Did I say that? Have you been reading anything I've written on the subject?
If the audience is there, the stations will find a way to survive the loss of funding. It's all about motivating that audience. I believe the audience is there, and there will be new sources of funding that will replace CPB. There already are in some places.
Back to CBS: The audience for traditional linear broadcasting is declining. Just as the audience for AM radio is declining. If the future of broadcast TV is what we see on AM talk radio, then that's what it is. It will continue in the direction it's going. The people who want quality journalism know where to find it, and they will support it. I think what has to happen for it to have an impact is for all of the disconnected voices who make up quality journalism join together in one place the way they once did many years ago at CBS. Quality journalism needs to have an impact, and the way to do it is to get bigger than it is now. That's not going to happen on broadcast TV.
It's a solid argument in a normal time when there's not an authoritarian takeover and an expressed desire on the part of an administration to suppress reliable sources of journalism.
There are societies that had independent and reliable broadcast news and then didn't (Russia in that brief span between the fall of Communism and Putin taking power). I think we're on that path, I think it's intentional and I think Ellison wants to help get us there.