PBS Stations Call Federal Funds 'Irreplaceable And Essential' As Trump Administration Prepares To Slash Public Media Coin

Yahoo

15-04-2025

The Trump administration plans to present Congress with cuts to most funding for public media late this month, according to news reports, setting the stage for a showdown when lawmakers return from a recess on April 28.
This is not a surprise to public media. The threat has been in the air since the November elections. In his first term, Trump proposed eliminating funding but lawmakers restored it, something that's happened time and time again over the years as public broadcasting, which is educational and reaches into the heartland, has enjoyed bipartisan support despite ongoing critiques of NPR in particular of leaning left.
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The Corporation for Public Broadcasting distributes the federal funds with about 70% going to public media stations around the country — TV and radio. The CPB received $535 million in the current fiscal year. It is forward funded, meaning that its latest budget approved by Congress for 2025 continues appropriations through 2027.
It's not immediately clear if, assuming the Trump administration memo is sent, that it will call for cutting off most funds after 2027 or seek to claw back what's already been earmarked.
'Rescinding previously appropriated federal funding for public broadcasting defies the will of the American people and would devastate the public safety, educational and local service missions of public media stations – services that the American public values, trusts and relies on every day,' said Kate Riley, President and CEO of America's Public Television Stations, in a statement today. She said the move would disproportionately hurt Americans in rural communities and states 'without the critical services local public television stations provide from proven education resources to essential local connections.'
The PBS networks includes 160 locally owned and operated stations.
'Federal funding for public media is irreplaceable and essential to local public media stations and the existence of the public media system as a whole.'
'There's nothing more American than PBS, and our work is only possible because of the bipartisan support we have always received from Congress,' said PBS President Paula Kerger. 'We are proud to highlight real issues, individuals, and places that would otherwise be ignored by commercial media. We look forward to demonstrating our value to Congress, as we have over the last 50 years, to maintain our pledge to the American people to keep our organization, and service, strong and vital.'
The one Capitol Hill hearing so far — late last month by a House DOGE subcommittee and called Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable — was ugly. Chair Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), said it will be calling for 'the complete and total defund and dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.'
DOGE is the Trump-created and Elon Musk-led cost and job slashing Department of Government Efficiency.
Earlier this year, Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr announced he was opening an investigation into PBS and NPR over program sponsorships and made clear that he opposed federal funding of the outlets.
In February, as have many federal and private companies, PBS shuttered its Diversity, Equity and Inclusion office following President Trump's executive orders on DEI.
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