{"id":18427,"date":"2025-07-18T07:59:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T07:59:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/18427\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T07:59:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T07:59:10","slug":"pbs-npr-funding-cut-explained-and-what-happens-next","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/18427\/","title":{"rendered":"PBS & NPR Funding Cut Explained, And What Happens Next"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tNow that Congress has zeroed out federal funding<\/a> for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting<\/a>, PBS<\/a>, NPR<\/a> and stations across the country will be scrambling to come up with plans for what to do next.<\/p>\n

\n\tPaula Kerger, the president and CEO of PBS, has warned that even though the network gets a small share of its funding from federal sources, it still will have to look at scaling back. \u201cWe will obviously have to make some hard decisions about what we\u2019re able to continue to do, and how much resources we\u2019ll have,\u201d Kerger told Deadline<\/a> this week.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut she and other advocates of public media<\/a> say that the most severe impacts will be felt on local stations, particularly those in medium and smaller markets that depend more heavily on federal dollars.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s been one of the ironies of the whole battle over funding, as President Donald Trump<\/a> and his allies have targeted what they see as bias at PBS and NPR, even as advocates have emphasized public media<\/a>\u2018s unique local programming.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tLyndon Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLBJ Library<\/p>\n

\n\tThe threat to public media is nothing new. Bill Moyers, who died last month<\/a>, was an instrumental figure in establishing the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967, but knew that it was \u201calways going to be a political football,\u201d according to Frontline director and writer Michael Kirk<\/a>, who worked with him earlier in his career.<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite being the home of shows for figures like William F. Buckley and Newt Gingrich, the issue of federal funding did become a \u201cpolitical football,\u201d at times at risk of severe cuts but always coming through in the end. In fact, some detractors of federal funding came to grouse<\/a> at the ability of advocates to draw parents, along with a few Muppets, to make their case.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis time was different, as Donald Trump made it a priority to target PBS, NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, albeit they are among many media outlets and entities he has tried to undermine. By sending a set of funding rescissions<\/a> to Congress, Republicans only needed a simply majority, meaning that they did not need Democrats to overcome the Senate\u2019s filibuster rules. Trump also threatened to withhold support and endorsements <\/a>from lawmakers who voted against the rescissions package, writing in a Truth Social post last week that NPR and PBS were \u201cworse than CNN & MSDNC put together.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger at the House DOGE subcommittee hearing on public media in March.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto by Andrew Harnik\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tThis showdown had been brewing for months, kicking off in January when FCC<\/a> chairman Brendan Carr<\/a> launched an investigation of PBS and NPR<\/a> over their underwriting sponsorship announcements while warning that \u201cCongress is actively considering whether to stop requiring taxpayers to subsidize NPR and PBS programming.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn March, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) held a DOGE committee hearing where Republicans spent much of the time pressing Kerger and NPR CEO Katherine Maher on alleged bias, bringing up a WNET show Let\u2019s Learn from 2021 that featured a drag queen, even though that show was not distributed or funded by PBS. Also brought up during the hearing were some of Maher\u2019s past tweets criticizing Trump as a \u201cracist,\u201d although those predated her time at NPR. She told the committee that she regretted them.<\/p>\n

\n\tGreene accused NPR and PBS of becoming \u201cradical left wing echo chambers\u201d and called for \u201cthe complete and total defunding and dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe believe that you all can hate us on your own dime,\u201d Greene told the two CEOs.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhen the House initially voted in favor of the rescissions package last month, in a 214-212 vote, what was clear was that past supporters of public media would not come to its defense. America\u2019s Public Television Stations, an advocacy group, honored Rep. Mike Simpson (R-ID) with its Champion of Public Broadcasting Award in February; he voted for the cuts. The same was also true of Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV), who even promoted her honor last year<\/a>, yet voted to slash funding this week.<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the other side of the aisle, the suspicion is that the move to defund is a way to please Trump by hurting media outlets he disfavors. Anna Gomez, the sole Democrat on the FCC, said that the effort to defund public media \u201chas never been about saving money. It\u2019s about silencing those who report the news accurately, without fear or favor.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHere\u2019s a look at next steps.<\/p>\n

\t\tThe budget process\t<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the funding is rescinded, Congress is headed into another period of coming to an agreement on funding the federal government past September 30, the end of the fiscal year.<\/p>\n

\n\tAppropriations committees are coming up with budgets for various agencies, and while the GOP-controlled Congress is proposing cuts across a broad swath of non-defense agencies, it\u2019s not completely in lock step with the White House in some areas.<\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s why there has been some focus on comments made by Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) last month, after he initially voted against the rescissions package, only to switch to a yes. Later, he told the Nebraska Examiner that he got assurances from leadership that \u201cPBS would receive funding for next year, and it would go to annual funding after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDepending on how the next funding effort proceeds, Republicans may also need Democratic votes to pass a spending package, given the 60-vote filibuster threshold in the Senate. But it would still be unusual for Republicans to strip funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting only to restore it in the fall, with the next fiscal year starting on October 1. As for the idea that there would be some funding in the next budget, \u201cI don\u2019t know what that means, but we obviously will be looking for some help there for our stations,\u201d Kerger said this week.<\/p>\n

\t\tProgramming and staff reductions\t<\/p>\n

\n\tSome public media outlets already have been trimming staff and other projects, due not just to the possibility of federal funding reductions but also troubles in the area of corporate sponsorship and underwriting, as well as income from foundations and grants. This week, KQED in San Francisco announced it was slashing 15% of its workforce, citing the uncertainties and an existing $12 million annual deficit.<\/p>\n

\n\tKate Riley, the president and CEO of America\u2019s Public Television Stations, has said that local stations will be the most impacted by the elimination of federal funding, suggesting that could mean less localized content and fewer educational resources, among other things. She has said that the greatest risk will be for stations that rely on federal funding for 30% or more of their budgets. She estimated that about 30 stations, all in rural areas, fall into that category.<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the national level, Kerger said she is not yet saying \u201cwhat programs might make it or not make it, but obviously we won\u2019t be able to do everything that we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUndoubtedly there will be a push to make up the difference with private donations, but as Kerger and others have pointed out, they are now competing against a host of other nonprofits that are trying to do the same thing with the Trump-era cuts. The public media funding was part of a $9 billion package of rescissions that also included elimination of foreign aid programs.<\/p>\n

\t\tOther revenue\t<\/p>\n

\n\tCould stations start drawing revenue from running ads like commercial broadcasters? Not really. Stations have non-commercial licenses, so those would have to be restructured.<\/p>\n

\n\tMoreover, Carr already has launched an investigation of PBS and NPR over corporate sponsorship spots, which run at the start of programming for brands such as Viking River Cruises, and are bound by a set of guidelines<\/a>. The rules were relaxed a bit in 1984 but still restrict announcements that are an \u201cinducement\u201d to buy a product or containing a \u201ccall to action,\u201d among other things.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"\"<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBrendan Carr <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPhoto by John McDonnell\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

\n\tKerger said that those spots have been developed \u201cin partnership with the FCC.\u201d She said that PBS has delivered \u201cvolumes and volumes of material\u201d requested by the FCC, but she has no indication of when an investigation would be completed. <\/p>\n

\t\tLawsuits\t<\/p>\n

\n\tPBS<\/a> and NPR <\/a>have each sued Trump over his executive order to direct federal agencies and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to halt federal funding to them. Each lawsuit cited their protections under the Public Broadcasting Act and the First Amendment, with NPR\u2019s claim calling it \u201cretaliatory, viewpoint-based discrimination.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEven with the funding rollback, the lawsuits will continue, Kerger said, as some other agencies, like the Department of Education, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities also provided some funding. The Education Department, for instance, terminated a Ready to Learn grant that helped fund PBS Kids content.<\/p>\n

\t\tFederal scrutiny\t<\/p>\n

\n\tLast year, Uri Berliner, the NPR senior business editor, galvanized those on the right with a Free Press essay contending that the network had \u201clost its way\u201d with a leftward worldview. He later resigned <\/a>from the network.<\/p>\n

\n\tThis week, he has a new essay in light of the congressional votes, calling the defunding \u201cindependence day\u201d for NPR and a \u201cvictory for those of any political stripe who believe the government has no business funding the media.\u201d <\/p>\n

\n\tAs great as the funding shortfalls will be, it\u2019s a suggestion that has come up in recent months: Without federal support, the public media outlets will not be a favorite right-wing punching bag. <\/p>\n

\n\tVivian Schiller, the former NPR CEO who resigned in 2011 following a previous controversy over alleged bias, recently told Vanity Fair that she thinks independent journalism and government funding are a \u201ctoxic mix.\u201d Nevertheless, she contended that the move to defund was really \u201can assault on the free press.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, public media stations will continue to be regulated by the FCC, and Carr has insisted that he is within his bounds to scrutinize even news programming to see if it is in the public interest. On Thursday, Carr posted excerpts <\/a>of Berliner\u2019s story on his X page. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now that Congress has zeroed out federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, PBS, NPR and stations…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18428,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[4687,17105,13025,12,5109,88,3092,10815,13026,13027,8828,17106,92],"class_list":{"0":"post-18427","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-analysis","9":"tag-brendan-carr","10":"tag-corporation-for-public-broadcasting","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-electionline","13":"tag-entertainment","14":"tag-fcc","15":"tag-media","16":"tag-npr","17":"tag-pbs","18":"tag-public-media","19":"tag-rescissions","20":"tag-tv"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18427","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=18427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}