{"id":43425,"date":"2025-08-04T18:30:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/43425\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T18:30:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T18:30:08","slug":"americana-artists-are-worried-about-public-radio-defunding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/43425\/","title":{"rendered":"Americana Artists Are Worried About Public Radio Defunding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tAbout 15 years into a career as a country-noir singer-songwriter, Tami Neilson<\/a> received some good news last week. Her latest album, Neon Cowgirl, had broken into the Top 10 of the Americana<\/a> Music Association\u2019s radio chart, joining records by Mumford & Sons, Tyler Childers, and Alison Krauss & Union Station. But as quickly as the high came, it dissipated, when word came that the congressional funding for precisely the kind of radio stations that champion Neilson\u2019s genre and helped her climb that chart was being taken away.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhen I heard the news [about the chart], it was complete joy and gratitude and appreciation for the community that plays my music,\u201d Neilson says from her New Zealand home. \u201cAnd from there to get the news that they\u2019re being defunded was an absolute gut punch after decades of climbing this mountain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTwo weeks ago, Congress approved President Trump\u2019s plan to pull back funding <\/a>for public broadcasting \u2014 just the latest chapter, as RS reported<\/a>, in Trump\u2019s attacks against media companies who don\u2019t cover his administration to his liking. As many in the music world are beginning to learn, the cuts will soon start impacting public radio stations devoted to, among other genres, American roots music. Simply put, deprived of funds, the songs may come to a permanent end.<\/p>\n

\n\tTo play songs on the air, radio stations must fork over music licensing fees that have traditionally been paid for by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the nonprofit that helps fund public radio and TV. As a result of the Trump-pushed cuts, more than $1.1 billion that had been allocated to the CPB for next year and 2027 \u201cwill be withdrawn,\u201d according to the organization. Those radio stations also rely on donors to fund the licensing fees, but a good chunk of the CPB-supplied cash needed for the fees is now gone. On Aug. 1, the CPB itself announced<\/a> it would \u201cbegin an orderly wind-down of its operations following the passage of a federal rescissions package.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tAt present, the CPB doles out grants to several dozen public radio stations around the country that specialize in Americana music (as well as more than 100 Triple A radio stations that play Americana as well as other genres). One is Nashville\u2019s WMOT, whose playlists include everything from Childers and classic alt-country from Gram Parsons to blues and gospel records. According to Jessie Scott, the station\u2019s program director, WMOT needs roughly $200,000 to cover the fees to play their preferred tunes. \u201cWithout that license, you can\u2019t play music, and we obviously don\u2019t want that to happen,\u201d Scott says. \u201cWe want to be the first rung on someone\u2019s steps up the ladder.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tA drop-off in the number of DJs would also impact the Folk Alliance International (FAI) Folk Chart, which has been tabulating and ranking releases in the genre for more than 25 years. The chart relies on tallies from community and non-commercial stations, all supplied by DJs (and listeners). \u201cCommunity radio stations are an outlet for discovery and a way for local communities to hear artists who aren\u2019t played on commercial stations,\u201d says FAI executive director Jennifer Roe. \u201cSome of these stations won\u2019t be able to sustain their business, and DJs won\u2019t have an outlet for sharing the musical locally to that community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe local stations don\u2019t merely play artists\u2019 records but also host live sessions and alert listeners to when a band or musician will be playing nearby. \u201cFor artists who don\u2019t write hits, the local NPR<\/a> stations help touring artists and introduce us to people who potentially could be with us for a whole career,\u201d says Mary Gauthier<\/a>, a veteran singer-songwriter. \u201cIt\u2019s scary that this reduced funding could cripple those stations. It\u2019s cutting a lifeline. AI Is bad news, too, but not like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tGauthier, who is gay, also wonders if the government defunding is a way of tamping down artists who don\u2019t agree with the current administration. \u201cThe general public wouldn\u2019t think of it, but of course it\u2019s going to silence artists, because we won\u2019t have that platform and the opportunity to reach large numbers of people who listen to public radio stations,\u201d she says. \u201cSpeaking our minds is a big deal, and most of us speak our minds through our songs.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\n\tAs with WMOT, some stations are attempting to compensate for the loss in cash by fund-raising. Another solution is hoping that wealthy patrons fond of public radio will pony up. At the moment, though, there are no clear answers, even at a time when Americana music is reaching more people \u2014 and filling more prestigious halls \u2014 than ever before. In September, the Americana Music Association will host its 25th annual AmericanaFest and awards show in Nashville.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re not political,\u201d says WMOT\u2019s Scott. \u201cWe don\u2019t have news. Don\u2019t paint us with that brush. We just play the music.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"About 15 years into a career as a country-noir singer-songwriter, Tami Neilson received some good news last week.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43426,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[38044,64,63,134,136,1035,1036],"class_list":{"0":"post-43425","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-americana","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-npr","14":"tag-pbs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43426"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}