Bracing for cuts, New Mexico public media stations are among the most vulnerable in the U.S.

Yahoo

14 hours ago

Public radio affiliates in rural New Mexico, some owned and operated by Native Americans, are scrambling to stay on the air after the Republican-controlled Congress and President Donald Trump made good on a push to defund public media.
As Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham considers adding public media funding to a possible special session of the Legislature, the 20 New Mexico radio and TV stations that shared in $5.8 million in federal grants and allocations last year are weighing their options.
Some stations dependent on that funding are trying to close the gap by scaling back programming and presence; but for others, the challenge appears to be insurmountable, with closings possible unless something major changes soon.
KSHI 90.9 FM on the Zuni Pueblo ranks the third most vulnerable station in the U.S. because it has been as much as 95% reliant on federal funding, according to an analysis published by a former product manager for NPR.
New Mexico, a rural state that has long struggled with high rates of poverty, has the third-highest reliance on federal funding in the country, after West Virginia and Alaska.
Rural stations, which tend to see lower rates of donations than their urban counterparts, are the most at risk of closure.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes federal funding to both NPR and PBS and more than 1,000 public radio and television stations nationally, recently announced it will shut down next year after Congress voted last month to claw back more than $500 million of the organization's annual funding in a party-line vote.
'The closure of Corporation for Public Broadcasting, resulting from harebrained federal budget cuts by Republicans in Washington, will cut off vital access to emergency weather warnings, public safety alerts, and educational programming that many rural communities rely on as their primary source of trusted information,' Lujan Grisham said in a statement on social media.
In an email Thursday, Michael Coleman, a spokesperson for Lujan Grisham, said the governor is 'deeply concerned' and 'considering adding a proposal for state funding during a special session to help public media continue their operations despite Washington's ill-advised budget cuts.'
No date has been set yet for a much-discussed special session to address the federal funding cuts, although Coleman wrote in an email September is the most likely month for one to be held.
U.S. Sens. Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján — both New Mexico Democrats — convened a meeting Thursday in Albuquerque to allow local public media leaders to sound off on the emerging crisis for public media.
Panelists at the forum, which included a number of public media general managers for broadcast and radio stations in the state, said it will be a daunting task to close funding gaps.
A hard road forward
KSFR 101.1 FM is the only news station based in Santa Fe to receive funding from CPB, with about 30% to 40% of its budget coming from the organization, said Tazbah McCullah, the station's general manager.
KSFR, which has a staff of five, received $131,252 in federal funding in the last fiscal year.
Though McCullah said KSFR will be able to survive without staff cuts, she believes some stations in the state will go dark.
'Our budgets are right now in flux, and we have only a couple of weeks to react to this,' McCullah said, noting stations are still awaiting some answers on the CPB closeout.
'That's where we are, actually — just trying to figure out exactly what cuts we might have to make and what services we might have to reduce.'
Trump, who has consistently taken aim at legacy media, previously issued an executive order instructing CPB and federal agencies 'to cease federal funding for NPR and PBS,' and requiring them to stop indirect sources of public financing for the news organizations.
In a social media post touting Trump's order, the White House said PBS and NPR 'receive millions from taxpayers to spread radical, woke propaganda disguised as 'news.' '
The public broadcasting system dates to the late 1960s when it was created as an educational and public service-oriented alternative to commercial broadcasters.
Public radio and TV stations operate on budgets made up of public funding, philanthropic grants and donations — and some operate in what are otherwise local news deserts.
Emergency alerts
Barbara Maria, the manager of KTDB 89.7 FM in the Navajo community of Pine Hill, said the station was among the first Native American-owned public media stations to hit the airwaves when it did so in 1972. In a previous interview, Maria said cuts would pose trouble for the station.
Pine Hill is remote, part of the Navajo Ramah reservation about 50 miles from Gallup, east of Zuni Pueblo.
KTDB has a staff of about five people, with a strong presence in communities such as Ramah, Fence Lake and Pine Hill, as well as in El Morro Valley.
Its popular programs include National Native News, Native American Calling, and segments focusing on local news and the voices of community members.
'To me, it's like we are going backwards,' Maria said Thursday, speaking at the roundtable at KANW 89.1's Albuquerque office.
'These FM noncommercial radio stations and the television stations are sharing a lot of things. That's going to be all lost. What are we going to do? ... I feel halfway defeated, but I feel like we can get over this, all of us coming together.'
Music royalties also could be a prominent issue for local stations because the CPB took care of that for them.
Local stations also will have to fill more air time without access to some of the programs received through the CPB.
Luján and Heinrich warned of the impacts of shuttering rural radio stations in terms of public safety, since such stations send out a range of alerts for emergencies.
'I think there's just an assumption on the part of some of the folks that are pushing this that the commercial stations reach 90% of the public,' Heinrich said at the roundtable. 'Well, what about the communities they don't reach? Are we just going to have a country where some part of the population doesn't matter?'
'Every tribal station is at risk, every single one, and there are many parts of this state where the only signal that you get that's local is your local tribal station,' said Katie Stone, the executive director of The Children's Hour, an Albuquerque-based weekly radio program.
'Without those emergency alerts to those communities, how will the people all the way out in Western New Mexico know about the next wildfire that's right on their border?' she said.
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