NPR's finances are pretty open: http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances . They

NPR's finances are pretty open: http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances http://www.npr.org/about-npr/178660742/public-radio-finances . They get about 5% of their income directly from federal, state, and local governments, and 13% from colleges and universities (which an accountant could probably tease apart to government spending and private spending. I'm not going to try). So yeah, they get a bit of government money, but it's not much of their budget, much less the US budget.