{"id":133714,"date":"2025-09-05T02:42:05","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/133714\/"},"modified":"2025-09-05T02:42:05","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T02:42:05","slug":"pbs-undergoes-round-of-job-cuts-following-loss-of-federal-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/133714\/","title":{"rendered":"PBS Undergoes Round Of Job Cuts Following Loss Of Federal Funding"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPBS<\/a> notified 34 staffers of layoffs<\/a> on Thursday, the latest fallout from a Donald Trump<\/a>-led effort to cut federal funding to public media<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe job cuts are among nearly 100 positions that have been eliminated as PBS has faced the budget shortfall. Last month, PBS CEO Paula Kerger informed station general managers of plans to cut its budget by 21%<\/a>, with the overall pool of station dues reduced by $35 million.<\/p>\n

\n\tA PBS spokesperson said, \u201cDue to the loss of federal funding PBS eliminated close to 100 positions over the last several months, including 34 valued PBS staff members notified today their employment is ending. In this unprecedented moment we remain focused on what matters most: ensuring our member stations can deliver quality content and services to communities across America.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an email to general managers, Kerger noted that the PBS foundation had received a \u201csignificant grant\u201d from a major donor to support PBS News Hour and PBS Kids, but they still determined that they needed to make \u201csignificant changes in our staffing and operations.\u201d The job reductions include those tied to Ready to Learn, which received Department of Education funding that also was eliminated.<\/p>\n

\n\tKerger also said that before making the job reductions, PBS implemented travel restrictions and hiring freezes, and paused pay increases and performance awards, among other steps.<\/p>\n

\n\tCongress voted in July to rescind $1.1 billion in federal funding to public media<\/a>, money that largely goes to individual stations, over the next two years. Public media<\/a> had relied on an advanced appropriations cycle, meaning that Congress had already allocated the money through 2027. Trump had sent a package of budget rescissions to Capitol Hill, with the cuts also including billions of dollars in foreign aid. He threatened to withhold support from lawmakers who voted against the rescissions package.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith the loss of all of its funding, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity set up by Congress in 1967 to distribute grants to public media outlets, announced that it would be shutting down<\/a> by the end of the year.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe New York Times first reported on the job cuts. It reported that the 100 eliminated positions included unfilled jobs, and represented about 15% of the staff.<\/p>\n

\n\tPBS only received a small portion of direct funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but stations also paid dues to the national outlet, which distributes shows like\u00a0PBS News Hour\u00a0and\u00a0Masterpiece.\u00a0Stations in rural areas and smaller cities relied on a larger share of their funding from federal dollars, according to public media advocates. <\/p>\n

\n\tAlthough there had been hope that some funding would be restored, given that no budget has been approved for the next fiscal year, Republicans in the House and the Senate have failed to include public media funding in the resolutions drawn up so far.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PBS notified 34 staffers of layoffs on Thursday, the latest fallout from a Donald Trump-led effort to cut…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[12,5109,88,2539,10815,13027,8828,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-133714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-electionline","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-layoffs","12":"tag-media","13":"tag-pbs","14":"tag-public-media","15":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}