WASHINGTON—The Trump administration is considering a rescission package of $9 billion in cuts to previously approved government spending that includes $1.1 billion of funding cuts for public media.

That amounts to about two years of funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides funding to PBS, NPR and public media, according to NPR.

The proposal, which has been widely reported but not formally been announced as of 2 p.m. ET on April 15, would have to be approved by Congress within 45 days after it is formally proposed. If Congress does not act in that time, the previously approved funding will not be cut.

The idea was blasted by Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, who said “rescinding previously appropriated federal funding for public broadcasting defies the will of the American people and would devastate the public safety, educational and local service missions of public media stations — services that the American public values, trusts and relies on every day.”

The New York Times and NPR reported that the Trump administration is considering what is known as a rescission proposal that could claw back money already approved by Congress. The total amount of $9 billion in the proposal includes cuts being made by Elon Musk’s DOGE and cuts in funding agencies like the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) that the White House wants to eliminate.

Once the proposal is formalized, Congress would have 45 days to approve the cuts in the previously approved spending. The cuts to funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcast, which provides funds to public media organizations, would have a devastating impact on public media.

The New York Times reported that the claw-back would not include about $100 million for emergency services and alerts.

“A rescission of funds threatens the very existence of the nation’s local public broadcasting stations and the entire public broadcasting system,” APTV’s Riley said. “This includes the over 160 locally operated and controlled public television stations that serve communities small and large throughout this country. From the most remote corners of Alaska to the hollers of Appalachia, public broadcasting is a lifeline in hundreds of communities where there is no other source of local media.

“Eliminating federal funding for public media would leave many Americans, especially those in rural communities and states, without the critical services local public television stations provide from proven education resources to essential local connections,” she added. “Eliminating federal funding for public media would significantly jeopardize public safety across the country.”

She also stressed that “public media has earned the broad support of the American people, across the political spectrum, including 65% of people who voted for President Trump who think public television is either adequately funded or underfunded, according to a recent YouGov survey. And just last month, the Pew Research Center found that Americans are more likely to support than oppose continuing federal funding for NPR and PBS by a factor of almost 2:1. That bipartisan support in the public has been consistently reflected in Congress, which approved additional funding for public media just a few weeks ago in the FY2025 Full-Year Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act.”

The funding cut was also criticized by Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.), a member of the Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

“The White House’s attempt to gut funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is an outrageous and reckless attack on one of our most trusted civic institutions,” Markey said. “The CPB supports a public media system that keeps communities informed, educates our children, and reflects the full breadth of America. This rescission package threatens that mission — and would harm the millions of Americans, especially in rural and underserved communities, who rely on public television and radio as their only source of news, culture, and educational programming.

“From ‘PBS NewsHour’ to ‘Sesame Street,’ public television has set the gold standard for programming that empowers viewers, particularly young minds," Markey continued. "Cutting off this lifeline is not budget discipline, it’s cultural sabotage. I will fight to ensure that the Trump administration doesn’t pull the plug on this essential public good.”

More reactions will be added as they come in.

WASHINGTON—Broadcasters are asking the FCC to relax its rules to allow them to deploy more transmitters at the edge of their service areas as they build out for ATSC 3.0 (aka “Next Gen TV”).

In a petition filed with the FCC last week, the National Association of Broadcasters and America’s Public Television Stations (APTV) told the commission that it needs to update decade-old rules governing the use of distributed transmission systems (aka “single frequency networks”) that were introduced during the deployment of ATSC 1.0. Such systems allow broadcasters to extend RF coverage by building transmission systems that fill gaps and improve reliability and reception quality. The organizations said that building SFNs for ATSC 1.0 was impractical but are more feasible with ATSC 3.0.

“The limitations of the ATSC 1.0 transmission standard made it largely impractical due to design difficulty and costs,” the organizations said in their petition. “The transmission system employed by ATSC 3.0, however, solves this challenge by permitting a simplified signal frequency network design that can finally make these operations cost-effective.”

When the FCC devised its rules for SFNs in 2008, it chose to limit their use so that broadcasters couldn’t use them to expand their reception beyond their primary coverage area. This effort to prevent “dramatically expanded primary coverage rights” to “foster localism” with the technology advances of SFNs in the ATSC 3.0 era can be balanced, the organizations said.

“We believe the Commission can balance the goals of preserving localism while allowing stations to provide superior service by modifying its rules,” they told the FCC, proposing that a station be allowed to deploy an SFN as long as it avoided interference with co-channel Class A and LPTV operations.

“This change would significantly enhance the utility of single frequency networks without undermining localism,” NAB and APTV said. “Stations could enhance service to viewers by improving coverage throughout their service areas and offering improved mobile coverage without the risk of encroaching on the service of stations in adjacent markets. In addition, the rule change would promote the efficient use of spectrum by, in some cases, obviating the need for separate channels for television translators used to fill in service gaps.”

Tests on the use of SFNs for ATSC 3.0 have been ongoing in various test areas, including Pearl TV in Phoenix and Sinclair in Baltimore-Washington, D.C.

In a TV Technology article on SFNs in 2018, television industry consultant S. Merrill Weiss, who engineered the world’s first ATSC 1.0 SFN in the State College, Penn., discussed the differences between SFNs in ATSC 1.0 and ATSC 3.0 environments.

“ATSC 1.0 is dependent on the design of the adaptive equalizer, which can be quite different in its performance from receiver to receiver,” he said. “ATSC 3.0 is dependent on the modulation that’s used, and all receivers will respond to it identically. And on top of that having multiple carriers (inherent in the 3.0 OFDM [orthogonal frequency division multiplex] signal) makes things a lot easier.”

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see ourATSC3 silo.

WASHINGTON—Public television is seeking an exemption for noncommercial educational licensees from the ATSC 1.0-3.0 simulcast mandate that’s part of the FCC’s November 2017 authorization of over-the-air transmission of Next-Gen TV.

Representatives from America’s Public Television Stations (APTS), the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the Public Broadcasting Service met with the media advisor in the office of FCC Chairman Ajit Pai April 26 to make the appeal.

The group, collectively called "PTV,: told the FCC that the exemption is “warranted and essential” because of the unique mission, structure, governance, finance, history, geographic layout and regulatory treatment of noncommercial educational stations.

“The regulatory certainty of an exemption will ensure that PTV stations can invest confidently in their futures knowing that they will be able to serve their local communities in innovative ways based on their unique needs and circumstances,” the group said in a document filed with the commission regarding the meeting.

[Read: Research: Americans Want Public Broadcasting To Provide Earthquake Early Warnings]

The group told the FCC that “the driving purpose” of PTV stations is to serve the public in their local communities. In 19 states, that means a PTV station serves its entire state regardless of DMA boundaries. Often such stations, like WIIQ in Demopolis, Ala., are “sited far from any potential simulcasting partners,” the document said.

Similarly, 57 university licensees are located at their parent institution, such as WUNC in Chapel Hill, N.C., and are far away from possible simulcast partners. In 89 instances, licensees serve “some of the most rural, remote, and isolated parts of the country,” such as KAWE in Bemidji, Minn., “where commercial counterparts often do not exist,” the document said.

While the PTV group asked for the exemption, it told the agency that licensees “have no interest, and nothing to gain, in leaving their viewers behind.”

PTV stations along with their community advisor will examine many factors “to determine when it is appropriate and in the communities’ best interests to transition to ATSC 3.0,” the document said. They include items, such as surveys of dual-mode receiver penetration in communities, voluntary MVPD ATSC 3.0 adoption and the availability of low-cost converter devices.

Not only would the exemption make it possible for PTV to leverage the many benefits of ATSC 3.0 to better serve the public, but it also will give the 43 percent of public stations that will be repacked –many of which are in rural locations—the confidence “to make supplemental out-of-pocket investments” in equipment with ATSC 3.0 capabilities. Similarly, those that aren’t being repacked but are working with ageing gear can confidently plan for Next-Gen TV as they replace their infrastructure, it said.

The document reminded the agency that PTV stations receive most of their revenue from individual donations and “therefore have every incentive to closely align their transition to the Next Generation standard with their audience’s needs and capabilities.” 

For a comprehensive source of TV Technology’s ATSC 3.0 coverage, see our ATSC3 silo.