The Next CEO: Why the FCC should stop funding the public broadcasters when the President re-elected the Gulf of Mexico as the G4 of America
Disclosure: This story was reported and written by NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik and edited by Deputy Business Editor Emily Kopp and Managing Editors Gerry Holmes and Vickie Walton-James. Under NPR’s protocol for reporting on itself, no NPR corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.
Will wrote thatCPB is like a human appendix, vestigial, purposeless, and vulnerable to unhealthy episodes.
That line lands differently now. Late last year, HBO dropped the deal for new episodes with Sesame Workshop, striking a far smaller licensing arrangement for back episodes. Sesame Street recently laid off roughly 20% of its staff as a result. No other streamer has provided funding to cover the cost of new shows.
The conservative columnist George Will wrote that “If ‘Sesame Street’ programming were put up for auction, the danger would be of getting trampled by the throng of potential bidders.” Gonzales added, “Indeed, ‘Sesame Street’ is on HBO now, which shows its potential as a money earner.”
Gonzales said others could pay for its programming: “The membership model that the CPB uses, along with the funding from corporations and foundations that it also receives, would allow these broadcasters to continue to thrive,” he wrote. (The FCC’s Carr is challenging the legality of those corporate revenues through underwriting — a pincer movement on the system’s finances.)
The Heritage Foundation’s Gonzalez wrote the section of the group’s Project 2025 blueprint for the Trump administration that has foreshadowed much of his agenda. He attacked the public broadcasters as leftists, writing, “To stop public funding is good policy and good politics.”
Trump White House rules barring it from some events for refusing to conform to the president’s decree renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. The FCC is investigating all the broadcast networks because their controlling owner, Murdoch, is an ally of the president.
A U.S. House subcommittee has called the chief executives of the nation’s two largest public broadcasters to Capitol Hill to testify on Wednesday, with an eye to wiping out the federal funding their institutions receive.
The two CEOs — PBS’s Paula Kerger and NPR’s Katherine Maher — appear in some ways to be a study in contrasts: Kerger, 68, worked her way up the ranks at New York City’s WNET public television before becoming the longest serving chief in PBS history.
Maher, 41, was a tech executive who took over NPR one year ago this week in what was her first job in journalism, though she has no direct role in the network’s newsroom. She almost immediately became engulfed in the uproar over a piece critical of the network by a veteran NPR editor, as well as a dissection of her own progressive political beliefs that were posted online years before she joined the network.
Even so, Kerger and Maher’s fates are tethered together, as they seek to maintain long-standing bipartisan support on Capitol Hill for funding public broadcasters around the country. President Trump’s allies have repeatedly assailed the two networks.
Kerger said in an interview that the storm could be a perfect one. “That’s why this moment does feel different. It feels as if this is the time that we need to clarify our case and step up.
The Public Radio Industry: A Comparison of NPR and PBS Broadcasting Networks with State-affiliated Radio Stations in the United States
Trump’s pick as Federal Communications Commission chairman, Brendan Carr, has indicated that he supports the goal. He has also initiated inquiries of NPR and PBS, focusing at first on a handful of major stations, arguing those corporate underwriting spots violate federal laws and policies because they too closely resemble commercials.
Musk is a strong supporter of the effort to cut funding for NPR. NPR ceased posting on X in23 because Musk first designated it as a state-affiliated network, which is the same label given to propaganda sites in China and Russia. NPR has not returned to the platform because of a broad overstatement.
PBS’s Kerger and NPR’s Maher both say that they are proud of the coverage their networks offer and of the service provided by public media outlets more broadly.
PBS, for example, now has a new series called “Carl the Collector” focusing on a friendly racoon with autism. It is an example of the network serving a wide range of interests and challenges as well as fulfilling its educational mission, according to Kerger.
In addition to providing news coverage, such as through NPR’s Morning Edition and All Things Considered and “PBS News Hour”, NPR and PBS stations serve as a vital component of the emergency broadcasting system. It is a sensation among young people and old people to listen to NPR’s Tiny Desk Concerts. Stations across the two networks offer shows that sustain distinct musical and cultural traditions in regions across the country. And their news coverage remains free in perpetuity (though some network podcast series offer bonus episodes to paying members).
The public radio industry is not well-defined. NPR stations collectively reach 43 million listeners each week, the network said. Its programming is distributed by 246 member institutions operating more 1,000 stations around the country, which together have about 3,000 local journalists.
The Public Media Role in Defending the No-Propaganda Bill and Other U.S. Broadcasting Acts: The Case of PBS, Alaska, and the Voice of America
In addition to Maher and Kerger, the head of Alaska Public Media, Ed Ulman, is slated to testify Wednesday upon the request of subcommittee Democrats. A fourth panelist, Michael Gonzalez of The Heritage Foundation, is a critic of public media.
Congress allocates money to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting: $535 million in the current fiscal year. By design, three-quarters of the money spent on public media outlets are dedicated to television, one quarter to radio. In aggregate, local stations receive far more than the national networks.
PBS’s Kerger said that a reduction in federal funding would be an “hollow crisis” for them.
The reporting that we do is important to the national discourse. “And you don’t want that to disappear. You want the service to be robust and vital to the country.
“It’s easy to feel like public media has always been there and therefore will always be there,” Maher said in an interview. “And in reality, it is a constant ask of our listeners and our readers to know that their support and their affirmation of our value make the case to Congress that this is the right use of taxpayer dollars.”
But public media has also drawn political fire. The “No Propaganda Bill” has been introduced by Senator John Kennedy and Rep. Scott Perry in the winter.
Both networks have said they have scrupulously followed regulators’ guidance over the course of decades to stay well within the law. Those spots cannot encourage their viewers to buy a car or insurance policies, for example.
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Voice of America, two international broadcasters funded by the United States, will be affected by the Trump administration’s intent to dismantle them. (On Tuesday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order freezing any further action against Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.) The Associated Press is in the process of reversing its position.