#348 Special Edition: Shutdown of Corporation of Public Broadcasting

In This Issue #348

Special Edition: Shutdown of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

Author: Madeleine Gable, APA Justice Communications Associate

On July 24, 2025, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the GOP-backed Rescissions Act of 2025, cutting about $1.1 billion in previously approved funding allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) over the next two years. A week later, CPB President Patricia Harrison announced the organization would shut down, with most of its 100 employees leaving by the end of September. Despite widespread public opposition, including letters and petitions, the shutdown advances, threatening the future of the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), the National Public Radio (NPR), and hundreds of local stations nationwide, significantly impacting Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (AANHPI) communities.

What is the CPB?

Established in 1967 under the Public Broadcasting Act, the CPB is a private nonprofit corporation supporting noncommercial, educational, and accessible broadcasting. Beyond funding PBS and NPR, the CPB provides support to over 1,500 local radio and TV stations. Many of the rural networks are the only broadcasting stations in the area.Former President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the act as part of Great Society legislation, initiatives intended to reduce poverty and promote social equity. Early broadcasters, often based at universities and land-grant schools, provided continuing education programs, which eventually expanded to include children’s programming, documentary films, and feature stories.The CPB allocates more than $400 million to over 500 public-media organizations nationwide. In particular, its funding has a much greater impact on stations that serve local communities than it does on PBS and NPR. In fact, the CPB funds 15% of the budget for PBS and only 1% of the budget for NPR. The vast majority of the CPB’s funds are allocated directly to local TV and radio stations, and 31% of the CPB’s grants were allocated directly to rural networks in 2023. According to CPB analysis, more than half of the rural stations it supported relied on federal funding for at least 25% of their budget. 

Consequences of the Shutdown

At its inception, the CPB was designed to ensure nonpartisanship by creating a degree of separation between its operations and the lawmakers responsible for approving the annual federal budget. Recently, the CPB, and especially NPR and PBS, have garnered criticism for alleged liberal bias. Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene vehemently called for the defunding of the CPB because NPR and PBS had become “echo chambers for a narrow audience of mostly wealthy white urban liberals and progressives who generally look down on and judge rural America.” On Truth Social in April, President Donald Trump referred to NPR and PBS as “radical left monsters that so badly hurt our country.” 

1. Loss of Local/Rural Representation and Voice

Both Rep. Greene and President Trump’s statements underscore the irony of shuttering the CPB. The shutdown would hit rural, low-income areas hardest, places where local stations are often the sole source of essential information, leaving these communities at a significant disadvantage. With the loss of funding, smaller, public radio stations will be forced to rely more heavily on national programming, thereby reducing the diversity of perspectives on the air. As Emily Cohen, station manager of KHOL in Jackson, Wyoming, observed, “If you take away the funding that’s supporting local coverage, it could potentially make polarization worse.”Such smaller, rural broadcasting stations include Allegheny Mountain Radio (AMR), a network of three radio stations in West Virginia and Virginia that serve as the area’s only broadcasters. Located within the National Radio Quiet Zone, a 13,000 square-mile region where airwaves are restricted due to a nearby radio telescope, AMR operates at a frequency low enough to avoid interference. More than 60% of its annual budget is funded by the CPB; any reduction in this funding would seriously harm residents who may otherwise lose access to local broadcasting. Josh Shepperd, associate professor at the University of Colorado, suggests “20% of the country is effectively going to lose any concept of itself as a place within the next 10 years without public media.” He added local communities are “all going to have national ideology on the local level, and no local memory and no local experience.”

2. Reduced Access to Critical Information and Services

Importantly, the shutdown of the CPB will severely dampen the efficacy of local alert systems, endangering the lives of those who rely on local broadcasting systems for emergency messages. In rural communities that lack reliable internet, radio is often a more effective means of disseminating emergency alerts. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has the ability to send emergency messages directly to people’s cellphones, radio stations can cover a larger geographical area and are more reliable than cell towers.In the Permian Basin in southwest Texas, radio is often the only outlet available to provide residents with emergency information in times of natural disaster. Marfa Public Radio and KPBT-TV (also known as Basin PBS) are two of the stations that primarily serve this area. 30% of Marfa Public Radio’s budget is funded by the CPB, while 48% of KPBT-TV’s comes from the CPB. Directors of both of these stations have expressed their concerns about continuing to operate as their budgets must now be fully funded by donors.Mendocino-based NPR member station KZYX in California serves roughly 130,000 listeners. Andre de Channes, KZYX’s general manager and director of operations, worried about fire safety as the station provides service to many off-the-grid rural areas without access to internet or cell service. Residents of those areas rely primarily on KZYX for emergency information. KZYX has lost 25% of its operating budget.

3. Impact on Cultural Programming

In addition to limited diversity of programming and reduced access to critical information and services, the shutdown of the CPB will also profoundly impact cultural programming, particularly because local stations broadcast the majority of such content.Jack Jones is the acting station manager of KGVA, a tribal radio station on the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana, which receives 85% of its funding from the CPB. Much of the rest of its funding is allocated by the reservation’s college, which also faces a severe funding crisis. According to Jones, KGVA daily broadcasts feature educational programming, words of the day in Aaniiih and Nakota languages, interviews with tribal elders, Native American drum groups, and local high school basketball games. Republican Senator from South Dakota Mike Rounds noted that tribal radio stations are crucial for "delivering critical emergency alerts and public safety information.” Jones remains concerned that the shutdown of the CPB will deprive listeners of both vital cultural programming and essential public safety information.Loris Taylor, President and CEO of Native Public Media, warned that the “cost of silence” from shuttering tribal radio stations also includes the loss of emergency alerting capabilities and the collapse of civic engagement coverage. Perhaps most importantly, Taylor says defunding tribal stations "turns off a pathway to participation, representation, and leadership for Native youth.”

The CPB shutdown also threatens the more than 1,000 public radio stations that play independent music, as the CPB funding often covers all music licensing fees for public radio stations. Without that funding, public radio stations would have to renegotiate those deals individually. NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher recently estimated that 96% of all classical music broadcast in the U.S. is on public radio stations.

Impact on AANHPI Communities 

1. Cultural Programming at Risk

Beyond local stations, CPB funding also supports national and digital platforms that amplify AANHPI voices.To celebrate AANHPI Heritage Month in 2024, the CPB published a comprehensive guide to its programming exploring and celebrating the history and culture of AANHPI individuals and communities. Examples include PBS’s “The Composer is Yoo” and Photographic Justice: The Corky Lee Story, Dear Corky, WORLD’s “Chinatown Auxiliary” and In Search of Bengali Harlem, NPR’s Tiny Desk Japan and Tiny Desk Korea, and PBS’s five part documentary series Asian Americans.Other PBS stations offering extensive, culturally rich programming about Asian Americans include PBS Hawai’i, KQED, and PBS SoCal. The latter aired “Snapshots of Confinement,” a locally-produced documentary chronicling the experiences of Japanese Americans at internment camps during World War II.Other radio and online platforms uplifting AANHPI voices include NPR Live Sessions, Seattle’s KEXP, LAist Studios and NPR’s Inheriting, StoryCorps, and the American Archive of Public Broadcasting.

2. Arts and Story Telling

The Serica Initiative, a nonprofit in New York City, raises awareness of the Asian diaspora in America through storytelling, dialogue, and the power of convening. According to CEO and founder Anla Cheng, a key partner of Serica's is The WNET Group in New York and a past recipient of CPB funds. Together, Serica and ALL ARTS — the arts and culture hub created by The WNET Group — have co-produced a series of short videos highlighting the impact of AAPIs; most recently, their series "Climate Artists" (which featured artists centering climate change and sustainability in their work, including architect and designer Maya Lin) was nominated for three NY Emmy Awards; a fourth Emmy nomination was for their video "Voices Rising: What's Next for Asian Americans in the Arts?", which was also co-produced with ALL ARTS and featured such speakers as playwright David Henry Hwang (Golden Child, Yellow Face) as well as actors Rosalind Chao (Three Body Problem) and BD Wong (Jurassic Park, Law & Order: SUV).Cheng highlighted that reductions in Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) funding, academic research grants, and resources supporting AAPI communities will have far-reaching effects throughout the entire community. She also emphasized that the willingness to support one another remains stronger than ever, with emotional and creative contributions often being just as valuable as financial support, making the phrase “Collectively, We are Stronger” a reality. 

3. Asian American Films and Festivals

Two of the country’s largest Asian American Film Festivals, CAAMFest and the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival, also risk losing a significant portion of their funding.CAAM, the Center for Asian American Media, originated through the efforts of Loni Ding and others to secure funding from the CPB to create the National Asian American Telecommunications Association in 1980, later renamed CAAM. CAAMFest, an offshoot of CAAM, debuted in 1982 as the San Francisco Asian American International Film Festival before adopting its current name in 2013. Since then, it has been held annually, except in 1985. According to Grace Yu of the 1990 Institute, CAAM remains the primary organization recognized by the CPB representing Asian Americans.CAAM’s Executive Director Don Young warned that the group faces a major financial crisis following President Trump’s funding cuts, which threaten 40% of its total budget. While the most severe restrictions were not applied directly to the film festival, they will significantly disrupt CAAM’s core work of funding, producing, distributing, and showcasing film, television, and other digital media. The festival itself is not the main target of the cuts, but it remains vulnerable to their ripple effects.Young underscored the importance of documentary filmmaking as a “fundamental influence to help the Asian American community discover our voice and to provide greater shared understanding of Asian America to the broader public.” Despite the financial strain, Young reaffirmed that “CAAM’s commitment to storytelling for the public good, and not corporate profits, will continue,” with an emphasis on public media, sustainability, and innovation.

Similarly, the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival forecasts it will lose 10-20% of its funding, much of which stems from the National Endowment of the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the CPB. Francis Cuillado, executive director at Visual Communications, noted that their archive will bear the greatest impact. The archive works to “preserve and digitize film, photographs and other media” in order to create a freely accessible library.Presented by Visual Communications, the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival first debuted in 1983 and has presented over 5,000 films, videos, and digital mediaworks by Asian and Pacific Islander artists. The festival also features seminars, panels, and in-person guest appearances.With the imminent shutdown, all of the above programming faces significant disruption or cancellation. Even organizations not directly affected will feel the loss of a broader network, frequent collaborators, and reliable source material, further hindering the production and dissemination of Asian American programming.

Economic and Employment Impact

The CPB shutdown will also significantly impact employment and local economies. The CPB estimates nearly 6,000 people are employed by rural stations that it supports. All of those employees face the risk of severe pay cuts due to the shutdown, in addition to the threat of losing their jobs.As Montana’s KGVA stands to lose $100,000 in funding, station manager Jack Jones plans to phase out all programming that requires someone in the studio, cutting the station’s budget down to just $30,000 for licensing fees and station upkeep. Jones says he plans to “start letting people go” as salaries are their largest expense. KGVA only employs one part-time worker, a summer disc jockey. When The New Yorker journalist Oliver Whang noted that Jones himself was the only other employee who could be let go, Jones paused, then quipped “yeah.”

"The Race to Rescue PBS and NPR Stations"

According to the New York Times on August 19, 2025, philanthropists from the Knight Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Schmidt Family Foundation, Pivotal Ventures, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation announced they have committed $26.5 million to support the most at-risk public radio and TV stations. In their definition, these stations include those who have historically received more than 30% of their support from the CPB. They hope to reach $50 million for the Public Media Bridge Fund by the end of this year through additional fundraising. According to Maribel Pérez Wadsworth, president and CEO of the Knight Foundation, philanthropy could not provide a substitute for the federal funding in the long term. A broad overhaul of the public radio system is needed, and many stations will need to merge or pool their resources to save costs.

Additional Resources

2025/08/07 The New Yorker: What Happens to Public Media Now?  https://www.newyorker.com/news/the-lede/what-happens-to-public-media-now 

2025/08/06 Christian Science Monitor: As Corporation for Public Broadcasting shuts down, what will that mean on airwaves? https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2025/0806/corporation-for-public-broadcasting-npr-pbs 

2025/08/05 Forbes: Will NPR And PBS Go Away? How CPB Shutting Down Affects Them https://www.forbes.com/sites/andymeek/2025/08/05/will-npr-and-pbs-go-away-how-cpb-shutting-down-affects-them/ 

About the author:

Madeleine Gable is a junior at New York University, studying International Relations, Economics, and Chinese. She will spend the upcoming fall semester at NYU Shanghai and has been working with APA Justice since October 2024.

News and Activities for the Communities

1. APA Justice Community Calendar

 Upcoming Events:2025/09/06 The 2025 Asian American Youth Symposium2025/09/08 APA Justice Monthly Meeting2025/09/08 Committee of 100 Conversations – “Recollections, Pioneers and Heroes” with Janet Yang2025/09/09 China Connections — Chinese Encounters with America: Profiles of Changemakers Who Shaped China2025/09/16-17 2025 AANHPI Unity Summit2025/09/23 Committee of 100: Is Deglobalization Inevitable?Visit https://bit.ly/3XD61qV for event details.

2. C100: Is Deglobalization Inevitable?

On September 23, 2025, the Committee of 100 and the Foreign Policy Association will co-host a keynote fireside chat and debate on the topic of "Is Deglobalization Inevitable?"Nobel Prize-winning economist Professor Joseph Stiglitz at Columbia University will open with a fireside chat on the evening’s central issue, followed by a lively debate between two leading experts: Walden Bello, Professor, State University of New York at Binghamton and Kyoto University (and credited with coining the term “deglobalization”), and Professor Edward Ashbee, Professor, Copenhagen Business School. They will present opposing views in a traditional debate format—opening statements, rebuttals, and closing remarks.  Peter Young, Committee of 100 Member and Board Member, CEO of Young & Partners, will serve as moderator. The in-person event at the Yale Club of New York City is by invitation only.  The virtual invitation is open to the public; register to attend at https://bit.ly/3Jnwi7zContact events@committee100.org for more information.

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