The GOP's assault on public media will hit rural America the hardest

The GOP’s assault on public media will hit rural America the hardest
As the Corporation for Public Broadcasting shuts down, here's how that could impact your local media

By Melanie McFarland
Senior Critic
Published August 6, 2025 12:00PM (EDT)


(Salon) Nearly six decades after Congress established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to steward the federal government’s investment in public broadcasting, Donald Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress have killed it. Last week, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced that it will begin winding down its operations at the end of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025.

Most of its staff positions will be eliminated, although the organization specified that a small transition team will remain through January 2026, “to ensure a responsible and orderly closeout of operations.”

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Financial support from the CPB and other federal sources accounts for 15% of PBS’ overall funding, with the majority of this amount allocated to its more than 330 member stations. NPR derives around 1% of its annual budget from those sources. The rest comes from an array of private funding sources, including corporate underwriters and, yes, viewers and listeners like us.

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But as the heads of CPB, PBS and NPR have separately warned, the real loss will be in rural areas like Eureka, California’s KEET-TV. CPB funding accounts for nearly half of its operating budget. The station’s manager recently told CalMatters he cannot truthfully say that the station will survive without the $847,000 it was counting on. ..............(more)

https://www.salon.com/2025/08/06/the-gops-assault-on-public-media-will-hit-rural-america-the-hardest/