The Corporation for Public Broadcasting to cease operations on September 30th.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

This is thread-worthy in itself. 

 

While it's not the end of PBS and NPR, it could very well be unwinding the network of stations through the elimination of federal funding and oversight of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/corporation-public-broadcasting-begin-shutting-operations/story?id=124284902

 

Basically the result will be any surviving "Public Broadcasting" stations that rely on viewer and state/local support. 

PBS will likely survive in name only and through their ongoing member stations.
Are we great yet?

Edited August 2, 2025 by tyrannical bastard
"for"

[HanSolo 467]

But not to worry. Job creation numbers are about to go through the roof once a lying hack is doing the orange one’s bidding. 

[l_miro 245]

"wind-down of its operations" and cut a majority of its jobs by the end of September" 

commeuppance, as they say. PBSers snickered and thumbed their noses at local newsers losing their jobs bEcAusE tHeY d0n't d0 rEaL nEwS and serve the cuhmuneteeeh... now the chickens have come home to roost. 

 

"Much health" as we would say in Bulgaria 

 

1 hour ago, HanSolo said:

But not to worry. Job creation numbers are about to go through the roof once a lying hack is doing the orange one’s bidding. 

all the people bitching about PBS/NPR could just donate, they pay $10 for tub of "latte" every day

 

we've been lectured about how essential PBS is, if it were essential PBS now won't have to lay anyone off just like they didn't during the 2008 crash when stations like WTVJ were almost wiped off the map

 

Edited August 2, 2025 by l_miro

[mer764KCTV5 213]

27 minutes ago, l_miro said:

"wind-down of its operations" and cut a majority of its jobs by the end of September" 

commeuppance, as they say. PBSers snickered and thumbed their noses at local newsers losing their jobs bEcAusE tHeY d0n't d0 rEaL nEwS and serve the cuhmuneteeeh... now the chickens have come home to roost.

 

Or still use Uri Berliner's words as excuse to claim that NPR isn't reliable. 

[Dave Lampstein 287]

34 minutes ago, l_miro said:

"wind-down of its operations" and cut a majority of its jobs by the end of September" 

commeuppance, as they say. PBSers snickered and thumbed their noses at local newsers losing their jobs bEcAusE tHeY d0n't d0 rEaL nEwS and serve the cuhmuneteeeh... now the chickens have come home to roost. 

 

"Much health" as we would say in Bulgaria 

 

all the people bitching about PBS/NPR could just donate, they pay $10 for tub of "latte" every day

 

we've been lectured about how essential PBS is, if it were essential PBS now won't have to lay anyone off just like they didn't during the 2008 crash when stations like WTVJ were almost wiped off the map

 

You have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about. 

[24994J 5888]

Little public service announcement. Please don't report posts that you simply don't like. That's an abuse of the feature. Don't let it happen again, and I hope to not see anyone else report a certain post in this thread. No rules are being broken by having a differing opinion.

[l_miro 245]

1 hour ago, Dave Lampstein said:

You have absolutely no clue what you’re talking about. 

 

ok well please, clue us then... i came to America in 1995 so maybe I don't know even though I talked to a lot of these people in South Florida and beyond for 15 years. What am I missing?

I was around for the TVSpy forums. PBS/NPRfolk look down on commercial local news and talent as being unsavory, low brow and not news [hello PBS Beat The Press]. As well, local newsers often think of PBS/NPR staff as the rejects who couldn't hack it at WABC, WSVN etc. or who weren't good enough to hire in the first place. That's no secret, to say otherwise is to lie. When one half of the most watched West Palm anchor duo got canned, and landed at the local PBS three years later, local TVfolk laughed, I think those comments might have survived on the sfltv database and still be visible.

 

That's one. Also, public data from PBS/NPR shows average donor age is 69 years old! Nevermind the age, for the three South Florida PBS stations, less than 1% of the 6.5 million population is donating to "critical and important PBS and NPR." Which means, there's less than 1% chance anyone decrying the cuts is a donor, but statistically they pay $10-$20 a month just to Netflix, don't know about $10 daily lattes I'm more of a bulgarian airyan guy.

 

Maybe it predates my landing in America but why is PBS/NPR the sacred cow that must survive at all costs and cannot have layoffs at any time ever, for any reason even if no viewers are interested? Local news, which actual people tune in droves on purpose, has been cut and bled since 2008. A lot of those laid off had to reinvent themselves to survive. I just checked on a couple of former anchors of top rated newscasts and they're between jobs again.

 

Take Scripps and Allen stations, their employees for years have been doing the jobs of 2-3 people after mass layoffs. Anyone out there, NPR/PBS, notice and write reams of articles every day for months on end, about how impacted those people are? Nope.

 

Or... I have no clue 

 

 

 

 

 

[Dave Lampstein 287]

I'm trying to make sense of your ramblings best I can, bear with me.

 

I remember the Watercooler too... but let's ignore the fact that you're citing all of your knowledge from conversations in a toxic cesspool 15+ years ago... there's a reason why that message board isn't around anymore (and why this website was created).

 

Public media has absolutely had layoffs, even during 2008. That said, when a beloved 50+ year old institution gets attacked and defunded, of course it's going to make the headlines. If you think public media doesn't report on the local media industry, you're wrong. Just because you didn't see it, and let's be real... you probably aren't a viewer/listener, doesn't mean it didn't happen. CPB's looming shutdown this fall is akin to Scripps closing up shop overnight and leaving all of their stations out in the cold scrambling to survive without any infrastructure support. If that actually happened, public media newsrooms would absolutely report on it. But that hasn't happened. Scripps, Allen, TEGNA... they're all still alive. Commercial media has been slowly bleeding out these past 15+ years like numerous other industries that public media newsrooms are also reporting on.

 

The media industry across the board, public and commercial, is in a tailspin. Public media isn't immune to the changing landscape and has been doing what it can to reinvent itself, just like local news has been trying and both have been doing this as financial resources and viewership numbers drop. With PBS moving into streaming via Passport and NPR getting into the podcast game, their viewer/listener/donor base's average age is trending downward. If you think there aren't public media stations that have staffers doing the work of 2-3 people or that positions haven't been reduced for consolidated/centralization efforts like in commercial media, well, I really don't know what to tell you. Has your local NBC affiliate been reporting on that during the last 15+ years prior to the federal funding fight? 

 

Saying that no one is interested in public media and that people are flocking to local television news in droves is the most nonsensical thing you've included in your diatribe. One of the great things about public media is that it is for everyone. If you think an independent press and educational programming aren't worth fighting for or funding, I totally understand that. Not everyone values facts, nuance, or public service. Some people just want noise that confirms their biases. 

 

Please, just don't confuse your personal disinterest with the facts. Some of us still care about democracy and the truth.

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/03/26/americans-more-likely-to-support-than-oppose-continuing-federal-funding-for-npr-and-pbs/

https://current.org/2017/02/farewell-tote-bags-pbs-passport-draws-younger-donors-as-membership-reward/

https://current.org/2021/06/how-to-build-the-next-generation-of-public-radio-listeners/

https://www.npr.org/2008/12/10/98098442/npr-cuts-jobs-cancels-programs

https://current.org/2009/06/fiscal-year-end-layoffs-include-10-of-pbs-staff/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/gannett-journalists-across-the-nation-walk-out-over-pay-management-issues

https://www.pbs.org/video/how-sinclair-broadcasting-puts-a-partisan-tilt-on-local-news-1507678399/

 

 

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

And another thing PBS stations run by colleges and universities do is to educate and train journalists. 

This is basically their first job and hands-on experience reporting on the news in the communities they are attending school in. 

 

In return, these areas (some of which are VERY under-served) get local news coverage from a mix of students and professionals who work together.

 

Some notable ones that run daily newscasts include WUFT in Gainesville, FL (University of Florida) and WOUB in Athens, Ohio (Ohio University).

 

Even in the 1990s after Paxson shut down WAKC's news department and stripped their ABC affiliation away in favor of infomercials (and later PAX), WNEO and WEAO stepped in with NewsNight Akron which was a discussion show about news in the Akron area.  They couldn't afford to start a news department (the stations were a joint venture of the local universities, Akron, Kent State and Youngstown State at the time) but this was a way to fill the void until WKYC partnered with Paxson to start up a local newscast again in 2001 that ran on WVPX (the old WAKC).  

 

 

Edited August 2, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[nathannah 2792]

As I sadly expected, the first victim of the PBS/CPB cuts on-air isn't one of the 'woke' documentaries the GOP targeted, but older reliables like Lawrence Welk repeats which have heavy ASCAP/BMI fees. PBS Wisconsin is pulling it after this Saturday's episode.

 

And yes, the old folks who put in a lot of money into their member stations are mad (rightly so).

[ABC 7 Denver 1889]

1 hour ago, nathannah said:

As I sadly expected, the first victim of the PBS/CPB cuts on-air isn't one of the 'woke' documentaries the GOP targeted, but older reliables like Lawrence Welk repeats which have heavy ASCAP/BMI fees. PBS Wisconsin is pulling it after this Saturday's episode.

 

And yes, the old folks who put in a lot of money into their member stations are mad (rightly so).

 

Lol! They voted for this.

[l_miro 245]

1 hour ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

Lol! They voted for this.

 

Doubtful

 

"77000 members and sponsors" across 6 stations, in a state of 6 million

 

$21 mil in revenue, $29 mil in assets. $3.5 mil cash. $3.1 mil in investment income for 2024.

 

They can stop complaining if they can afford to drop $2500 a year on a PBS membership to see their names printed on a paper

[ABC 7 Denver 1889]

2 hours ago, l_miro said:

 

Doubtful

 

"77000 members and sponsors" across 6 stations, in a state of 6 million

 

$21 mil in revenue, $29 mil in assets. $3.5 mil cash. $3.1 mil in investment income for 2024.

 

They can stop complaining if they can afford to drop $2500 a year on a PBS membership to see their names printed on a paper

 

I was specifically talking about the Lawrence Welk rerun demographic who almost completely overlaps with the Republican base.

[Georgie56 3661]

As a result of the CPB cuts, Mississippi Public Broadcasting will eliminate all PBS and NPR programming by next July.

[l_miro 245]

17 hours ago, ABC 7 Denver said:

 

I was specifically talking about the Lawrence Welk rerun demographic who almost completely overlaps with the Republican base.

 

it's not an ideological show. The 5 people who watch it can also dig in for another $2500 to donate to PBS if they love it so much

[ABC 7 Denver 1889]

6 hours ago, l_miro said:

 

it's not an ideological show. The 5 people who watch it can also dig in for another $2500 to donate to PBS if they love it so much

 

It's all seniors, the vast majority of which are Republican.

[mer764KCTV5 213]

8 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

As a result of the CPB cuts, Mississippi Public Broadcasting will eliminate all PBS and NPR programming by next July.

 

I have no words for this.

[SDHIll1980 150]

On 8/9/2025 at 5:58 AM, Georgie56 said:

As a result of the CPB cuts, Mississippi Public Broadcasting will eliminate all PBS and NPR programming by next July.

 Outside of the areas adjacent to bordering states such as Tennessee, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama, a good chunk of Mississippi (including the Jackson metro area) will shut be out of NPR/PBS programming.  Like Mississippi, three of those four also have statewide NPR and PBS networks.  The state of Tennessee government had a hand in launching public television stations across the rest of the state (except Memphis and Nashville), but they all are individual operations.

 

We'll see where the next shoe drops, as far as what individual, regional, or statewide public broadcasting operation drops NPR and/or PBS next.  Surely, there will be some consolidation of individual NPR/PBS operations in the same geographic region, possibly forming regional or statewide networks.

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

Without CPB, what kind of infrastructure will there be for PBS and NPR itself?

It will basically be a group of stations sending programming to each other. 

 

NPR is more centralized than PBS, so changes may be the most apparent there. 

Key member stations (WETA, WQED, WNET, WGBH, etc...) produce a lot of PBS's programming, so the member stations may have to create a cooperative to feed programming to each other.

[mre29 1967]

2 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

Without CPB, what kind of infrastructure will there be for PBS and NPR itself?

It will basically be a group of stations sending programming to each other. 

 

NPR is more centralized than PBS, so changes may be the most apparent there. 

Key member stations (WETA, WQED, WNET, WGBH, etc...) produce a lot of PBS's programming, so the member stations may have to create a cooperative to feed programming to each other.

 

I would think CPB only provides the funding, while the actual infrastructure is part of NPR and PBS.

 

[nathannah 2792]

American Public Television (completely separate from both orgs) distributes most of the instructional and other cooking and travel shows that aren't usually associated with the larger public television stations; they have not been affected by any of this to date.

[Dave Lampstein 287]

Stations pay dues to PBS. They’re recalculating the formula now for future fiscal years. 

[tyrannical bastard 4676]

I wonder in MPB's pulling of PBS, would a willing broadcaster pick up some programming on their stations?

 

WAPT aired Sesame Street prior to the creation of MAETV, now known as MPB. 

WNDU was another station that did the same, being owned by Notre Dame itself probably helped things, before WNIT signed on for Michiana.

And a fun fact about Mississippi Public Broadcasting....

 

One of their early shows was Clyde Frog. 

Most of us know him as Eric Cartman's toy and sometimes sidekick on South Park.

Edited August 14, 2025 by tyrannical bastard

[Dave Lampstein 287]

On 8/13/2025 at 6:48 PM, Dave Lampstein said:

Stations pay dues to PBS. They’re recalculating the formula now for future fiscal years. 

Update: 

Current.org reports this morning that PBS’ board has voted to cut its budget by 21% and reduce station dues by $35 million in FY26, following Congress’ decision to rescind CPB funding for FY26 and FY27. To ease the impact, PBS is lowering dues for all stations and spreading out payments over three installments, and it’s giving bigger funding credits to national content producers like WETA, WNET, and GBH.

[Big Rollo Smokes 324]

On 8/14/2025 at 11:01 AM, tyrannical bastard said:

I wonder in MPB's pulling of PBS, would a willing broadcaster pick up some programming on their stations?

 

WAPT aired Sesame Street prior to the creation of MAETV, now known as MPB. 

WNDU was another station that did the same, being owned by Notre Dame itself probably helped things, before WNIT signed on for Michiana.

And a fun fact about Mississippi Public Broadcasting....

 

One of their early shows was Clyde Frog. 

Most of us know him as Eric Cartman's toy and sometimes sidekick on South Park.

 

Don't forget about R.B. Bugg, from "The Write Channel"...