The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a taxpayer-funded entity that has funneled billions of federal dollars into public radio and television stations over nearly six decades, announced Friday that it will begin shutting down operations after Congress cut off its funding.
The move comes after lawmakers passed a rescissions package and a Senate appropriations bill last month that finally zeroed out CPB’s funding — a long-debated step toward curbing federal spending on media organizations that critics have said no longer need taxpayer support.
For fiscal year 2024, the CPB received a federal appropriation of $525 million, plus an estimated $10 million in interest, totaling $535 million.
CPB stated that it has notified more than half of its staff that their positions will end with the close of the current fiscal year on Sept. 30. A small transition team will remain in place until January 2026 to oversee the formal wind-down of the organization.
Created in 1967 under President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society agenda, CPB has long served as a conduit for federal dollars to public media, particularly to PBS and NPR affiliates. While defenders claim CPB supports educational and rural programming, critics have argued for years that it props up increasingly politicized content and organizations that now compete in a diverse, saturated, and well-funded media marketplace.
With private fundraising, corporate underwriting, and substantial donor networks, outlets like NPR and PBS have expanded their reach and influence, while continuing to receive guaranteed federal support. For many fiscal conservatives, the CPB had become a symbol of outdated federal largesse: a subsidy to media outlets with ideological leanings, at the expense of taxpayers.
The defunding was opposed by Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has been a staunch defender of public broadcasting. Alaska has more public radio stations than all of Florida.
The news came at the same time it became clear that President Donald Trump would prevail in court in his efforts to remove three members of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s governing commission, including Alaska’s Diane Kaplan, former president and CEO of the Rasmuson Foundation.