The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) board has unanimously adopted a fiscal year 2004 operating budget of $386 million to support the services of more than 1,000 local public stations.
The FY04 budget, which goes into effect October 1, 2003, “focuses on public broadcasting’s core missions of education and public service and on improving its financial strength,” the CPB said.
CPB’s goals and objectives set out four priorities: local services and content; national content and services; bolster support for public broadcasting, and long term system-wide planning.
Support for public television stations will total $190 million. This figure includes $181 million in Television Community Service Grants, $4 million for the Television Future Funds, $1 million for the Collaboration Fund, $3 million for the Local Service Fund, and $1 million for the Small Station Fund.
In related news, the Public Broadcast Service (PBS) said it would launch a new channel dedicated to high-definition and digital widescreen programming in the winter of 2004 digital. The new PBS HD channel will leverage an existing library of up to 400 hours of digital programming, thanks to the support from national producers in clearing the rights for the PBS HD service, PBS said.
For more information www.cpb.org and www.pbs.org/digitaltv.
