WASHINGTON—As the battle over funding for public media continues in Congress, the U.S. House Appropriations Committee has recommended level funding of $40 million for fiscal year 2026 for the Next Generation Warning System (NGWS).
The Trump administration has been trying to both eliminate future funding for public media and to claw back funding that was previously approved funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
The NGWS money is intended to help public broadcasters beef up their emergency alerting capabilities. America’s Public Television Stations immediately applauded the Committee’s decision.
In a statement, Kate Riley, president and CEO of APTS said that the group is "grateful that the committee recognizes the essential role that public television plays in the nation’s civil defense, public safety and homeland security. The committee’s approval of continued funding of $40 million for the Next Generation Warning System will help ensure public broadcasters are able to continue to meet their public safety missions and provide the highest level of resilient and reliable public safety and homeland security services to communities throughout the country.”
“We look forward to working with the full House Congress to ensure that this critical funding moves forward through the appropriations process,” she added.
The group also stressed that public television’s digital infrastructure provides the backbone for emergency alert, public safety, first responder, and homeland security services in many states and communities, including many local stations that serve as their states’ primary Emergency Alert Service (EAS) hub for severe weather and AMBER alerts.
“In addition, public television is one of two technologically diverse pathways that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and state and local public safety officials use to send Wireless Emergency Alert (WEA) messages to cell phone subscribers,” Riley said. “The encrypted messages ride over the public television broadcast spectrum and infrastructure directly to cell phone providers who in turn send them to their subscribers. Sending these messages over the public broadcasting pathway ensures they can reach every corner of the country, even if internet service is compromised or unavailable. These geo-targeted messages can reach subscribers wherever they are in the event of an emergency.”
APTS also highlighted how they have been working with public safety officials around the country on a federal, state and local level.
“We have worked with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to demonstrate the effectiveness of these ground-breaking services in flood control and evacuation, rural school shooting scenarios, large crowd management, over-water emergency communications and other lifesaving applications where broadband or cellular service are not fully functional,” Riley said, adding that public stations had also partnered with California Office of Emergency Services to reduce the early earthquake warning standard from 30 seconds to less than 3 seconds.
In addition, public stations built a Statewide Emergency Communications Network with the State of Tennessee and public media stations in Florida created an emergency network that delivers up-to-the minute weather and news reports during severe weather events in Florida and South Carolina, APTS reported.
