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There was a bit of beltway excitement a couple of weeks ago when Winston Peters turned up on the breakfast show at the national broadcaster and got a bit bothered with the question line, so he threatened to cut the funding. 

This of course, was hot air. 

But many in the beltway, sadly, had their sense of humour, if not the absurd, surgically removed at birth, so took it seriously. 

No such thing is going to happen for a series of pretty obvious reasons, none of which I will bore you with. 

But the earnestness with which they grimaced was based on the idea that there are those who can, and do, threaten public broadcasters. 

The latest is Mr D. Trump of Washington, who has signed an executive order to stop funding PBS, among others. 

Like everything else, this is heading to court and may well win, because the argument of weight appears to be public broadcasting and its funding is a congressional thing, and therefore an executive order from the bloke in the corner office doesn’t count. 

The Trump argument, and this is worth pondering, is that public money undermines independence, and the media is vastly changed in recent years, and a government operation isn't necessary. 

I have some sympathy for that. 

Public radio here has the Concert programme. It plays a lot of classical music and very few people listen to it. Why are we paying for it? 

Commercial radio doesn’t cover everything, like children's educational programming for example. But having said that, I don’t think public radio does that either. In America, publicly funded television invented Sesame Street. That’s of value. 

Here we have NZ On Air. Why do we have that, as well as publicly funded TV and radio? Why don’t we just have a funding system for product we want to promote and tender it to those who want to run it on their platforms? 

Is it a fair question to ask here that although they claim neutrality, would a snap poll of people on the street suggest RNZ and TVNZ are neutral? 

Is the BBC seen as neutral? Is the ABC in Australia a bastion of straight-down-the-middle balance? 

As always with Trump the seed of a half-decent thought is lost in the noise and bluster. 

But ask yourself the question - what is so unique about public television and radio, whether here, in America, or Britain, or Australia, that it needs so much of our money?