I don't know too much about PBS specifically, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are not immune to Elite Capture¹

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_capture

woof, that article. The examples section doesn't contain a single concrete example and after reading the whole thing I can't tell whether they're talking about academics publishing news articles or congress' revolving door. Wikipedia has been struggling lately. Maybe that's what they're talking about.