Rick Best acknowledges that public television isn't the unique presence that it was in the 1970s and '80s - virtually the only place on the television spectrum to find educational programming and serious shows on science, history, public affairs, and high culture.
"The landscape has changed a lot," said Best, the general manager of the Quad Cities' PBS station, WQPT. "PBS used to use the phrase, ‘If PBS doesn't do it, who will?' You don't hear that phrase being used so much anymore, because it got to the point where there were other answers out there."