Over a year ago, in my market, Mr Rodgers went from daily to once a week (at like 4am on sunday) I don't believe for a second that its took expensive. I do believe that Mr Rodgers has no merchandising tie in and more money can be made with the time slot by filling it with commercial, hyperactive crap. w/o Mr Rodgers PBS would have been shut down decades ago. There should be a federal mandate that PBS must show Mr. Rodgers at least once a day in order to receive any governmental subsidy.

I think there must be another reason, because I sincerely doubt that Mr. Rodgers heirs would be trying to rip PBS off by jacking up the price - now if the PBS station that filmed it has control of the price or gets most of it, rather than Family Communications, then ok, maybe...

personally I think someone wants to rid our world of Mr Rodgers re-runs and thats a very bad thing....

Anyone who thinks this is a good idea should view this video. Mr Rogers addresses a hostile congress and by the time he is finished, they wonder if they should give more. What he said then, applies even more today than ever.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2883185966575573317