Okay, you have my attention. Are you saying that you can access past episodes "on demand" of "Country Music" with the "free" App? Or early episodes of "Bluegrass Underground," "Austin City Limits." "Masterpiece Theater," etc.?
If so, what is the advantage of subscribing to "Passport"? (Read why donate for programming access then.) I tried to research this but couldn't access the "free" version since I am already a member.
The free PBS app is quite good, with tons of quality content available. But if you want access to the complete on-demand library, you have to become a Passport subscriber for $5/mo. Before I subscribed several years ago, there were a number of recent episodes of Austin City Limits that I could not watch. That's the only example I can recall. I just don't pay much attention now to what's Passport and what's not.
If you want a more complete answer, just download the app and start watching for free. You'll quickly notice the Passport-only programs have a small compass symbol as mentioned earlier by Midpack. So you can reach your own conclusion.
IMHO, the problem with the app is that it only offers national PBS programs and programs produced by your local member station. It does not include syndicated programs aired by your local station. In our area, these are some of the best programs, like the Saturday line-up of DIY, cooking, and travel shows.
According to several websites, including
this piece at cordcuttersnews.com, multiple PBS member stations will go live on YouTube TV starting Nov 4. We are PS Vue subscribers looking for a replacement. So YouTube TV is looking pretty good for that reason alone. We have no OTA access. We look forward to regaining access to the local syndicated programming plus PBS HewsHour live at 6pm. Yes, I know it live-streams on free YouTube, and we watch it that way sometimes. But we usually miss it because it live-streams at 5pm central time and we're usually still out-and-about at that time.
I might drop our Passport subscription once PBS goes live on YTTV. We can DVR our favorites and save a few bucks. Not sure about that yet.