to more than 50 percent of the schedule by FY 1994. From FY 1991
to FY 1994, 150 hours of public affairs programs were added to the schedule, an
increase of 22 percent.
Science/nature shows, which had increased by 25 percent from FY 1990 (106
hours) to FY 1991 (132 hours), have steadily declined since the start of NPS.
Nineteen hours were cut in FY 1992 (a 14 percent decrease), and 26 additional
hours were cut by FY 1994 (a 23 percent decrease). From FY 1991 to FY 1994,
science/nature programming fell by 44 percent.
Educational programs (generally tele-courses) have fluctuated considerably in
the five years covered by this study. In FY 1990, 81 hours were produced while
in FY 1994, 53 hours were produced. How-to programs dropped by ten percent in
the last year of SPC from 146 hours to 131 hours. In the first year of NPS,
this category fell an additional 13 percent but has since leveled off at roughly
7 percent of all programs. Sports programming has always been low. Under SPC,
two hours of sports were produced annually. Since the advent of NPS, this has
increased to eight hours, but it still represents less than one percent of all
programming.
Programming sources
One criticism of SPC was that it favored station-produced programs to the
detriment of independent productions. The large producing stations such as
WGBH, WNET, and the state networks had a vested interest in making sure their
productions were funded, since much of the money went to station overhead. Back
room deals were often made whereby these stations would agree to vote for each
other's proposals (Virginia Fox, personal communication, April 12, 1996). The
problem became so bad that independent producers lobbied Congress for direct
funding. In 1988, Congress directed CPB to fund independent productions through
the Independent Television Service (ITVS). The first shows produced by ITVS
were made available in FY 1992, but many stations did not carry them (Day,
1995).
Unfortunately, this researcher was unable to obtain detailed information on
programming sources, since station productions were counted twice (as station
productions and as co-productions with independent producers). However, part of
the story can be pieced together. Stations have consistently produced roughly
55 percent of the programs throughout the 1990s (Table 3). From FY 1991 to FY
1994, independent productions and co-productions with stations rose from 58
percent of all programs (908 hours) to 71 percent (1167 hours), a 28 percent
increase. Foreign productions had remained steady at about 14 percent of all
programs during the last two years of SPC and the first year of NPS. But
between FY 1992 and FY 1994, foreign productions declined from 14.2 percent (227
hours) to 8.5 percent (140 hours) of all programs. Thus, it appears as though
the increase in independent productions has come at the expense of foreign
productions rather than station productions.
Analysis
One objective of switching to NPS was to increase corporate underwriting by
adding more certainty to the program selection process. Underwriting generally
grew (and fell) at twice the rate of the total budget during both SPC and NPS
(Table 1). Furthermore, underwriting has declined less than 1 percent from
pre-NPS levels. Thus, it does not appear as though switching to NPS had a major
impact on underwriting revenues.
Between FY 1992 (the first year of NPS) and FY 1994, total funding of NPS fell
by $34 million (11 percent) and station funding fell by $17.7 million (19
percent). One explanation for this decline in station support of NPS would be
if total revenues for public television had fallen. However, total public
television income remained constant at about $1.4 billion between FY 1992 and FY
1994. Therefore, this explanation seems unlikely.
A second explanation could be that stations are choosing not to use NPS. In FY
1991, the last year of SPC, only 59 percent of the stations participated fully
in purchasing SPC programs. The following year, 82 percent of the stations
participated in NPS. If this percentage subsequently declined, it would suggest
either dissatisfaction with NPS or more attractive alternatives. Unfortunately,
similar data is not available for FY 1994 to see if stations became dissatisfied
with NPS and dropped out.
A third potential explanation for decreased funding is improved efficiency. If
the demand for NPS programming is near its ceiling and NPS produced programs
more efficiently, stations might reduce funding rather than produce unwanted
programs they cannot use. If this is true, the average cost per hour to produce
programs should have declined. (Of course, stations could maintain funding and
improve the quality of the productions instead.)
Since NPS replaced SPC in FY 1992, total hours have increased by five percent
(81 hours). However, during the same time period (FY 1991-94), the budget has
increased by just $1.3 million (0.5 percent). Between FY 1992 and FY 1994,
total programming hours increased by 2.5 percent even though the budget declined
by 11 percent. In FY 1990 and FY 1991, programming cost about $170,000 per hour
to produce (Table 4). In FY 1992, the first year of NPS, costs increased by 10
percent to $187,000 per hour. By FY 1994, costs had dropped $25,000 (13
percent) to $162,000 per hour. This figure is lower than the FY 1990 costs in
current dollars (without taking into account reduced purchasing power due to
inflation). This data suggests that NPS might be more efficient than SPC.
Has NPS truly become more efficient or has it chosen to fund programs that are
inherently cheaper to make? Two program categories that declined significantly
during NPS were cultural programs and science/nature programs. Those are also
the two most expensive types of programs to produce. In FY 1992, the last year
for which data is available, science/nature programs cost three times as much to
produce as public affairs programs ($372,000 per hour vs. $127,000 per hour)
(Table 5). Cultural programs cost $283,000 per hour, more than twice as much as
public affairs.
Between FY 1991 and FY 1994, science/nature programs were cut by 45 hours (44
percent) and cultural programs were cut by 134 hours (32 percent) while public
affairs programs grew by 150 hours (22 percent). Switching to public affairs
programming saved NPS more than $35 million ($21,000 per hour). Children's
programming was the only program category to grow that cost more than average to
produce.
Conclusion
In the five years since the National Program Service replaced the Station
Program Cooperative, PBS has been able to produce more programming for less
money. However, this appears to be the result of reliance on cheaper types of
programs rather than to increased efficiencies associated with centralized
decision-making. By reducing expensive cultural and science programming and
increasing public affairs programming, NPS cut its cost per hour by more than 10
percent. It is important to note that part of this programming trend began
before NPS replaced SPC. Public affairs programming was already rising and
cultural programming was already declining. Switching to NPS may have simply
accelerated the process. However, NPS reversed SPC trends in children's and
science/nature programming.
It was hoped that a "programming czar" would give PBS a network identity which
could be leveraged into increased underwriting revenues. Instead, NPS
underwriting fell by almost $18 million (20 percent) between FY 1992 and FY
1994, even though total business contributions to public television only fell
$7.5 million (3 percent). It should be noted that underwriting revenues were
just as volatile under SPC, so this does not necessarily indicate that
businesses are less happy with NPS.
The biggest problem with securing underwriting is the lack of a coherent
national schedule--a problem NPS did not address. A network schedule requires
common clearance of programs. Businesses to not want to underwrite programs
unless they will air at the same time nationwide. This has always been a
problem for PBS. Lack of a common schedule also reduces the potential audience
by making promotion more difficult.
The real barrier to a national schedule is that each station tries to customize
its schedule to its market. Local subscriber donations are the largest single
source of funds for public television. Stations adjust their schedule in order
to maximize ratings, which in turn increases local viewer donations and business
underwriting. As one station manager told this researcher, if PBS offered
programs to stations for free like the commercial networks, building a national
schedule would be easy. As it is, PBS charges stations for the programs and
then tries to tell the stations when to air them (Roger Rhodes, personal
communication, April 11, 1996).
NPS has had some beneficial effects. In its first year it canceled eight
long-running series that probably would have been continued for years under the
slow-to-change SPC system. As Day (1995) points out, NPS allows for more
programming contingencies: "The public system's ability to perform more like a
real-time network and less like a preprogrammed movie channel must be accounted
one of the major gains from centralizing programming under a single executive"
(p. 309).
The inherent problems of public television lie not with NPS but with the
system's inadequate funding and balkanized structure. CPB, PBS, and all 351
stations combined operate on $1.4 billion per year. In comparison, ABC, NBC,
and CBS have revenues of $3 billion each. The average prime time network
program cost $1 million per hour; more than six times the average cost of NPS
programming. NPS would only be able to produce 267 hours of prime time network
programming at that rate.
The bigger problem, however, lies in public television's tortured structure.
Referring to the current system (which includes NPS), Day (1995) writes: "The
concept of public-service television, and thus the justification for it, is
blurred in a babel of diverse aims. Worse, when national programming, and
particularly programs involving risk, must run the gauntlet of more than three
hundred local outlets, each with its own self-defined purpose, only the bland
will succeed" (p. 5). While NPS allows for centralized planning of program
production, each station still chooses which programs it will run and when they
will air.
Table 1. Funding sources for SPC (1990-91) and NPS (1992, 1994).
FY 1990
FY 1991
FY 1992
FY 1994
NPS*
Source
$(000)**
% of total
$(000)
% of total
90-91 % change@
$(000)
% of total
91-92 % change**
$(000)
% of total
92-94 % change
91-94 % change
Stations
77,200
30.0
88,200
33.2
14.2
95,400
31.7
8.2
77,700
29.1
(18.6)
(11.9)
Underwriting
69,800
27.1
75,900
28.6
8.7
93,900
31.2
23.7
75,400
28.3
(19.7)
(0.7)
CPB
37,900
14.7
38,600
14.5
1.8
22,600
7.5
(41.5)
26,300
9.9
16.4
(31.9)
Foundation
20,800
8.1
24,200
9.1
16.3
19,400
6.4
(20.0)
19,200
7.2
1.0
(20.7)
Federal
17,000
6.6
10,900
4.1
(35.9)
17,100
5.7
57.0
14,900
5.6
(13)
36.7
Other
34,400
13.4
27,800
10.5
(19.2)
52,500
17.4
89.0
53,400
20.0
(1.7)
92.1
Total
257,100
100.0
265,600
100.0
3.3
300,900
100.0
13.3
266,900
100.0
(11.3)
100.5
* % change from last year of SPC (FY 1991) to FY 1994
** All figures rounded to the nearest $100,000.
@ Change in dollar amount from previous year.
Source: Peter Downey, PBS
Table 2. Program categories for SPC (1990-91) and NPS (1992, 1994).
FY 1990
FY 1991
FY 1992
FY 1994
NPS*
Category
Hours
% of total
Hours
% of total
90-91 % change@
Hours
% of total
91-92 % change**
Hours
% of total
92-94 % change
91-94 % change
Children's
177
11.8
152
9.7
(14.1)
250
15.6
64.5
260
15.8
4.0
71.1
Cultural
428
28.5
422
27.0
(1.4)
327
20.4
(22.5)
288
17.5
(11.9)
(31.8)
Public Affairs
560
37.3
686
43.9
22.5
726
45.2
5.8
836
50.8
15.2
21.9
Science/
Nature
106
7.1
132
8.4
24.5
113
7.0
(14.4)
87
5.3
(23.0)
(44.1)
Educational
81
5.4
39
2.5
(51.9)
67
4.2
71.8
53
3.2
(21.9)
35.9
How-to
146
9.7
131
8.4
(10.3)
114
7.1
(13)
113
6.9
(0.9)
(13.7)
Sports
2
0.1
2
0.1
0
8
0.5
400.0
8
0.5
0
400.0
Total
1500
100.0
1564
100.0
4.3
1605
100.0
2.6
1645
100.0
2.5
5.2
* % change from last year of SPC (FY 1991) to FY 1994
@ Change in hours from previous year.
Source: Peter Downey, PBS
Table 3. Program sources for SPC (1990-91) and NPS (1992, 1994).
FY 1990
FY 1991
FY 1992
FY 1994
NPS*
Source
Hours*
% of total
Hours
% of total
90-91 % change@
Hours
% of total
91-92 % change**
Hours
% of total
92-94 % change
91-94 % change
Stations
820
54.7
878
56.2
7.0
873
54.4
(0.5)
930
56.5
6.5
5.9
Independent
937
62.5
908
58.1
(3.0)
1085
67.6
19.5
1167
70.9
7.4
28
Foreign
184
12.3
231
14.8
25.5
227
14.2
(1.7)
139
8.5
(38.7)
(39.8)
* Hours includes co-productions with other sources.
Source: Peter Downey, PBS
Table 4. Programming costs per year.
Average program cost per hour
FY 1990
$171,400
FY 1991
$169,820
FY 1992
$187,477
FY 1994
$169,249
Source: Peter Downey, PBS.
Table 5. Cost per program
Program Category
Cost per hour
Children's
229,600
Cultural
282,874
Public Affairs
126,859
Science/Nature
373,451
Educational
105,970
How-to
78,070
Sports
95,426
Average cost
$187,477
Source: Peter Downey, PBS.
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