WASHINGTON, D.C. – July 10, 2024 – The House Appropriations Committee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies today proposed eliminating future funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting in its FY 2025 appropriations bill.
The bill reported out of the committee today provides no funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), effective in FY 2027, a cut of $535 million from the current appropriation, and no funding for public media stations’ interconnection system, a cut of $60 million for FY 2025.
The bill does include level funding of $31 million in FY 2025 for Ready To Learn, a competitive grant program at the Department of Education that supports the creation and distribution of educational media content to millions of children across America.
The bill was reported to the full House for consideration.
“America’s Public Television Stations are deeply disappointed that the House Appropriations Committee has voted to discontinue federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and public media stations’ interconnection system in the FY 2025 appropriations bill,” said APTS president and CEO Patrick Butler.
“While obscured by a vote to eliminate advance funding for public broadcasting – a policy proposed by President Ford in 1975 that has protected our programming from political influence for the past 50 years – the committee made its intention clear by also eliminating $60 million in interconnection funds that connect our stations with each other and with national programming services.
“This House assault on our funding, for the second consecutive year, comes despite the fact that the federal investment in public broadcasting is consistently identified by the American people as the best the government makes, after only national defense and food and drug safety.
“Only public television serves as the backbone of the national Wireless Alert System, and serves as partners with first responders in public safety initiatives from Maryland to California, keeping Americans safe every day.
“Only public television educates the more than half of America’s children who do not attend preschool and provides tens of thousands of State standards-aligned digital learning objects — for free — for use in K-12 classrooms and in millions of American homes.
“And only public television provides Americans of all ages with information about their community, their State, their country, their history, their culture, their world through thousands of hours of locally and nationally produced documentary and public affairs programming, helping to make them well-informed citizens of the world’s most important democracy.
“We are pleased that the committee recognized the importance of educational media content for children by including our request for level funding of $31 million for Ready To Learn. This program uses the power of public television’s on-air, online, mobile and on-the-ground educational content and engagement to build science, math and literacy skills of children ages two to eight, especially those from low-income families.
“But the success of Ready To Learn relies on the health of local public television stations, which would be devastated by the committee’s proposal to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and interconnection.
“Notwithstanding today’s committee action, we remain hopeful that the strong bipartisan support for public media, both in Congress and among the American people, will ultimately result in full funding for CPB, interconnection and system infrastructure, and Ready To Learn as the appropriations process moves forward,” said Butler. “At $1.60 per person, funding for public broadcasting remains the best bargain in the federal budget and the very definition of fiscal responsibility.”
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About APTS
America’s Public Television Stations (APTS) is a nonprofit membership organization ensuring a strong and financially sound public television system and helping member stations provide essential public services in education, public safety and civic leadership to the American people. For more information, visit www.apts.org.
Contact:
Stacey Karp
202-654-4222
skarp@apts.org