A Winner on Election Night: Public Broadcasting

PBS's coverage may not have had the pizazz of the commercial networks, but it came out a winner in the results.

Mitt Romney campaigned on plans to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting, stirring a Big Bird meme in social media, a Million Puppet March protest (which was actually just a few hundred) and a new debate on the value of government-backed programming.

Patrick Butler, the president and CEO of the Assn. of Public Television Stations, said in a statement, "We hope these elections will mark a turning point for public television and a restoration of the bipartisan support for our work that has been a hallmark of our experience since President Eisenhower first proposed a national commitment to educational television in the National Defense Education Act of 1958.

"Public television remains profoundly committed to this education mission, and we are deploying all the tools of new technology to perform that mission more successfully and comprehensively than ever before."