NPR and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting clash as federal funding declines

Source: NPR

Updated September 27, 2025 8:48 AM ET


NPR asked a federal judge to block the Corporation for Public Broadcasting from awarding a $57.9 million grant to a new consortium of public media institutions to operate the satellite that connects the public radio system for the next five years.

NPR's submission, filed Friday afternoon, gives insight into the behind-the-scenes tensions within public media this year as congressional Republicans successfully moved, at President Trump's insistence, to strip public broadcasting of all funding they had already approved for the next two years.

NPR has run the satellite-based system for more than four decades. It enables hundreds of public radio stations and other outside producers to air and share programming, including many shows and stations with no affiliation with NPR itself. CPB is the congressionally funded private corporation through which federal money is funneled to public radio and TV stations, PBS and, to a lesser extent, NPR.

The money at issue is not part of the money NPR receives toward its own annual operations, which has typically represented 1% to 2% of its operating budget. PBS and its member stations have, on average, received 15% of their budgets from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting; for public radio stations, that figure has been roughly 10%, though the figure has varied widely. That subsidy for all public media evaporates starting Wednesday with the new federal fiscal year.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/27/nx-s1-5554882/npr-federal-funds-decline-clashes-cpb