To George Miles, WQED Multimedia's financial challenge is simple.

"Only one out of 10 people who watch us contribute," said the station's chief executive officer. "If we could get that number to two out of 10, we wouldn't have any problem."

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But that doesn't seem likely to happen. In fact, the trend line has been going the other way.

The number of contributing members to WQED-TV has dropped from 46,317 in fiscal 2001 to 35,831 in fiscal 2005. And total contributions to the station, including radio listeners and business partners, have fallen from $5.4 million in 2002 to $4.5 million last year, the lowest level since 1998.

The national picture isn't much better.

The number of public TV subscribers in America has fallen from 7.2 million in 2000 to 6.5 million in 2004, the most recent statistics available, according to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

There is no evidence that Pittsburgh is performing any worse than similar-size public TV markets are.

A survey of the 20 U.S. markets nearest in size to Pittsburgh shows that the number of people in this region who are pledging money to public TV and the amount they give is fairly typical for its market size, which ranks 22nd in the nation.

As Mr. Miles said, though, that isn't good enough to satisfy WQED's future budget needs.

Seeking new money

In recent years, the station has more than made up for the decline in memberships through significant increases in business revenues, government grants and donations by local foundations.

But each of those areas has some inherent weaknesses.

Much of the surge in business income, which rose from $2.2 million in fiscal 2000 to nearly $7 million in fiscal 2005, has come from nationwide sales of tapes, DVDs and CDs from the "American Soundtrack" doo wop shows, and since WQED isn't producing more of those programs, that revenue will inevitably decline.

State money leapfrogged from $1.2 million in fiscal 2003 to $2.8 million in fiscal 2004, but most of that was a one-time grant for station renovations.

Foundation grants skyrocketed from $1.6 million in fiscal 2000 to $9.8 million in fiscal 2004, but nearly all of that was driven by donations to pay for the $14 million documentary film on the French and Indian War, "The War That Made America."

Maxwell King, president of the Heinz Endowments, said local foundations were glad to support the documentary because WQED had demonstrated it had the financial stability and skill to pull off such a project.

But Mr. King also noted that "there's a tremendous amount of contention for foundation resources here. The fact that QED just got a big chunk of foundation money for the film probably means that it won't necessarily get that level of support again."

Elsie Hillman, former chairwoman of WQED's board and a major force in the philanthropic community here, agreed.

She said the Pittsburgh region's strong historic connections to the start of the French and Indian War gave local foundations a strong reason to support the documentary, but "I don't think the foundations are going to continue at that level."

A clear sign of that was that, last year, foundation donations dropped by more than half, to $3.6 million.

A drop in foundation giving also affects WQED's basic grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, because those donations are counted in the formula the federal agency uses to calculate the grant.

Like all other television stations, WQED also has to buy new equipment so it can switch to digital broadcasting technology. The total cost of that conversion is about $8.5 million, Mr. Miles said, and the station still needs to raise about $2.5 million to complete the process.

With all the pressures facing stations, it's easy to understand why public broadcasting advocates have hoped for years that Congress would set up a trust fund to provide them with secure, stable funding that would be immune from political pressures and ideological debates.

But Dennis Haarsager, general manager of the public TV stations owned by Washington State University, said he's not sure many members of Congress support the trust fund idea.

"In general," he said drily, "legislators like to have control over the money they appropriate."

Under the annual appropriations process, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting now provides about $266 million, or only about 13 percent of public TV's total budget.

"I think people sometimes think that once they sign their tax returns, we're taken care of," said Deborah Acklin, WQED Multimedia's general manager. "But we don't get most of our money from the government."

Pledge drives will continue

And that means that pledge drives -- the one thing that many people say they hate most about public broadcasting -- will continue for the foreseeable future.

One of the harshest critics of current pledge drives on public television is David LeRoy, a longtime media consultant.

"Pledge drives are like a Swiss Army knife," Mr. LeRoy said. "If stations are a little short of money, they'll just extend the pledge drive another three days."

His key complaint is the way that fund drives on public TV have shifted toward "transactional pledging," in which someone donates money mainly to get the DVD or CD that's being offered as a premium.

That has led to a trend in which public television stations air special programs during pledge drives that they don't broadcast the rest of the year, featuring such celebrities as financial adviser Suze Orman or spirituality guru Wayne Dyer, whose latest programs have appeared on WQED this month.

This often attracts new viewers who want the DVD or CD that's offered as part of the program, but the problem with that, Mr. LeRoy said, is that they usually aren't regular watchers of public television. In fact, he said, the specialized programming often offends public TV's core viewers.

"There's a group of people who are donative because of their genes and their mothers," he said. "But the number of these people is too small for many stations to survive."

WQED's Mr. Miles agrees.

He calls the people who watch special pledge drive programs "the transactional base" and those who watch WQED day in and day out "the relationship base."

"The relationship base is where we have our core folks," he said, "but they have not stepped up, so you have to ask, how else are you going to raise the money? And so we've taken transaction relationships and tried to move them to renew year in and year out."

Sometimes, public TV advocates say, the pledge drive programs can cross the line. The example most often cited was the "wrinkle cure" programs of Dr. Nicholas Perricone, which many thought moved public television too close to the world of infomercials.

One person in that camp is Lawrence Grossman, former president of PBS and NBC News.

Mr. Grossman said he doesn't expect transactional programs to disappear, "especially in this funding environment, but I think there is a growing problem if [public TV stations] don't discipline themselves in how much they do."

He said public radio does a much better job of persuading people to donate based on the programs it regularly offers.

If public television wants to raise more money, Mr. Grossman said, it needs to provide better programming.

"If you put on exciting, important programs, people will flock to you," he said. "It's not easy to put on such programs. I left PBS in 1976 and many of the same programs we had then are still the core of its schedule -- 'Nova' for instance. But there are opportunities to put on very important new programs."

If pledge drives are going to remain a permanent part of the landscape, that may not be all bad.

Jim Pagliarini, president of Twin Cities Public Television in Minneapolis-St. Paul, said about 90,000 households watch public television in his region.

As draining as the frequent pledge drives are, he said, "one of our great assets is that people feel like they own us, and then, if we are ever threatened financially, we have a base of 90,000 people who give an average of $85 a year."

Mr. Miles said he isn't bothered by having to reach out to viewers.

"I think we're very strong," he said. "It's a local-national partnership. If PBS keeps doing the mega-projects and we can do our local projects, that's the strength of our institution."

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Correction/Clarification: (Published Mar. 21, 2006) The PBS program "Frontline" debuted in 1983. A comment by former PBS president Lawrence Grossman in this article as originally published on Mar. 20, 2006 on WQED incorrectly implied it began in the 1970s.