Young children — and their parents — love and enjoy Sesame Street and all of the award-winning childrens’ programming seen on SOPTV and public television stations across the country. When Governor Mitt Romney prioritized defunding “Big Bird” and PBS to reduce the federal deficit during the first presidential debate, Big Bird became one of the most trafficked Twitter subjects, reaching 17,000 tweets per minute.

Beyond deficit reduction measures, Congress will vote on a bill to completely eliminate all federal support for public broadcasting as early as next week. The complete loss of federal funding threatens SOPTV’s ability to serve you and our entire region with the news, information and entertainment you rely on. The programs you care about are threatened. Your elected Representatives need to hear from you now. Please call your Representative today. Greg Walden, Oregon 2nd (202.225.6730) Peter DeFazio, Oregon 4th (202.225.6416) It’s critical that you make your voice heard. You can make a difference.

April 27 – May 3, 2008, 7:30 p.m. — A week-long televised celebration of Oregon’s rich history will include broadcasts of seven different historical programs over seven nights.