NorthEast Radio Watch 5/5/2025: Public Media’s Uncertain Future

In this week’s issue… Public media faces a CPB-less future – Elections change broadcasters’ fates – Another AM goes silent – K-Love buys in PA, Holy Family sells in Mass. – Bell hands off Peterborough stations

By SCOTT FYBUSH

Jump to: ME – NH – VT – MA – RI – CT – NY – NJ – PA – Canada

*It’s always a perilous time for public media lately, but this past week seemed especially fraught. Just as more than 100 stations were getting ready to launch their “Public Radio Giving Days” campaign on Thursday, the White House released an executive order in which President Trump calls on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease all funding for NPR and PBS, citing what he calls “biased media.”

While direct CPB funding represents only a small fraction of NPR’s funding and a relatively small fraction of PBS’ budget, the order would seriously damage both networks and the public broadcasting system as a whole, because it would also bar local public stations from using the CPB funding they receive as annual Community Service Grants to pay for programming from NPR and PBS.

local public radio leaders ramped up campaigns to rally listeners and lawmakers behind the service they provide.

We heard from the biggest public broadcasters, including Boston’s GBH, which picked up the meme image of PBS’ Arthur clenching his fist and put it up for a day on its Mass Pike mural. Down the road, WBUR CEO Margaret Low sent supporters an impassioned letter pointing out that the loss of CPB funding wouldn’t just hurt its local Boston service, but would also damage the station’s finances by cutting off the money many other stations use to pay for the WBUR-produced “On Point” and “Here & Now,” which help to fill the midday schedules of public radio outlets around the country.

The small stations weighed in, too. At “Radio Catskill,” WJFF (90.5 Jeffersonville), board president Sally Stuart went on the air to talk about how the annual grant from CPB makes up 25% of the budget, potentially severely damaging the station’s ability to stay afloat and provide information for the rural area it covers.

Lawyers got to work challenging the executive order, which many of them say is on very shaky legal ground. As many have noted, CPB is an independent agency whose board doesn’t answer directly to the White House, and there are serious First Amendment concerns with the attempt to regulate privately-run stations’ ability to choose their program sources.

What’s more, the public broadcasting system was designed back in 1967 to make it hard for any one administration to take direct action against its funding. Not only is there the independence of CPB, there’s also the budget structure in which CPB is funded two years ahead. In theory, that means Congress has assured CPB’s funding through 2026, but that too is being tested by the White House, which followed the executive order with a budget proposal that would eliminate next year’s CPB funding.

What happens now? In addition to the inevitable court challenges, this is a political fight that often produces unlikely allies as politicians in all parts of the country hear from constituents for whom public media is often the only source of statewide news and emergency alerts or free children’s programming.

(Disclaimer: your editor has worked in and with public media outlets for more than 20 years, including in a consulting role to WJFF.)