WASHINGTON—The House Appropriations Committee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies this week proposed zero funding for local public broadcasting stations’ educational content and services in its fiscal year 2027 appropriations bills.

Congress nixed funding for PBS’s “Ready to Learn” children’s educational program—which provides competitive grants for local community educational initiatives—when it eliminated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in 2025. CPB voted to dissolve the organization earlier this year.

This week’s refusal to restore funding elicited a strong response from America’s Public Television Stations, which just last week held its virtual “Protect My Public Media” campaign.

“In addition to being deeply disappointed, as we noted last week, that the House Appropriations Committee did not restore funding for local public broadcasting stations in its FY 2027 Labor-HHS-Education bill, we now know that the bill also neglects to fund the Ready To Learn program, a critically important education competitive grant program that supports the creation and distribution of educational media content and services to millions of children across America,” said Kate Riley, president and CEO of APTS.

“It is deeply disheartening that the House Appropriations Committee proposes to eliminate a proven educational program that provides trusted, free access to content and local services for our nation’s youngest learners—content that is especially important for the over 50% of three- to four-year-olds that do not attend a formal preschool.

“For over three decades, this highly successful program has been proven to prepare children for success in school and life by using the power of public television’s on-air, online, mobile and on-the-ground educational content and services to build the science, math and literacy skills of children ages two to eight, especially those from low-income families.

“The program combines the ability of public television to reach nearly 97% of Americans with a free over-the-air signal, with on-the-ground local station engagement that helps families and teachers make the most of these media resources locally,” she concluded.

Riley pointed to a recently released report from the Education Development Center documenting the significant positive impact Ready to Learn content and the wraparound local-station community outreach services have on the educational outcomes for our nation’s youngest learners.

“Ready to Learn provides parents and caregivers with scientifically based, state standards-aligned media tools to improve their children’s literacy and STEM skills,” she said. “It also builds community engagement through partnerships facilitated by local public television stations to effectively target services where they are most needed.

“Notwithstanding today’s committee action, we remain hopeful that the strong bipartisan support for local public media’s educational services, both in Congress and among the American people, will ultimately result in full funding for Ready to Learn as the appropriations process moves forward.”

CHICAGO—Chicago TV stations WLS, Univision/UniMás, WCIU and WTTW are partnering with Chicago Public Schools to offer supplemental educational programming to students at home in an effort to increase accessibility to education resources during the coronavirus pandemic.

The partnership will see digital content from CPS’ Curriculum Equity Initiative content library—covering subjects like math, science, language arts, social studies, world languages and social and emotional learning—air on the WLS, Univision/UniMás and WCIU’s digital subchannels. WTTW, Chicago’s local PBS affiliate, is reorganizing its digital subchannel to focus on educational content geared toward middle school students.

“While nothing can replace time spent in the classroom with dedicated educators, televised enrichment activities can help students supplement their remote learning plans by providing refreshers on key academic skills,” said CPS Chief Education Officer LaTanya D. McDade.

All four stations are available through free, open air antenna and cable. They reach more than 3.2 million homes in the Chicagoland area.

PLUS: Local Public TV Stations in All States Offering Remote Learning

Program schedules will be posted at CPS.edu/cpstv. All of the stations are expected to begin airing educational programming within the next week. 

SAN FRANCISCO—With the coronavirus (COVID-19) shutting down schools, San Francisco and Southern California PBS stations KQED and KCET (PBS So Cal) have collaborated on broadcast and digital content that will serve as at-home educational resources for children, as well as support for teachers and parents.

KQED will begin broadcasting a California state standards-aligned educational TV schedule, created by PBS So Cal and the Los Angeles Unified School District. The schedule was developed to “bridge the digital divide and provide equitable access to learning” for all students, regardless of internet or computer access, per KQED. The educational programming will run each weekday starting March 16 on KQED Plus.

KQED has also developed collections of free digital learning resources that can be used with the scheduled TV broadcasts or on their own. The resources—which include PBS LearningMedia collections, teacher training webinars and remote learning tools tips—are hosted on PBS LearningMedia.

In addition to KQED Plus TV programming, KQED point parents to PBS KIDS for Parents to access free resources and information created by educators and child development professionals. 

WASHINGTON—The FCC today on a 3-2 vote approved several changes to its long-standing children’s TV rules during its July open monthly meeting.

Overall, the changes recognize the dramatic transformation in the availability of children’s video content and offer over-the-air broadcasters new flexibility in meeting their obligations to provide educational programming over the air, said FCC Michael O’Rielly, a proponent for modernization of Kidvid rules.

“This item largely retains the existing regulations in place for the benefit of those who watch Kidvid shows every week,” said O’Rielly.

“This is a modest approach that does nothing to disturb the requirement for broadcasters to air 156 hours per year of Kidvid programs.”

The new rules:

• extend the time frame for core children’s programming by an hour from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. to 10 p.m.;
• require the majority of core programming to be regularly scheduled on a weekly basis and be at least 30 minutes long; however, permit broadcasters to air up to 52 hours per year of educational specials or short-form programs;
• modify safe-harbor processing guidelines used to determine compliance with Kidvid rules;
• permit 52 hours (13 hours quarterly) of a broadcaster’s yearly 156 hours of core programming to be regularly scheduled weekly programming on a multicast OTA channel;
• revise core programming preemption policies; and remove the obligation to display the Educational and Informational Programming symbol throughout core programing for non-commercial stations.

The changes, particularly the flexibility in scheduling children’s programming and opening up a local broadcaster’s multicast channel for Kidvid use, give TV broadcasters “the opportunity to compete with other video providers without drastically altering the foundation of our Kidvid requirements,” said O’Rielly.

However, Commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel disagreed. “Take it from the only mother serving on the Federal Communications Commission. Being a parent is not easy,” she said.

“My kids are my sweetest accomplishment and greatest source of joy, but they are also a reliable source of exhaustion. As every mother knows, every little thing that makes it easy to get through the day with your children healthy and safe is a thing you can get behind and support. That’s why the Children’s Television Act is so important.”

The requirements under the act limit advertising and address the obligation of a station to serve the educational and informational needs of children. To meet this obligation, broadcasters must air three hours a week of Kidvid programming—less than 2% of their broadcast time, she said. “I don’t think that is burdensome. I think it is beneficial,” she said.

Acknowledging the fact that children no longer huddle around the TV on Saturday mornings because of the myriad new options they have for programming, Rosenworcel nonetheless said changes in viewing behavior do not warrant Kidvid rule changes.

“Shame on us for using this as an excuse to cut children’s television and make it harder for parents to find safe content on the screen,” she said.

Noting the digital divide in the country, Rosenworcel said many people cannot access children’s content via broadband internet.

In introducing the item for consideration, a member of the Media Bureau staff noted that Nielsen found in the year 2000 that children ages 2 to 16 watched an average of four hours and 19 minutes of video content—nearly two hours of which was on broadcast TV and two minutes of internet-based content.

By 2017, Nielsen figures reveal viewing time had grown to 4.5 hours per day with 37 minutes on average watched on broadcast TV and two hours and three minutes seen on the internet, the staff member said.

During his comments in support of the changes, Commissioner Brendan Carr pointed to the significant growth in the number of hours of children’s programming broadcasters air, notwithstanding cable, satellite and internet TV options.

“Over-the-air broadcasters alone now provide many more hours of children’s programming than the three hours per week required by FCC rules,” said Carr.

He pointed to Ion and PBS as examples. Both “broadcast children’s programming for free 24 hours a day.”

One objection Commissioner Geoffrey Starks raised related to how the rule changes would affect those with disabilities. Specifically, Starks noted a concern that because FCC rules don’t require closed captions for short-form content and multicast streams, viewers with disabilities could be “significantly harmed.”

“Video description and captioning tools are used by deaf, hard-of-hearing, blind, visually impaired or deaf-blind children, and by parents and family members with disabilities in order to engage in content with their children and further the educational purpose,” said Starks.

In supporting modernization of the rules, FCC Chairman Ajit Pai noted the significant changes that have occurred in the 29 years since the Children’s Television Act was passed.

“Media that did not exist in 1990, most notably the commercial internet and online streaming services, have completely transformed what we know, what we watch, how we watch and when we watch it,” said Pai.

“This explosion in choice of content and distribution has benefited children, who have access to far more educational programming across all of these platforms than was imaginable in 1990.”

The agency also adopted a Further Notice of Proposed Rulemaking seeking comment on a way for broadcasters to set aside part of their children’s programming obligations by sponsoring core programming aired on another channel in their market.

The vote was along party lines with Pai, Carr and O’Reilly voting in the affirmative and commissioners Rosenworcel and Starks voting no.

More information is available on the FCC website.

WASHINGTON—Following the request for comments on the FCC’s proposed rule changes to children’s programming, a group of nine Democratic U.S. Senators—Tammy Baldwin (WI), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Sherrod Brown (OH), Tammy Duckworth (IL), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Amy Klobuchar (MN), Ed Markey (MA), Elizabeth Warren (MA) and Ron Wyden (OR)—has filed a letter with FCC Chairman Ajit Pai in opposition to the new rules.

According to FCC Commissioner Michael O’Rielly, the proposed changes to the Children’s Television Act of 1990 are “modest” and are designed to provide schedule flexibility, more diverse and innovative programming, and relieve pressure on broadcasters. However, the senators argue that these new rules would “significantly decrease children’s access to this [educational programming] critical resource.”

Chief among the senators’ concerns are that “the Commission’s current proposed changes would limit the reach of educational content available to children and have a particular damaging effect on youth in low-income and minority communities,” the letter reads. They claim that the new rules would decrease access to valuable educational content through over-the-air services, which 16% of African-American households rely on, 20% of Hispanic households and 30% of Americans making less than $25,000 per year. “We encourage you to continue requiring broadcasters to provide at least three hours per week of regularly scheduled, educational content on primary stations.”

The letter also says that the new rules would allow a third of required educational content to be aired on secondary “multicast” stations. This would limit the number of households that the content could reach, as the senators argue that total viewership of these secondary channels is much lower than broadcasters’ primary stations and aren’t available in “millions” of households.

As for scheduling, only requiring that two-thirds of educational children’s content be regularly scheduled would cause barriers for parents, as they would not know when the programming would be on. As a result, the senators recommend maintaining the current rule that all KidVid programming remain on a regularly scheduled basis.

Other changes that the letter acknowledges could negatively impact children include the extended time frame for when children’s programming can be aired and allowing the required three hours of broadcast per week to be achieved across all of a broadcaster’s stations airing educational programming rather than for each station.

“In exchange for free access to the airwaves, broadcasters, among other public interest obligations, are required to air a mere three hours per week—less than 2% of their total broadcast time—of educational children’s content. This should remain the rule,” the letter concludes.

The vote on the FCC’s KidVid rules is scheduled to take place during the July open meeting on July 10. The NAB previously came out in support of the FCC’s proposed changes.