Viewers Like You

"If you watch even one second of PBS and don't contribute, you're a thief. A common thief!"

—Betty White, The Simpsons, "Missionary: Impossible"

This is WPBS-TV. We'll Pledge-Break Soon, Thanks Viewers!

An artefact of a system where there's always money to finance yet another Middle East war, while quality educational television perennially relies upon:

People who donate money directly to the producer or distributor of works, in hopes of seeing more like them.
Viewers of programs whose primary funding comes from voluntary donations, rather than advertising or subscription.

The Trope Namer is PBS, whose stations and original programs used to be funded almost entirely by viewers. (Some stations still are.) For this reason, most PBS programs still end their acknowledgements with "Made possible by ... Viewers Like You." Odds are, fewer viewers donate than not (which makes "Viewers Like You" more accurate than a simple "You").

On most PBS member stations, a Telethon-like "pledge drive" disrupts regular programming as often as four times a year. People usually donate to PBS not because it helps keep the station running, but because neat "gifts" get thrown in (albeit for far more than the free-market rate), and because it's the PBS equivalent of Ratings: the sorts of programs that bring in heavy donations during pledge drives are the sorts of programs that the station will renew. Most of the grant money comes from airtime-hungry corporations, not-for-profit foundations, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting ("A private corporation funded by ~~taxpayers~~ the American people").

Examples of Viewers Like You include:

Live-Action TV

Lampshaded by Sesame Street for many years, by adding the individual letters and numbers being taught alongside the list of "sponsors" (or underwriters) of the programme. "This episode was brought to you by the letters P, B, S, by the number sixteen, by..." (list of underwriters and sponsors) "... and Viewers Like You. Thank You."

Web Original

Many Internet radio stations/networks, including Soma FM, mvyradio.com, and many others.
Leo Laporte's TWiT network, though in that case Leo's pay comes almost solely from viewer/listener contributions rather than advertising (more a self-move to make him accountable to those who watch), which mainly goes to technical operations and other employees.
Anybody with a Paetron link on their homepage. While they don't actually say it, the trope is still in full effect.
- Sometimes they do say it, after the fact - each of the Viewers Like You who contributed being named in the credits of the next episode. This, of course, encourages some people to donate so that their own names are shown to the world the next time around.
All The Tropes. This site's webhost, Miraheze, is perennially cash-poor and begging for donations.
The Other Wiki. Wikipedia is infamous for endless fundraising banners (including asking IP addresses that they've blocked from editing to send them money), even though they've already brought in millions of dollars in donations and have more than they could possibly need.

Western Animation

In Justice League, The Culture Channel is used as a Brick Joke in the 2-parter "Injustice For All". The Ultra-Humanite is seen earlier in the episode enjoying an opera on the Culture Channel in prison, to Lex Luthor's displeasure. Later, when he's been paid off to betray Luthor, he donates it to the Culture Channel, leading to this hilarious parody of the line:

Announcer: The following programming was made possible by generous grants from the Ultra-Humanite and Viewers Like You.

Real Life

National Public Radio
TBN (Trinity Broadcast Network)
Link TV (Only on Direc TV, Dish and the web)
EWTN (a Roman Catholic network, with their very odd "Religious Catalouge" program)
Most Christian television and radio, and religious media in general for that matter, with one big exception.
Canadian provincial television (TVOntario and BC's Knowledge Network) sometimes follows the PBS model of soliciting donations. TVO has been known to copy the PBS wording almost verbatim: "This program was brought to you by..." (list of underwriters and sponsors) "... and Viewers Like You. Thank You."
- Conversely, Télé-Québec (and Alberta's Access channel before it was sold as CTV2 and removed from terrestrial transmitters) ran ads in the same manner as commercial stations.
PBS, the Trope Namer. In 1999, a mandate was issued which requires Thanking the Viewer.

This page was made possible by Tropers Like You. Thank You.