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According to this page [1] PBS only receives about 15% of its funds from federal funding. The rest is from donations. 1: https://foundation.pbs.org/ways-to-giv

• g-b-r 1y ago
  The CEO stated repeatedly that many small stations are likely to be forced to shutdown
• heavyset_go 1y ago
  PBS themselves[1] state that CPB funding is what kept local stations solvent, so without funding, they will likely close. They also state that the bulk of CPB funding pays for national NPR and PBS programs, so those will see cuts, too. [1] https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/house-gives-final-approval-to-trumps-9-billion-cut-to-public-broadcasting-and-foreign-aid https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/house-gives-final-appr...
  • not2b 1y ago
    Rural stations relied heavily on CPB funding; urban stations get most of their funding from donations or corporate underwriting. So big city public TV and radio will survive, but those in less populated areas might go under unless some other source of funding is found.
    • atonse 1y ago
      I agree overall that this is not a good thing for also furthering a knowledge gap between rural and urban areas. But in the age of internet streaming, wouldn't rural areas still have access to stream public radio? Genuinely asking. I tried looking for sources on station audience sizes, alternatives they might have, etc. But it was difficult to find.
      • heavyset_go 1y ago
        Local reporting is basically dead outside of metro areas. Sure, you can stream, but the content will be focused on another locale or won't address local issues.
        • radiofreeeuropa 1y ago
          When I'm not busy worrying about everything else, I worry that there's assuredly an explosion of local corruption, especially outside of cities large enough to still have something resembling actual local news media, that we can't even begin to get a handle on because it's... well, it's invisible now, that's why it's (surely—I mean, we can't possibly think corruption is dropping or even remaining steady, with the death of the small town paper and small-market TV news rooms, right?) happening in the first place. I think it's, quietly and slowly, the thing that's going to doom our country to decline if something else doesn't get us first (which, there are certainly some things giving this one a run for its money). The Internet killed a pillar of democracy, replaced it with nothing that serves the same role, and we didn't even try to keep it from happening, so here we are, we doomed ourselves by embracing the Internet quickly and not trying to mitigate any harm it causes.
          • jhoechtl 1y ago
            For some your comment might sound even comic but it is damn true. It safens me that the dangerous spiral is not seen by many others. After all, the milenia old adage "bread and games" silences to many.
        • cogman10 1y ago
          It's pretty dead even in metro areas. My local NPR broadcasts rarely actually cover anything that's happening in like city or county politics. Heck, even talking about state politics is pretty rare.
          • not2b 1y ago
            In the SF bay area, KQED (NPR affiliate) has a lot of coverage of local SF and Bay Area politics. The Pacifica station, KPFA (public radio but not an NPR affiliate) has more.
    • philistine 1y ago
      Yeah but the shows that the urban stations are running and producing are all bought by the rural stations. So the whole ecosystem needs the rural stations to help fund the productions.
      • not2b 1y ago
        The urban stations raise a lot of money locally (through pledge drives, and by hitting up local companies for underwriting, which is basically advertising). The rural stations don't, too few people. The rural stations get CPB money, and some of that goes back to fund shows that they carry, but mostly it's the cost to operate the stations. The urban stations aren't being propped up by the rural stations, there's too little money, even including the money that they get from CPB.
    • antonymoose 1y ago
      Are there many rural-only districts? Having moved around my PBS districts always seemed to be a metro+rural zone.
      • not2b 1y ago
        There are vast open spaces, out of FM radio range of a really big city. Some of the worst-hit public radio stations are on reservations.
• xnx 1y ago
  > PBS only receives about 15% of its funds from federal funding I'm a big fan of PBS, but I wonder if this common stat is misleading. Don't a huge portion of PBS funds come from member stations, which get a portion of their funds from federal funding?
  • monero-xmr 1y ago
    Yes it is so obviously misleading and incorrect that only the mainstream media could have perpetuated this unquestioned for decades. The federal money goes to member stations which then hands it right over to NPR to pay for programming, I believe it’s $500 per hour. It’s 1 layer of indirection but no one seemed to mention this in all of the reporting
    • bell-cot 1y ago
      > ...hands it right over to NPR to pay for programming, I believe it’s $500 per hour... So - does that mean a member station could just cut back on their NPR-sourced programming, then fill the air time by playing more Frank Sinatra, and broadcasting local HS football games, and such?
      • autoexec 1y ago
        I suspect that many will be forced to close entirely now. Others may not longer be able to afford pay for NPR shows at all (they'd have to pay for both membership and individual shows), while others will have to fill their airtime with things besides news and other NPR programs
    • 93po 1y ago
      I am also really annoyed when people repeat that it's only 15% government funded or whatever. It's a misrepresentation to the point of lying. Which is further reinforced by: if it's only 15%, why are you having to shut down? It's so dumb.
      • atonse 1y ago
• rectang 1y ago
  https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5408014-rural-stations-vulnerable-to-cpb-cuts/ https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5408014-rural-stations-vu... > Rural stations hit hardest > Up to 18 percent of about 1,000 member stations would close
• unethical_ban 1y ago
  It will be the death of public radio and television in small markets. Not all stations are affected equally. This is not a fiscal decision. This is a ideology that demonizes the open exchange of ideas and truth.
  • atonse 1y ago
    No I totally understand. I'm not trying to defend the decision or anything. But I am just trying to set expectations of what people should expect to see. I'm trying to get ahead of the predictable hysteria about the death of public radio/tv.
• elzbardico 1y ago
  Man, sometimes losing 15% is enough to make things unsustainable. It is not like they are an Ivy League university with an endowment bigger than a developing country's GDP.
  • atonse 1y ago
    Totally agree. But there's a much bigger chance to survive with a 15% change, rather than a 30% or 40% change, for example.
• testplzignore 1y ago
  Per https://cpb.org/funding https://cpb.org/funding, $357m goes to public tv and $119m to public radio. That's a nice chunk of change, though low enough that a few friendly billionaires could put some pocket change into a trust today and make up for this funding in perpetuity. And there undoubtedly will be a massive surge in donations from small donors in response to this. As long as the bigger fish are willing to subsidize the smaller rural stations, I don't think there is anything to be afraid of. The removal of this Sword of Damocles is in my opinion a great thing for PBS and NPR.
  • autoexec 1y ago
    A few friendly billionaires could have funded them entirely for the last 60 years. I see no reason to think that they suddenly will now. Many stations will be closed, and people will lose out on valued programing.
    • tacon 1y ago
      Joan Kroc gave NPR its biggest gift ever, $200 million. Alas, that was unusual.
• jaredwiener 1y ago
  PBS and NPR do not operate like the commercial networks -- ABC/NBC/CBS/Fox/Etc are big corporations that produce (or commission/license, it gets...weird) shows to be distributed on their affiliates, that, depending on the city you are in, can be owned by the network OR another company that operates it like a franchise. Their affiliate agreement governs how much of the network programming they play -- though there are other agreements for non-network programming -- Jeopardy/Wheel of Fortune, for example, are syndicated and NOT network. PBS on the other hand is more of a consortium of public TV stations around the country. Shows that you might think of as "PBS Shows" are actually produced by these individual stations and then distributed to other stations that want them. Even PBS Newshour and Washington Week are produced by WETA in DC. Radio gets even more complicated. Many of the shows I've seen referenced on this thread aren't even necessarily NPR. Marketplace, for example, is American Public Media, which is sort of an outcropping from Minnesota Public Radio. So funding going to ACTUAL PBS is a tiny part of this. What happens to the money going to various stations? What happens to the grants to produce and run these stations, especially in rural areas?
  • atonse 1y ago
    As others have said, the big guys (WGBH in Boston, WETA in DC, etc) will have minimal impact since they have a large pool of donors. But the little guys will suffer more. Ultimately, I think we can all agree that we hope the impact won't be catastrophic as far as the number of listeners impacted.
    • starkparker 1y ago
      Yep. Public media operations in rural and small-city markets are often as small as one full-time employee and cover large spans of territory. A cut to each of those stations might be as small as $150k but could represent much of their ability to do much more than minimal playback of out-of-market packages (which also degrade since many are published in part or full through CPB grants).
    • kulahan 1y ago
      My guess is that things will largely continue as they have been, but we'll get a lot fewer of those cute little stories about a random one-off issue in a town of 300 people or whatever. Probably not the biggest loss if I'm right, but still a major bummer, and yet another connection between the rural and the urban is severed.
• mulmen 1y ago
  I think your usage of the word “only” is a mistake. This is an important piece of information but if you are going to imply value like that then you should also explain the consequences of that cut.
• hedora 1y ago
  Honestly, given the news that the Trump administration now has editorial control over all of CBS, it’s probably good that they’re no longer holding NPR’s purse strings anymore. Maybe the revolution will be televised after all.