(PBS Digital Studios intro)

John: Hi, I'm John Green, and this is a video of a cat wearing a shark costume riding a Roomba, which has 12 million views on YouTube, and deservedly so.  It is probably the second best video in the entire world of a cat wearing a shark costume riding a Roomba, beaten out only by this video of a cat wearing a shark costume riding a Roomba chasing a duck.  
Here at CrashCourse, our videos are watched more than 700,000 times a day, and they're used in thousands of schools around the world, but our most popular single video has 6.8 million views, and that's great, but it's no cat wearing a shark costume riding a Roomba.  

An internet funded by advertising is really good at funding the creation of cat/shark costume Roomba videos, and that's important, because I don't want to live in a world without such videos.  The ad-funded internet excels at making stuff that we will look at or click on, because advertisers care most about how many eyeballs are gonna see their advertisement, but that internet doesn't necessarily do a good job of supporting stuff people will love, or that will have a lasting impact on them.

Back in 2012, we were able to start CrashCourse thanks to a grant from Google, but the channel has been able to continue and grow because of your contributions on Patreon and because of support from PBS, the Public Broadcasting Service here in the United States.  PBS Digital Studios funds a lot of my favorite educational channels, from It's Okay to be Smart to Physics Girl, as well as two CrashCourses per year, and PBS's learning media platform connects those videos directly to teachers and students, which broadens our reach and also gives schools free resources so they don't have to pay to license content. 

Without PBS, there would only be two CrashCourse videos a week around here.  Their funding allowed us to create series in Computer Science, Physics, Astronomy, and US Government, and everyday we hear from learners of all ages how those videos have helped them understand material, and more importantly, get excited about learning, because education is not merely a series of tortures that one must endure to receive a degree, it's the process of becoming more aware of and engaged with the universe and your place in it, and we really hope that CrashCourse can play a small role in that process.

So you've probably heard in the news recently that there have been proposals to drastically cut or even eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides critical support to local public television and radio stations.  Public Broadcasting's federal funding amounts to about $1.35 per American per year.  Now, obviously, I'm biased, but I think they create a lot of value with that money, and not just through CrashCourse and the Art Assignment.

So listen, most American high school students know what CrashCourse is, but I think it's safe to say that many US Senators and Congresspeople don't.  And if you care about CrashCourse or other PBS Digital shows, I wanna ask you to take a few minutes and contact your member of Congress and let them know.  

Now, when asked to do this, I used to be like, yeah, whatever, I don't like calling strangers for pizza, let alone to voice a political opinion.  But now that I've made a few calls on issues that are important to me, I've realized that one, it's easy, and two, it really helps your elected leaders to understand what's important to you.  They wanna hear from their constituents, and they benefit from it, so I've put some resources in the video info below.  Thanks to everyone who contacts their representatives and senators to let them know that there is value in PBS and in the local stations and content they support.

Also, you can let your friends know that you support PBS by talking about your favorite PBS content and using the #ILovePBS, and you can learn much more about the value PBS provides over at PBS.org/value.  

I'm sorry to interrupt your regularly scheduled CrashCourse, but the future of PBS is very important to the future of CrashCourse, so thank you for watching, thanks again for contacting your representatives and senators, and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome.