- The U.S. Senate and House approved cuts to federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
- These funding cuts are expected to have larger impact for local stations than for the national PBS and NPR stations.
- Because of the federal funding loss, local stations say they'll have to cut some of their programming and look for other places to get funding.
The U.S. Senate and House of Representatives this week voted to approve a rescissions package that would cut federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which helps to fund local Utah stations such as KUER, PBS Utah and Utah Public Radio.
The move means CPB will lose about $1 billion in funding for the next two fiscal years. The cuts stem in part from Republican concerns that NPR and PBS carry a strong anti-conservative bias.
Local officials say the short term funding will impact but not kill local stations, and shortfalls will need to be made up elsewhere.
“When you turn on your radio and television ... we will still be there,” said Maria O’Mara the executive director for KUER and PBS Utah.
Nationally, both PBS and NPR are partially funded through the CPB, but less than 1% of NPR’s funding comes from the federal government. The majority of CPB’s funding money goes to smaller local and rural stations around the country such as UPR, PBS Utah and KUER.
After being approved by Congress, the spending cuts now head to President Donald Trump’s desk for his signature.
How much money will these local public broadcasting stations lose?
The cuts will not shut down Utah Public Radio, KUER or PBS Utah but it will take a substantial portion of their funding away.
“It means that in the very short term, we are not going away. We will not go to black. We will not go to static. When you turn on your radio and television, you know, after this vote, we will still be there,” said O’Mara the executive director for KUER and PBS Utah.
O’Mara said that PBS Utah will lose about $2 million a year, which is 15% of the station’s budget. KUER will lose $500,000 annually, which is 8% of its budget.
UPR receives $200,000 annually through the CPB, meaning that it will lose 15% of its budget, according to Tom Williams, the station’s program director.
The cuts will impact local stations more than the national ones
Republicans voted in favor of the cuts to the CPB because they accuse stations such as PBS and NPR of promoting an anti-conservative bias, as previously reported by the Deseret News.
“The NPR and PBS components are, in our view, a misuse of taxpayer dollars. They’re biased, they’re not objective,” said House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., earlier this week when asked about the cuts to public broadcasting.
During his monthly press conference on Thursday, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said he agrees with concerns about the stations’ biases.
“I share some of the concerns that others do about the partisanship that has infiltrated some of public broadcasting, NPR and others, and so I think that should not happen,” the governor said. “We should not be using taxpayer dollars for forum for partisanship.”
But, Cox added that he is concerned about the impact these cuts will have on Utah’s rural areas, saying that the resources provided by public broadcasting are important for these areas.
“So, while I agree with the idea and the principle, I worry that the unintended consequence will be the exact opposite, that we’ll still have a hyper partisan NPR, and we’ll just lose the good things that are actually necessary for our tribal people for our rural communities,” Cox said.
Williams said that the vast majority of the money from the CPB goes to funding local stations.
“The effect is going to be felt most acutely at the local station level,” he said.
O’Mara echoed this sentiment.
“We are the ones that will have to figure out how to make up the difference,” she said. “You’re cutting hundreds of little stations in all parts of the country.”
What does it mean for listeners and viewers of Utah PBS, NPR stations?
O’Mara emphasized that right now local broadcasters aren’t yet able to understand what the full impact of losing this funding will mean. That will become clearer after the cuts are implemented and everything settles out throughout the whole system, she said.
“We are still on the air this morning, and we will be for many years to come,” O’Mara wrote in an email to the Deseret News on Friday morning. “Our service may not be what it has been in the past, especially in the near future, as we adjust to this loss of funding.”
Williams added that while he doesn’t believe any stations in Utah will have to close due to the loss of federal funding, there will probably be some small stations across the country that will have to shut down.
“Already there are news deserts around the country, and I think that problem will be worsened,” Williams said.
He also emphasized the services that UPR provides all across the state, “We do provide a lot of local news and a lot of programming. We take care to be targeted to our rural audiences, and we are everywhere in the state.”
Williams shared that much of the funding received from the CPB goes to paying for programs from NPR and other providers such as BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
While 15% of UPR’s funding comes from the CPB, it also receives money from Utah State University and 50% of its funding comes from the community — its listeners and local businesses. To make up for the loss of CPB funding the station will have to turn to the community for more money, Williams said.
“We do have very loyal listeners, very generous listeners and we are hoping that they will come through. We do see ourselves as a community, the public radio community, our hope is that we’ll come together and be able to make it work,” he added.
O’Mara shared that a large portion of both KUER and PBS Utah’s funding comes from listeners and members as well. She also shared that KUER and PBS Utah’s largest expenditures are on local programming, so it is expected that they will have to reduce their local services in the coming months.
Another thing that could be impacted is the Emergency Alert System, which local public broadcasting stations are a part of, according to Williams. O’Mara added that the funding cuts could also impact what local stations pay for music rights since that is something negotiated by the CPB.
The programming produced by PBS Utah and KUER doesn’t just go to people within the state but is also dispersed throughout the country, and O’Mara said that she believes this helps the country be able to understand Utah better.
Cox said he wants to look into possible problems local stations might face due to the funding cuts, and whether those could be fixed at the state level through local grants.
“I really think public broadcasting, it’s a lot like national parks and public libraries,” O’Mara said. “It’s hard sometimes to actually put dollar figure on the value for what we do. But we are always here. We’re always free, and anything that erodes that is really a tragic loss.”