Sure, Ken Tomlinson, the reviled and also revered chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, wants to turn public television into Clifford The Big Red State. And CPB and PBS are still pulling congressional budget knives out of their backs. But what ails public television has nothing to do with political meddling. That’s all a sideshow.

There’s another crisis that the government safety net — which is only 15 percent of the system’s budget — cannot begin to alleviate.

Witness the state of “Washington Week,” Gwen Ifill’s Friday night news roundtable, now deeply in the red. Unlike “The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer,” which enjoys corporate underwriting, “Washington Week” currently has none. Some think the show is on life support, although Ifill continues to attract great thinkers and talkers. Still, there remains a loyal crowd, far outside the Beltway, who pledge because of it — and that commitment is sacrosanct. While down in number, pledges have increased in dollar amounts, making stations more beholden to those viewers than ever before.

A few years ago, when the set of “Washington Week” was redesigned with colors to better suit Ifill, the producers were bombarded by complaint letters. A marquee show, in need of new viewers and new money, is stagnating because modernizing without riling the base is nearly impossible.

Sounds like politics, and it is. The public broadcasting and political worlds have a few things in common: a perpetual money chase and a slight disconnect from the people they’re supposed to serve. Parties need voters to be engaged partisans, not moderates. Public TV needs viewers who reject commercial broadcasting enough to make donations. Free and universal access are the bedrocks of public television; those same viewers who pay $600 a year for their cable don’t have to donate money to PBS to watch Charlie Rose for free.

Financial fixes are elusive. Once the shift to digital broadcasting is complete, much hope is hung on the promised windfall of the analog spectrum sale. But the timeline and details are still unknown. Those who know the system well say the current fundraising process is devoid of a strategy, hampered by its structure and narrow thinking. Corporations are looking for a return on their dollar and there simply isn’t enough foundation money to pay the bills.

Moreover, all the shows compete for sponsors, so the popular “Antiques Roadshow” can’t subsidize controversy-rich “Frontline.” Undoubtedly a crown jewel of documentary-style, investigative journalism, “Frontline” by its very nature doesn’t attract any corporate underwriting and probably never will.

Russ Hodge, an independent producer whose company, 3 Roads Communications, has produced several shows for public television, including the military aviator series, “Legends of Air Power,” calls the search for underwriting, “enormously time-consuming.” He said: “I have become more of a salesman than a producer in the last few years. Frankly, I look for programs that appear to be the most marketable in order to make sure that I have the best chance to get funding, rather than picking those nearest and dearest to my heart.”

How long can quality thrive in a system that abhors change?

In balancing the desire to keep existing programming afloat with the demand to broaden its appeal, how does PBS continue to bring in new talent with hard-to-fund ideas? Bill Moyers says public television was founded to be a channel “not only free of commercials but from commercial values.” But public broadcasters can no longer deny that its creeping commercialization is key to its survival. Shows need viewers — otherwise known as ratings — in order for the 349 local stations to continue attracting members.

The system is not only broke but broken. The boundary between the creative and business sides, as paramount as church and state, is gone. It’s not a good idea unless it’s a fundable one.

John Wilson, senior vice president for programming at PBS, said “we have always balanced that need to be popular with the need to serve underserved audiences.” His cites “Antiques Roadshow” and “Swan Lake.” Classical ballet is not on because of ratings but because “PBS is the home for cultural content in America.”

True. PBS is an oasis — free of vulgarity and Viagra — and we need it to be. Watching PBS can still feel like walking into a public library without your wallet and walking out with an armful of books — something so pure it must be wrong. It ranks sixth in ratings of all broadcast and cable networks, consistently wins Emmy awards and boasts a Web site ranked third in the world among dot.org sites.

But public television cannot sustain itself on the outdated hopes that viewers, corporations and Congress all will give more. In the current controversy, perhaps some fear or outrage will actually yield some change. Absent a lifeline like the $200-plus million that Joan B. Kroc bequeathed to National Public Radio, PBS is in desperate need of brave and bold thinking. If it’s already sinking, why not rock the boat? Do it hard enough and a little water just may drain out.

Contributing editor A.B. Stoddard covered Congress for ABC News and The Hill. She can be reached at astoddard@cq.com. Next: Futurist, by Mike Mills.