WASHINGTON, D.C. – October 1, 2025 – Kate Riley, President and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, made the following statement on the start of the first fiscal year that provides no funding for local public broadcasting stations.
“For the first time in over 50 years, local public broadcasting stations will not receive federal funding through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB).
“Yesterday, the majority of the CPB staff left the organization, a damaging loss of expertise and a large hole in the public media system. All local stations will be negatively impacted by this and communities across the country, especially in rural areas, are now losing essential services that only local public television stations can provide from critical public safety services to proven education resources and essential local community connections and information.
“In many rural areas where public media stations are often the only local media available, federal funding made up over 30% of the stations’ budgets. And while local stations are trying to close the gap created by the devastating rescission cuts, there is no replacement for federal funding, especially in rural and small communities.
“Without federal funding, local stations are eliminating or reducing local programs, including local history programs, community event coverage, agricultural programming and local public affairs programming, among others.
“Without federal funding, local stations are eliminating or reducing local educational resources for their communities. Many children in rural communities have limited access to pre-K and the loss of public television's free educational opportunities creates further challenges for those families that were already struggling to access resources for their children.
“The loss of federal funding is already preventing stations from installing new transmitters and making desperately needed infrastructure investments in areas prone to severe weather which threatens the reliable delivery of lifesaving public safety messages.
“Every day, local public television stations are making extraordinarily difficult decisions about the local programs and services they are reducing or eliminating. We are seeing real operational losses, and this is only the beginning as additional cuts are expected to roll out over the coming months and year. Recent examples include:
- WPSU, licensed to Penn State University, has said that the university will wind down operations of the station by this summer at the latest.
- KUAC in Fairbanks, Alaska, is powering down their transmitter from 12 a.m. to 6 a.m. every day. This means that in the case of severe weather or another emergency, critical public safety information will not be relayed over the KUAC transmitters.
- KEET in Eureka, California, which serves the very rural redwood coast of California, are ceasing operations of their multicast channels including the 24/7 kids channel and their channel devoted to Native American and World Indigenous content.
- KIXE PBS in Redding, California, which serves a very rural community in Northern California, have lost over 40% of their budget from the rescission. If they are not able to secure major sources of new funding, they could go dark by the spring.
“Americans depend on local public broadcasting stations for essential programs and services for themselves and their families – services that are now at great risk of disappearing. And these local public broadcasting stations have earned the broad support of the American people, across the political spectrum, including 65% of people who voted for President Trump who think public television was either adequately funded or underfunded before the rescission, according to a recent YouGov survey.
“We urge Congress to respect the will of the American people, who have spoken loud and clear, and restore funding for local public broadcasting stations in the final FY 2026 appropriations bill.”
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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 community connections to their local areas and the American people. For more information, visit www.apts.org.
Contact:
Stacey Karp
202-654-4222
skarp@apts.org