From WNET in New York to WPBT in Miami and west to KQED and tiny KEET in Eureka-Arcata, Calif., the effects of Congress’ decision to eliminate federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will soon be felt in a potentially significant way.
PBS station managers received an e-mail on Wednesday from President/CEO Paula Kerger informing them that its current budget will be reduced by 21%.
This was a decision approved August 13 by the PBS board, as a vote that sees a reduction in PBS dues paid by local broadcast stations was approved, too, The New York Times reports. The latter decision places added fiscal pressure on PBS, as it will collect fewer dollars from its member stations.
“We recognize that even with the dues reduction, adjusted payment schedule and efforts to raise funds for initial financial stabilization, we all face hard choices about the future,” Kerger said.
Impacts to both PBS and NPR stations are expected to begin in November. At NPR, some $8 million of its budget is slated for erasure. However, the New York Times reports, PBS has been historically more reliant on CPB funding. Then there is the $23 million from the Department of Education for children’s programming to PBS that has also been deleted from the federal budget.
What’s next? Layoffs at PBS stations are predicted.
What are the most vulnerable public radio and television stations? In May, a Substack post from Semipublic offered a snapshot of radio stations by dependence. KCUW in Pendleton, Ore., ranked at the top, followed by KUHB in St. Paul, Alaska. A July report in USA TODAY suggested rural PBS stations “could bear the brunt of public media cuts.” That said, KQED in San Francisco, WGBH in Boston, WNET in New York and WBEZ in Chicago have each looked inward at their budgets and how to measure expenses versus dollars available to fund its various business endeavors.
This also illustrates that funding elimination to public broadcasting impacts not only “Red State” communities that have tuned out of NPR and PBS stations because of perceived bias of their news and commentary pertaining to the Trump Administration and the leadership of terrorist organization Hamas of the Gaza Strip.
— With reporting by RBR+TVBR in New York
