The Corporation for Public Broadcasting on Monday voted to dissolve after losing its federal funding.
Last year, Congress voted to cut funding to the CPB, a move supporters of public broadcasting said would heavily impact stations in smaller and more remote parts of the country.
The CPB was a private, nonprofit corporation authorized by Congress in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. It subsidized local public stations, many of which air programming from National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service.
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About 70% of CPB’s funds went to approximately 1,500 public television and radio stations in the United States. The organization received about $525 million annually from Congress. PBS has said federal funding previously accounted for about 15% of revenue for the public television system.
The Trump administration argued that government funding of news media in “this environment is not only outdated and unnecessary but corrosive to the appearance of journalistic independence.”
“For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americans — regardless of geography, income, or background — had access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling,” said CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison. “When the administration and Congress rescinded federal funding, our board faced a profound responsibility: CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks.”
The CPB said it will distribute its remaining funds as mandated by Congress. Once those funds are exhausted, the organization will cease to exist. The organization had considered going dormant rather than completely dissolving, in hopes of getting its funds restored in the future.
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Without CPB funds, PBS and NPR affiliates will rely more heavily on donors for support.
“CPB’s board determined that without the resources to fulfill its congressionally mandated responsibilities, maintaining the corporation as a nonfunctional entity would not serve the public interest or advance the goals of public media,” the CPB said in a statement. “A dormant and defunded CPB could have become vulnerable to future political manipulation or misuse, threatening the independence of public media and the trust audiences place in it, and potentially subjecting staff and board members to legal exposure from bad-faith actors.”
