Full disclosure: I've worked on and off in public radio my whole career, so I'm maybe not the most unbiased person in the room when it come to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That said, however, I also understand how politics works. And I find it highly unlikely that President Barack Obama would not veto any legislation that zeroed out funding for CPB, which House Republicans are debating at this very moment.
So when I interviewed PBS's president, Paula Kerger, on Monday, I was a bit taken aback at how concerned she seemed to be. (The full interview will be in next week's issue; she's coming to town for next Thursday's Be More Awards.)
MP: So CPB funding is once again up for cuts in Congress. This has kept coming up, again and again, over the past 20 years or so, and it never actually goes anywhere. Do this think this year will be any different?PK: I'm worried about it because this is a very extreme time, and with finances being tight, they're--understandably--looking for places to cut. I am hopeful that the people who use public television and care about it will be in touch with their congressmen, and that that will make the difference. But we can't count on that. ... I don't take anything for granted.MP: But PBS itself wouldn't lose that much if it weren't to receive any CPB funds.PK: That's not true. ... The rural stations, many of which depend on a lot of CPB funding to exist, tend to be much more vulnerable. ... If federal funding stopped, we would definitely lose some stations--and they buy programming from us. Yeah, the direct money [from CPB] is really small, but the part of our funding that comes from stations that fund that content is not. We'd definitely be hurt.
I decided to look into what would happen on the off-chance I'm totally wrong, and CPB were to cease to exist, just so our readers who do care about their public television and radio could be informed. So after some calls to station managers and a little bit of research, here's what I found:
- WUOT would lose 9 percent of its funding.
- WDVX would lose 12 percent of its funding.
- East Tennessee PBS would lose 26 percent of its funding.
Sizable chunks of the budget, all. (And all together, CPB sends almost $6 million to Tennessee stations annually.) WUOT's manager, Regina Dean, says she's not just worried about losing the money, she's worried about the additional expenses that would come from not being a CPB-member station - WUOT would have to negotiate its own ASCAP fees, for example. WDVX's manager, Linda Billman, says the station was able to hire a development director because of CPB funding, so losing that money would hurt doubly. And East Tennessee PBS's Katharine Killen says all of the station's programming would be in jeopardy if they lost a quarter of their budget.
PBS, NPR, and local member stations have launched their own promotional campaign to fight the proposed cuts, 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting. The website has a page where you can send a form e-mail to your legislators voicing your support for public broadcasting. (We aren't advocating doing this, just letting you know that it exists, because we know that some of our readers do enjoy being politically active.)
The House is likely to vote on the continuing resolution either Thursday night or Friday morning. Unless an amendment is added that restores the money, CPB's federal funding would cease to exist after 2013, hurting local stations for their 2014 fiscal years. (At least, that's how the legislation stands now.) Again, the Senate would also have to zero out CPB funding, and the president would have to sign off on it - which probably won't happen. But there could be deep cuts to CPB along the way. And we just thought you should know.
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