WASHINGTON—In response to President Trump’s 2027 fiscal year budget proposals that once again offer no funding for public media, Kate Riley, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations said that “failing to restore the federal investment will cause further harm to the communities that depend on their local public media stations.”

In a statement, Riley stressed that there is broad public support for funding local public stations and that 65% of the people who claim to have voted for the President support funding for “locally controlled public television stations that the American people rely on.”

“Since all funding for local public media stations was rescinded last year, Americans in every community across the country, especially rural communities, have experienced a loss of essential services that only local, independent public television stations provide,” she said. “Two stations have already announced their closures and without federal funding, many more local stations have been forced to eliminate or reduce local programs and services, including proven educational services, local history programs, community event coverage, agricultural programming and local public affairs programming, among others. In addition, many stations have been forced to delay much needed infrastructure investments – risking programming and public safety services.”

Riley also stressed the importance of the stations’ role in emergency alerts, public safety, education and local news.

“Failing to restore the federal investment will cause further harm to the communities that depend on their local public media stations every day for public safety, education and community connections,” she said. “These services are particularly critical in more rural areas, many of which have no other sources of local media…These services are essential for the American people and one of America’s best investments, which amounted to about $1.60 per person per year and was less than one 1/100th of a percent of the federal budget.”

The group also said that it will look “to Congress to respect the clear will of the American people, to honor the long history of bipartisan support for our work, and to restore the federal government’s investment in local public television stations’ essential missions of public safety, education and community connections in the upcoming FY 2027 appropriations process.”

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s executive order to end federal funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service was unconstitutional.

The ruling’s impact is unclear. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia noted that since Congress withdrew funding through last year’s Rescissions Act, and because the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has dissolved, no order can provide “meaningful relief” regarding that specific pool of money.

But Judge Randolph Moss repeatedly wrote in the Tuesday ruling that President Trump’s order crossed the line of the First Amendment. Moss was appointed to the D.C. district court in 2014 under President Obama’s administration.

Moss said that the order was issued without regard to nationwide interconnection systems, calling such distribution the “backbones” of public radio and TV.

Colorado Public Radio was a partner in the lawsuit challenging the executive order, along with NPR, Aspen Public Radio and KSUT. CPR said in a release that the ruling prevents the executive order from restricting CPR and other stations from using any federal funds for NPR content. In December, Radio World reported on the stations’ concerns.

NPR, according to its own reporting, said that it was not clear what the decision, which could be appealed by the Trump administration, would mean for the future of federal funding of public broadcasting. But the organization’s comments celebrated the decision.

“Today’s ruling is a decisive affirmation of the rights of a free and independent press — and a win for NPR, our network of stations and our tens of millions of listeners nationwide,” Katherine Maher, NPR’s president and CEO, said in a release.

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement: “This is a ridiculous ruling by an activist judge attempting to undermine the law.”

Representatives from the three Colorado public radio stations, according to a release, said the stations remain prepared to defend the ruling should the Trump administration appeal.

Timeline
The executive order issued by President Trump last May ultimately clawed back $1.1 billion in funding that Congress had set aside for public media outlets. Later last year, it led to a dispute between CPB and NPR over public radio distribution.

CPB dissolved this past February.

The D.C. court acknowledged in its order that while the federal government may impose limits on grants or fund its own speech to promote specific perspectives, “the First Amendment draws a line, which the government may not cross, at efforts to use government power — including the power of the purse — ‘to punish or suppress disfavored expression’ by others.”

Although CPB has been dissolved, the court clarified that this does not render the case moot because the executive order “sweeps beyond the CPB.”

The court is also issuing a permanent injunction to prevent federal agencies from enforcing the executive order.

In a statement, PBS, said it was “thrilled with today’s decision,” calling the president’s order a “textbook unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination and retaliation, in violation of longstanding First Amendment principles.”

WASHINGTON—As the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on the Rescissions Act of 2025 that would cancel $1.1 billion in already approved funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the CPB has released a new national survey finds that U.S. voters place more trust in public media than media overall and hold a more favorable opinion of public media than for-profit media.

The OPB commissioned survey also finds that 53% of U.S. voters oppose eliminating all federal funding for public media, compared with 44% in support.

The CPB poll of 1,000 likely voters conducted online by Peak Insights from June 29 to July 1 found that respondents place a high value on public media’s core services and programming such as emergency alerts (82%), children’s educational programming (66%), local programming (66%) and national news reporting (60%).

The Senate is expected to vote on the cuts, which have already been approved by the House on a narrow party-line vote sometime this week. Several Republican senators have expressed doubts about the bill.

The survey reveals voters trust public media more widely than media in general to report the news “fully, accurately and fairly.” Only 35% of voters trust media in general, but 53% of voters trust public media networks and local stations, the survey found.

“Public media is a trusted, vital part of American life, available free of charge and commercial-free,” Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said. “It delivers early learning resources to families, life-saving emergency alerts to communities, and trusted local and national programming to keep citizens connected and informed.”

In addition, a majority of voters hold a favorable opinion of local public television and radio stations (65% favorable), PBS (61% favorable) and NPR (54% favorable)—while for-profit media is widely unpopular (61% unfavorable).

The CPB also noted that the survey showed strong support for public media benefits, including:

• 68% of respondents said public media serves as a lifeline for rural and underserved communities.
• 66% said public media provides quality educational programming for children.
• 62% said public media should remain available free of charge.

WASHINGTON—The Corporation for Public Broadcasting will receive a $10 million increase in funding for fiscal year 2023 thanks to negotiations between the House and Senate. That will bring CPB’s funding for FY2023 to $475 million.

The funding increase was officially approved as part of a package of appropriations bill including in the omnibus spending bill that was passed by both the House of Representatives and the Senate on Dec. 21.

According to Patrick Butler, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, the increase in funding helps restore what he says is nearly $100 million in lost purchasing power for public broadcasters due to frozen funding over the last decade.

Butler says that the additional funding will help CPB continue to provide and grow its services related to education, including crafting educational programming for at-home learning that bridges the digital divide; expand public safety and information services; and help with the rollout of the ATSC 3.0-based NextGen TV standard at public stations.

“This increase will enable public television stations to educate more children, protect more lives and property, and enable more well-informed citizens to guide the world’s most important democracy,” said Butler.

The legislation also provides level funding of $20 million for FY2021 for station interconnection, Butler says. In addition, $29.5 million, an increase of $500,000, is being provided for the Ready to Learn program focusing on early childhood education.

WASHINGTON—The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is seeing green this holiday season, but its not just the Christmas trees—more like cash in the expected form of a $20 million increase in funding for the 2020 fiscal year.

The House and Senate have negotiated the $20 million increase—the first funding increase the organization has seen in 10 years—with the House formally approving it in the appropriations bill for FY2020. The Senate is scheduled to vote on the funding package later this week.

With the increase, the CPB’s funding will increase from $445 million in recent years to $465 million.

“America’s Public Television Stations are grateful for this increase, which will begin to restore the nearly $100 million in purchasing power public broadcasting has lost in a decade of frozen funding,” said Patrick Butler, president and CEO of APTS.

“While we have appreciated the steady funding through 10 years of budgetary austerity, we have been under increasing pressure to do more with less in recent years. Technology, viewer habits and our public service missions have changed dramatically during this time, and this increase in funding to $465 million will enable local public television stations to educate more children, protect more lives and property, and equip more well-informed citizens with the tools they need to guide the world’s most important democracy,” Butler added.

In addition, APTS says that the legislation will provide $20 million in funding for the public media interconnection systems that support public safety and homeland security missions and deliver national programs to rural and remote audiences. There was also an increase of more than $1.2 million, for a total of $29 million, for the FY 2020 Ready to Learn program, a Department of Education grant program that supports the creation of public TV’s early childhood educational content.

“The broad support for public media funding among both Republicans and Democrats in Congress reflects the overwhelming support the American people have for local public television stations’ service in communities across the country, and we couldn’t be more proud of this vote of enhanced confidence in our work,” said Butler.

Editor's Note: This story was updated to correct the amount of funding that CPB has been operating at for the last few years, $445 million.

WASHINGTON—The FCC’s Incentive Auction Task Force and Media Bureau today announced it would make available an additional allocation of funds to full-power and Class A stations as well as MVPDs to reimburse eligible spectrum repack expenses. The money will be available in about two to four weeks, according to an FCC public notice announcing the allocation.

In Fall 2017, when the first allocation of $1 billion was announced, the agency said it would closely monitor the drawdown of the relocation fund and make more money available at a later date. “Our monitoring indicates it is appropriate to release an additional allocation of the available Fund…,” the notice said.

The initial $1 billion represented about 52 percent of the verified cost estimates at the time of commercial stations and 62 percent for noncommercial educational (NCE) broadcasters. Since then, “revised and more granular cost estimates” for reimbursement have become available. As of March 7, the verified and unverified estimates of costs submitted for reimbursement stood at about $1.95 billion.

However, the initial and second allocations will not cover the estimated total for eligible reimbursement, the notice said. Yet the allocations do give these entities sufficient funding to continue their transition to a new channel assignment “while preserving flexibility to respond to unforeseen changes that may arise while undertaking transition activities.”

The next allocation will continue to provide NCEs with 10 percent more of their verified cost estimates, the notice said.

Responding to the news, NAB EVP of Communications Dennis Wharton, said the association is grateful for the new allocation and intends “to work with policy makers to ensure that broadcasters are quickly and fairly compensated for these expenses.”

For more information on the repack, visit TV Technology's repack silo.  

WASHINGTON–The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee voted today to provide level funding of $445 million in FY2020 for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) and $27.7 million in FY2018 for the Ready To Learn program, a competitive grant program at the Department of Education that supports the creation of public television's on-air, online and on-the-ground children’s educational media content. In addition the committee approved funding of $20 million for an annual interconnection and infrastructure program.

America's Public Television Stations (APTS) president and CEO Patrick Butler expressed the association’s gratitude for the vote, citing the educational and public safety benefits of public broadcasting.

“These federal funds are essential to local public television stations’ public service missions and to ensuring that everyone, everywhere in America, every day has access to these essential services for free,” Butler said. “Public television helps millions of preschool children get ready to learn in school and succeed in life, and supports almost two million educators who teach 40 million K-12 students, including tens of thousands of home schoolers, in America every day.

“Public television delivers essential public safety services, which the events of the past week and a half have proved are more critical than ever. During the flooding in Houston, Houston Public Media’s datacasting infrastructure helped Houston and Harris County first responders monitor flooding conditions by sending live video directly to the dashboards of emergency vehicles from all across the vast Houston metropolitan area. The partnership between Houston Public Media and the public safety community has been literally a life-saver in the wake of Hurricane Harvey. 

Butler also thanked leadership for working across party lines. “We are most grateful for the bipartisan leadership of Committee Chairman Thad Cochran (R-MS), Subcommittee Chairman Roy Blunt (R-MO), Committee Vice Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Subcommittee Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA). The broad support for this funding among both Republican and Democratic members of the committee, where the bill passed on a vote of 29-2 today, mirrors the support the American people have consistently given to our work in communities throughout the country. We are hopeful that the Congress will continue to demonstrate its bipartisan support for public media as the appropriations process moves forward.”

GRANITE FALLS, MINN.—The Minnesota Legislature has written a check of $1.95 million to Pioneer Public Television to acquire equipment for the station’s new building in Granite Falls. The funding is part of the Capital Investment Bill signed by Governor Dayton on May 29.

Pioneer Community Relations Rep. Nicole Zempel and Postcards producer Dana Conroy outside the nearly completed Pioneer Public Television studio in Granite Falls.

According to Pioneer General Manager Les Heen, the funds will be used to acquire permanent studio lighting, relay towers and other infrastructure to assist with broadcasting from the new building. It will also help with equipping the building’s 24-7 master control center. Pioneer expects the transition process into its new building to take about a year.

PPTV will still need to raise an additional $2.5 million from private sources to complete the new studio financing package.

The appropriation bill for the facility was introduced by Rep. Chris Swedzinski, (R-Ghent) and Sen. Gary Dahms (R-Redwood Falls). The final capital investment bill was passed with overwhelming bipartisan support under the leadership of Sen. Dave Senjem (R-Rochester), Rep. Dean Urdahl (R-Grove City) and Rep. Alice Hausman (DFL-St. Paul).