The Organization Behind PBS and NPR Calls Trump’s Proposed Cuts ‘Devastating’

Specifically, the budget “proposes to eliminate funding for other independent agencies”, including the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which sends some amount of funding to PBS and National Public Radio. The White House budget would eliminate the money allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB. Many of those stations provide service to smaller communities who depend on free over-the-air television.

President Donald Trump’s proposal to end all federal funding for public broadcasting would have a devastating effect on Northeast Ohio PBS and NPR stations, and it could ultimately lead to the collapse of the entire public broadcasting model. We have run an incredibly efficient and lean operation since then. And Cascade Public Media, the parent company of both Crosscut and KCTS9, would lose 10 percent of its annual funding.

Losing a significant percentage of their annual budget would obviously be hard for the local public media station, especially with their current plans to expand their programming thanks to a recent deal with the FCC. CPB received $445 million in the current fiscal year.

Mulvaney said the president wanted to send a “simple message”. “We’ve been under threat before”.

When the Public Broadcasting Act became law, maintaining a network of regional stations was the only way to insure that every American household had access to public television and radio content. It’s unclear whether the station could make up that kind of income from its fundraising drives and sponsorships. “We intend to learn those things on our own”, he said. “At this point we certainly don’t know and the message we are putting out is that membership support is more important than ever”. “It’s the smaller radio stations around the country that I’m concerned about because they simply don’t have the population to support them”. But for others, especially those in rural communities such as in Tennessee and Alaska, CPB funding can comprise 50% of their annual budgets.

If the administration gets its way, it won’t be PBS or NPR that are in danger.

During a presidential debate in 2012, former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney famously said that he would eliminate PBS’ funding if he was elected president.

PBS’s statement also referenced a report by Rasmussen that claims 21 percent of Americans - and 32 percent of Republicans - support the elimination of the broadcaster’s funding. Numerous larger entities - such as Boston’s WGBH, NPR, and American Public Media - “would be forced to cut already lean production budgets”, cutting back or raising prices for local stations that want to air the material. The donated money pays for programming and operations.

PBS’s response came as Trump has proposed ending all federal funding for public broadcasting, signaling the gravest threat to the existence of PBS and NPR in a long history of political antagonism toward the organizations.

The impact of losing the funding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be twofold, according to Kathleen Pavelko, president and CEO of WITF. Mulvaney’s hypothetical coal miner most likely lives in Wyoming, Trump’s best state, where public radio will face a $320,000 budget hole if Trump gets his way, and Wyoming public television would need $700,000 to fill a 30 percent budget gap.

“‘Sesame Street’ was created to provide early access to education for all children”.

But the loss of public television affiliates will affect poor families who may not be able to afford cable subscriptions.