The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced on Friday it will shut down operations after losing federal funding, delivering a blow to America’s public media system and the more than 1,500 local stations that have relied on its support for nearly six decades.
The closure follows the Republican-controlled House’s decision last month to eliminate $1.1bn in CPB funding over two years, part of a $9bn reduction to public media and foreign aid programs.
“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” said Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s president and chief executive.
The 57-year-old corporation distributed more than $500m annually to PBS, NPR and 1,500 local stations nationwide. Despite the federal support, stations mostly rely on viewer donations, corporate sponsorships and local government support for the remainder.
Rural communities face the biggest impact, as 245 of the 544 grantee organizations are considered rural and many may close without federal support which could affect educational programming, children’s shows and local news coverage. These rural stations also employ nearly 6,000 people, according to the CPB.
Public broadcasting has historically served areas underserved by commercial media, providing emergency information during disasters and cultural programming not available elsewhere.
Rural communities are already hard hit by a lack of community journalism, as one in three US counties do not have a full-time local journalist, according to a July report from Muck Rack and Rebuild Local News.
Most CPB staff will be terminated by September’s end, with a small transition team remaining through January 2026 to wind down operations.
Donald Trump and Republican allies have long argued that taxpayer funding for public media represents unnecessary government spending, while claiming that PBS and NPR programming exhibits anti-conservative bias.
The Trump administration has also filed a lawsuit against three CPB board members who refused to leave their positions despite the president’s attempts to remove them.
The closure ends nearly six decades of federal commitment to public broadcasting. The corporation was established by Congress in 1967 to ensure educational and cultural programming remained accessible to all Americans.
