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CPB to cease operations

DaveBayArea said:
But that's a completely different discussion - not for here. The bottom line is that the energy and dedication is still there, and we are committed to continuing this service. CPB provided a means for us to build this infrastructure, and now we must find a way to keep it going.
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I am, admittedly, not a proponent of government supported broadcasting. But at this moment, my biggest concern is the expenditure of public funds on media that is of little or no interest to most of the under-40 or so population: AM and FM radio.

The big question is whether the younger half of the population would even think of broadcast radio in the event of an emergency. And among those aware of radio, how many know of a station such as what you describe?
 
davideduardo said:
I am, admittedly, not a proponent of government supported broadcasting. But at this moment, my biggest concern is the expenditure of public funds on media that is of little or no interest to most of the under-40 or so population: AM and FM radio.

The big question is whether the younger half of the population would even think of broadcast radio in the event of an emergency. And among those aware of radio, how many know of a station such as what you describe?
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Every market is different, and I have to think that's why CPB would disperse the funds to individual stations. In our situation, roughly half of the station's coverage area has no Internet or cell service. Even Starlink is sketchy, because of the tall trees. Not to mention the cost. So there are lots of under-40 people that listen. Lots of under-40 people that volunteer at this community station also. If you ever find yourself in the foothills above Sacramento I would invite you to visit the KVMR studios and watch that volunteerism in action. We broadcast many live shows, and when they give a shout-out to the KVMR audience there's always a cheer from the crowd.

But on a completely different level, the band below 92 MHz is "non-commercial educational". The programming is chosen to educate and inform besides entertain and you can't run 8-minute stop sets. CPB was there to ease the financial burden caused by those limitations. Yes, some organizations found ways to remain financially solvent, most notably the religious broadcasters who use one studio with many transmitters. The advantage is obvious - the more listeners in your coverage area, the more potential donors. If the funding recission came with some other rule relaxations - like maybe 2 commercial minutes per hour - that could help to ease the burden. Or if we would have had a chance to budget for a future change instead of the immediate claw-back or whatever they called it. That wasn't what one individual wanted though. He sought to suppress news he didn't like. That part didn't work, but he wound up disrupting the lives of many smaller communities in the process.

Dave B.
 
umfan said:
Seems like thoughtful, targeted investments. Much better than years past.
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Keep in mind the purpose for the spending was never really the reason the money was rescinded. The president and the administration decided that NPR and PBS were biased, and therefore they should be defunded. The government instead defunded CPB without ever asking anyone there to testify or explain how the money was used. Had they asked, CPB could have itemized in a detailed way that their money didn't fund NPR or PBS news. But it didn't matter. They just wanted to defund it. So that's what they did.
 
TheBigA said:
Keep in mind the purpose for the spending was never really the reason the money was rescinded. The president and the administration decided that NPR and PBS were biased, and therefore they should be defunded. The government instead defunded CPB without ever asking anyone there to testify or explain how the money was used. Had they asked, CPB could have itemized in a detailed way that their money didn't fund NPR or PBS news. But it didn't matter. They just wanted to defund it. So that's what they did.
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If you believe the NY Times article about NPR CEO Katherine Maher from about a month ago, CPB and PBS were working on a compromise like you describe, but when the President released the EO on no CPB funding for NPR and PBS, NPR sued and said you can't tell CPB they can't give us money because you don't like our politics. NPR made a stand (whether worthy or not) on First Amendment grounds, and that killed any compromise. This is when Pat Harrison from CPB said Maher should resign. If there was absolutely no compromise on the table, it's hard to believe the CPB CEO would have been that upset at the NPR CEO about the lawsuit. It sounds like CPB, PBS, and some stations were very angry that NPR unilaterally decided to kill any compromise, effectively gambling everyone else's money on their lawsuit. And today NPR DC is mostly fine, but the stations are suffering, disproportionally TV stations and small stations. The compromise would have prevented NPR and PBS from getting money directly, which would have been a win for the administration, but it would have let money keep going to local stations, a win for everyone else. And even if Trump didn't love the compromise, there were enough moderate Republicans in Congress that didn't want to defund all stations directly that it likely would have had support.

 
TheBigA said:
PBS also sued the government about the EO. Not just NPR. It wasn't unilateral. Here's NYT reporting on the PBS lawsuit.

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They needed to be a party to the lawsuit, but compromise was their first choice. Again, I reference the December NYT article, which suggests it was Maher that didn't want to compromise, even when it might have been possible after the lawsuits were filed:

In April, as Congress was gearing up to claw back funding from the public media system, America’s Public Television Stations, an influential nonprofit advocacy group, sent a document to leaders of NPR, PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

The document listed several scenarios that might allow NPR and PBS to save funding for local stations by agreeing to give up money for national programs. It even included a “save-face rationale” for some Republicans in Congress who wanted to justify their support of public media.
....
At a meeting soon after, Ms. Kerger and Ms. Maher expressed support for such a compromise. It seemed, briefly, like the heaviest hitters in public broadcasting were on board with the plan.

But there were also signs of major strain.

On a call this spring, Patricia Harrison, the chief executive of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, asked Ms. Maher whether she would be willing to say anything to members of Congress or the press to acknowledge concerns from listeners who viewed NPR’s reporting as biased, according to two people familiar with her remarks.

Ms. Maher rebuffed that suggestion. She didn’t believe that NPR was biased, and she thought saying so would undermine the organization and fail to placate those who were critical of the network, according to a person familiar with her thinking. After she refused, months of simmering tension between the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR came to the surface. Ms. Harrison told Ms. Maher she should resign her position for the good of public media.

Things got more tense when, on May 1, Mr. Trump issued an executive order banning government funding of NPR and PBS. NPR sued the White House, arguing that the order violated the Constitution. And it added the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a defendant, since Mr. Trump’s order directed it to deny NPR funding.

NPR also changed its position on the funding compromise: It now viewed any cuts as a violation of the First Amendment, essentially arguing that cuts amounted to government discrimination against NPR based on its viewpoint.

Ms. Maher said that once the Trump administration attempted to tie the organization’s ability to receive federal funding to its editorial decisions, the compromise “was no longer an option.”
 
ron772 said:
They needed to be a party to the lawsuit, but compromise was their first choice.
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They weren't a "party to the lawsuit." They filed one on their own. Read the linked article. If CPB was giving money to biased media, it was the job of congress to bring in the CEO of CPB to explain. That never happened. By law, CPB is the intermediary. They were never in the discussion. It was all aimed at NPR and PBS.


ron772 said:
Ms. Maher said that once the Trump administration attempted to tie the organization’s ability to receive federal funding to its editorial decisions, the compromise “was no longer an option.”
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Once again, no one in the government EVER asked anyone (NPR or CPB) about the amount of taxpayer money that went to NPR News. The government assumed it all went to news. They were wrong. This was about creating talking points for the base, not government funding. CPB had the power to cut NPR funding on its own. It didn't need a "compromise."
 
ron772 said:
CPB and PBS were working on a compromise
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The only "compromise" deals we've seen from Trump are ones where the media outlet commits to airing his propaganda in order to get what they want. I don't know if public broadcasters could have agreed to the kinds of conditions this regime would have demanded, but money is still the most powerful drug. It's probably just as well they never pursued it.
 
TheBigA said:
They weren't a "party to the lawsuit." They filed one on their own. Read the linked article. If CPB was giving money to biased media, it was the job of congress to bring in the CEO of CPB to explain. That never happened. By law, CPB is the intermediary. They were never in the discussion. It was all aimed at NPR and PBS.




Once again, no one in the government EVER asked anyone (NPR or CPB) about the amount of taxpayer money that went to NPR News. The government assumed it all went to news. They were wrong. This was about creating talking points for the base, not government funding. CPB had the power to cut NPR funding on its own. It didn't need a "compromise."
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Depends how you define "The Government". Many Democrats and some Republicans absolutely were raising the alarm that this money didn't all go to news but local stations, if you watched the recission debate.
 
ron772 said:
Depends how you define "The Government".
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The government in this case is the administration. But the congress never allowed CPB to defend itself. Democrats had no power, and there weren’t enough republicans. If you go through this thread you’ll see I followed the process in detail.

There was a compromise in congress that would have limited the recission to funds for npr and pbs, but it died in committee.
 
TheBigA said:
Keep in mind the purpose for the spending was never really the reason the money was rescinded. The president and the administration decided that NPR and PBS were biased, and therefore they should be defunded. The government instead defunded CPB without ever asking anyone there to testify or explain how the money was used. Had they asked, CPB could have itemized in a detailed way that their money didn't fund NPR or PBS news. But it didn't matter. They just wanted to defund it. So that's what they did.
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Yes, that's what they did. And now they've restored funding for some of the few worthy functions.
 
The new organization that oversees the public radio distribution system announced its board of trustees:

radioinsight.com

Public Media Infrastructure Announces Board of Trustees

Public Media Infrastructure, a new non-profit founded in November 2025 to "innovate radio and digital distribution systems; create new tools
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

Distribution is shifting from a system that was based at NPR to one based outside the company. They intend to move distribution from satellite to an internet-based system.
 
TheBigA said:
The new organization that oversees the public radio distribution system announced its board of trustees:

radioinsight.com

Public Media Infrastructure Announces Board of Trustees

Public Media Infrastructure, a new non-profit founded in November 2025 to "innovate radio and digital distribution systems; create new tools
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

Distribution is shifting from a system that was based at NPR to one based outside the company. They intend to move distribution from satellite to an internet-based system.
Click to expand...

Thankfully, no member of the current U.S. administration is on this Board.
 
TheBigA said:
Distribution is shifting from a system that was based at NPR to one based outside the company. They intend to move distribution from satellite to an internet-based system.
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That has been in progress via the NPR-controlled Interconnection Group too:

www.insideradio.com

NPR Unveils New Terrestrial Delivery Platform To Modernize Public Radio Distribution.

NPR is rolling out a next-gen content delivery system that could reshape how public radio stations receive live programming. The new platform, ContentDepot Edge, blends internet-based delivery with satellite reliability,
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com

A group of pilot stations are already using the system to get off the satellite. Shouldn't be a problem for larger stations in big, connected cities. But this is a bigger issue for tiny stations with a dish at their transmitter sites in remote areas where internet audio uptime is not 99.99%.
 
ron772 said:
That has been in progress via the NPR-controlled Interconnection Group too:

www.insideradio.com

NPR Unveils New Terrestrial Delivery Platform To Modernize Public Radio Distribution.

NPR is rolling out a next-gen content delivery system that could reshape how public radio stations receive live programming. The new platform, ContentDepot Edge, blends internet-based delivery with satellite reliability,
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com

A group of pilot stations are already using the system to get off the satellite. Shouldn't be a problem for larger stations in big, connected cities. But this is a bigger issue for tiny stations with a dish at their transmitter sites in remote areas where internet audio uptime is not 99.99%.
Click to expand...

KSKO is going to be a test bed for the new system. The new receiver connected to the internet is already installed
 
A new public media funding company has emerged to replace CPB. It is distributing some government emergency funding, as well as foundation money:

www.insideradio.com

Public Radio Stabilized By Emergency Grants As Post-CPB Era Begins.

Public Media Company rushed millions of dollars in emergency grants to keep vulnerable public radio and TV stations on the air after CPB funding was eliminated. CEO Tim Isgitt says
www.insideradio.com www.insideradio.com

It's not a government agency, it's not based in Washington, and the president can't defund it. Very similar to how NPR and PBS work.
 


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