![\"Live](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/6NR24C75QFCJ3HR3UJ5BMOXG2E.jpg\")
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Live Wire’s Luke Burbank and Elena Passarello interview actor and filmmaker Bruce Campbell during the variety show’s 20th year, at Revolution Hall in Portland, Oregon, on Dec. 24, 2024.<\/p>\n
Jennie Baker \/ Courtesy of Live Wire<\/p>\n
What do an internationally-acclaimed novelist, a comedian who starred in her own Netflix show and an amateur rock band composed entirely of Minnesota state court judges all have in common? <\/p>\n
They\u2019ve all been guests of \u201cLive Wire,\u201d a Portland-based public radio variety show with a mission to cultivate joy, discovery and connection<\/a>. <\/p>\n Now, \u201cLive Wire\u201d is facing the consequences of a partisan divide over federal funding for the arts and public media organizations. After more than two decades on the air, the nationally-syndicated show says it needs to raise $150,000 in the next three months to stay afloat. <\/p>\n Hosted by Luke Burbank, \u201cLive Wire\u201d is recorded in front of a live audience and then produced into one-hour episodes airing on 180 public radio stations across the country, including OPB. <\/p>\n The show\u2019s urgent financial plight is the result of a \u201cperfect storm,\u201d according to an emergency fundraising <\/a>campaign it launched this month, because \u201cpublic radio is in crisis. Government arts funding? Slashed. Station support? Drying up. Ticket sales and sponsorships? Down across our entire industry.\u201d<\/p>\n The show didn\u2019t directly receive any of the federal grants Congress zeroed out this year, but its distributor, Public Radio Exchange, lost funding through the now-defunct Corporation for Public Broadcasting, as did the national web of independently-operated public radio stations paying to carry \u201cLive Wire.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cWe have a lot of smaller stations that can\u2019t pay for the show anymore,\u201d said \u201cLive Wire\u201d Executive Director Heather de Michele.<\/p>\n Instead of pulling the show off stations that can\u2019t afford to pay, \u201cthere are a lot of people receiving \u2018Live Wire\u2019 for free right now,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Smaller public radio and tribal stations have said federal funding cuts pose an existential threat to their newsgathering and emergency alert<\/a> systems, often in regions without alternative media outlets. \u201cAnd we\u2019re saying, keep your reporter. We want to stay on the air, and hopefully, we\u2019ll see our way through this,\u201d de Michele said. <\/p>\n Over the summer, Congress voted to rescind $1.1 billion in federal funding for CPB. Republican lawmakers had accused public media news organizations that received grants from CPB, such as NPR and PBS, of biased news reporting. <\/p>\n The vote to defund CPB fell along party lines in the Republican-controlled House, with just two GOP members against it. <\/p>\n In the aftermath, OPB successfully <\/a>filled a 9% hole in its budget through a fundraising campaign that emphasized the organization\u2019s commitment to news coverage of Oregon and Southwest Washington. <\/p>\n While \u201cLive Wire\u201d got its start broadcasting on OPB, it\u2019s now an independent nonprofit organization with a national audience. OPB pays to broadcast the program, but does not otherwise financially support it, de Michele said.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have to raise all of our own money through our own memberships,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n The show\u2019s diverse guest lineup runs the cultural gamut, from classical music<\/a> to fart jokes<\/a>. The one thing its small staff doesn\u2019t produce, de Michele said, is political coverage or news \u2014 \u201cAbsolutely not.\u201d <\/p>\n In a press release, de Michele said the stakes of the fundraising campaign are bigger than the show\u2019s survival. <\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re fighting to preserve a legacy of joy, connection, and discovery at a moment when independent cultural programming is most under threat,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n