WASHINGTON, D.C. – July 31, 2025 – Kate Riley, President and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations, made the following statement on the U.S. Senate Appropriations action that fails to restore essential funding for local public broadcasting stations across America.
“America’s Public Television Stations are deeply disappointed that the Senate Appropriations Committee failed to restore essential funding for local public television stations today.
“With this vote, the Senate Appropriations Committee missed an opportunity to extend a desperately needed lifeline to local public media stations that are already cutting essential services and staff and, in some cases, planning for their closure as a result of the rescissions of public media funding earlier this month. The impact of the elimination of this necessary public media funding for local stations, as we have warned all along, is real and imminent and it has already begun to dramatically impact the vital services that local stations provide to communities across our country.
“This bill was an opportunity to acknowledge the dire situation that local stations are in and reverse their devastating fate. Instead, today the Senate Appropriations Committee turned a blind eye to local public media stations and the communities that rely on them for critical services.
“The vote today continues to decimate local public television stations across the country, particularly those in rural and small communities, that have no way to replace essential federal funding.
“This failure to restore federal funding threatens the distribution of lifesaving public safety communications, ranging from early earthquake warnings to Amber Alerts to presidential messages to the American people in times of national emergency, in partnership with federal, state and local authorities. Only local public television stations have a nationwide broadcast infrastructure — reaching 97% of all Americans — that serves as a pathway for distribution of Wireless Emergency Alerts, enables us to provide the only nationwide situational awareness tool used by public safety officials to track and monitor the effectiveness of those alerts, and allows us to partner with first responders on public safety initiatives from Florida to Alaska, helping keep Americans safe every day.
“This failure to restore federal funding disrupts critical local educational services for the more than half of America’s children who do not attend preschool. These are local services that American families rely upon every day for free. In fact, according to a recent YouGov survey, 82% of voters, including 72% of Trump voters, said they valued PBS for its children’s programming and educational tools.
“This failure to restore federal funding hampers the ability of local public television stations to tell the story of hometown heroes and local history through thousands of hours of locally produced documentary and public affairs programming, while connecting communities to address present day issues and charting a course for a bright future.
“Local public television stations’ services are truly essential, providing local services and resources that are worthy of the federal investment.
“We are grateful to Labor-HHS-Education Subcommittee Vice Chair Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) and Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) for their bipartisan leadership in raising their concerns around the impact of the loss of federal funding on local stations and pushing the committee to find a path for restoring support for local stations going forward.We look forward to working with them and all of their colleagues that also support their local stations to fight for the restoration of this funding in FY 2026.
“Public media has 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 is either adequately funded or underfunded, according to a recent YouGov survey.
“We remain hopeful that as the appropriations process moves forward Members of Congress will respect the clear will of the American people and restore essential federal funding for local stations’ ability to help keep Americans safe, to educate America’s children and to celebrate and preserve the stories, people and culture of hometowns across this country.”
###
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