Another regular is Rick Steeves, a pleasant young man who looks younger than he really is (49 or so) and who has made a living traveling to Europe over the last couple of decades and telling us how we can do the same.

Ms. Orman comes in big gulps. Usually we have to watch and listen to her at two- or three-hour stretches.

Rick, on the other hand, is packaged in half-hour segments. What's more, he usually starts at one end of Europe and goes to the other in half-hour stretches.

At pledge break time, however, PBS strings a dozen or so Rick Steeves adventures into a single show—interrupted, of course, by pledge breaks.

But then all pledge break time "specials" are interrupted by pledge breaks, sort of rooting sections at which station managers (KTEH in San Jose has a station manager who looks a little like Inspector Clouseau and who loves to talk ... and talk ... and talk) exhort their viewers to call in with pledges to keep their stations on the air.

Behind them banks of volunteer telephone answerers take down the pledges.

Presumably this public begging works because Bay Area PBS stations have been doing it for years—and they are still on the air. Never mind that it is demeaning for those who have to do it or that it never really changes much in tone or content. What counts is that once every three or four months, PBS stations have to remind their listeners that they don't have sponsors (only, of course, these days they sort of do), that they need volunteer public pledges and that it costs money to stay on the air.

Perhaps it wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for what goes on in-between the pledge breaks. Besides Ms. Orman, there is the Blenko Glass story, which tells us about the Blenko Glass Company, a story that has been repeated maybe a dozen times during pledge weeks, mainly because PBS stations offer a pledge "reward," a piece of Blenko glass, depending on how much you pledge.

In Rick Steeves' case, you get a book or a videotape of your favorite part of Europe. Or, if you fancy, the Big Band sound, another old reliable. There are CDs of Big Band music, which come if you pledge enough dollars.

It used to be that we were repeatedly treated to Beverly Sills chuckling her way through The Three Tenors or The Three Irish Tenors or The Three Sopranos (why operatic singers come in threes is not clear, but that seems to be the case).

Another old reliable was the late Victor Borge, who performed in hour-long specials for PBS until he died, and who then was sort of resurrected for a set of memorials, clips from the performances made when he was still with us in the flesh. Just how long this Borge resurrection can go on isn't clear, but if Blenko Glass is any example, apparently quite a while.

One occasionally wonders how long all this is going to last. The Bay Area has three PBS stations, which run more or less the same programming week after week and which do their pledge breaking more or less at the same time. It is questionable in these days, when most everyone has cable, as to whether we need three PBS stations all broadcasting the same shows.

And there is also the still-unresolved question of whether PBS is entertainment or education or maybe neither. My guess is that it is probably all three. It's hard, for example, to contend that Mystery is very educational, although it is often entertaining.

On the other hand, such offerings as Ken Burns' The Civil War can't be beat as educational opportunities for all viewers, old and young. But the days when local educational programming was most of what public television broadcast are long gone.

We're no longer able to learn the guitar with Laura Webber, Mr. Rogers has passed to his reward, and there is but one local news show presided over by the indestructible Belva Davis.

Instead, we now have dozens of cooking shows (good, bad and in-between), not much music on a regular basis, almost no American drama (it mostly comes from England) and only occasionally live coverage of such things as important congressional hearings or U.N. debates.

News is mostly confined to The News Hour, and commentary is sparse and right down the middle of the political spectrum.

It seems to me that it's time to rethink public television—how it is to be financed, how it is programmed, its goals and the way it seeks public support. Perhaps without Suze Orman.