Bob Ross Helps John Oliver Raise Funds for Public Broadcasting

It’s been a challenging time for public broadcasting lately. Over the summer, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced plans to close its doors after more than half a century of operations, and the effects of federal funding cuts have raised existential threats to local stations around the country. And while HBO is unlikely to be mistaken for a public broadcaster any time soon, one of its most prominent figures recently took a big step towards benefitting local stations in need.

As Variety‘s Michael Schneider reports, John Oliver assembled dozens of items to be auctioned online, with proceeds benefitting the Public Media Bridge Fund. (The fund’s website describes it as “a strategic philanthropic initiative designed to guide the public media system through a crisis moment to a more sustainable and impactful future.”) Potential buyers had a wide range of items to choose from, including Last Week Tonight With John Oliver props and a painting by Bob Ross.

Ross’s 1986 painting Cabin at Sunset was the big-ticket item in the auction, selling for over a million dollars. All told, Variety reports that this particular auction brought in $1.54 million for the Public Media Bridge Fund. Cabin at Sunset is not the only work of Ross’s to benefit public broadcasting this year; a group of Ross’s works were also sold at auction via Bonham’s earlier this fall. There’s a very good reason for this: the Ross-hosted show The Joy of Painting aired on public television for decades.

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Oliver’s auction is not the only effort underway to address federal funding cuts affecting news, arts and culture. In October, a coalition of arts organizations announced the Literary Arts Fund, an effort to benefit groups in the wake of cancelled NEA grants. It’s an unsettling time for many in these fields, but hopefully efforts like these can act as something of a counterweight.

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Tobias Carroll

Tobias Carroll lives and writes in New York City, and has been covering a wide variety of subjects — including (but not limited to) books, soccer and drinks — for many years. His writing has been published by the likes of the Los Angeles Times, Pitchfork, Literary Hub, Vulture, Punch, the New York Times and Men’s Journal. At InsideHook, he has…