The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) will close its doors with the sudden elimination of federal support. The House, under Republican control, has cut $1.1 billion from CPB’s funding over the next two years. That has been the CPB’s essential role from the beginning, nearly six decades ago. It allocates more than $500 million annually to these public broadcasters, such as PBS, NPR, and about 1,500 local stations across the country. This unexpected closure represents a significant retreat in federal assistance for public media. Even so, it will be put to incredible use to transform communities across the country—in particular rural areas.
The attack on CPB comes from a bigger strategy to blame the agency’s funding stream. This effort aims to cut $9 billion for public media and foreign aid programs. Spanning almost 57 years, the CPB has been the epicenter of public broadcasting’s expansion and development. It provides a doorway to quality educational programming, popular children’s fare, and trusted local news. This temporary closure threatens a number of rural stations with permanent closure. Almost 6,000 of those jobs may be lost forever without additional federal aid. The CPB funds 544 individual grantee organizations. Of them, 245 are rural, highlighting how vulnerable these communities are to the impacts they will face.
CPB’s president and chief executive, Patricia Harrison, said she was “extremely worried” about the message this shutdown sends.
“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations.” – Patricia Harrison
As a result of the cuts in funding, the majority of CPB staff will be fired by the end of September. A small transition team will be in place until January 2026 to help wind down operations. Throw in the Trump administration’s continuing lawsuit against the three CPB board members who declined to resign on demand, and you have an incredibly confusing situation.
Critics on the political right have long maintained that taxpayer funding of public media, including the CPB, is an improper use of government money. Former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have long sought to eliminate funding for public broadcasting. They claim that content like this should be funded more through private contributions.
Ending the CPB represents a dramatic and dangerous retreat from the federal commitment to public broadcasting that has spanned for more than four decades. Rural communities—who are disproportionately hurt by these cuts, as they rely on local stations for important emergency information and PBS educational content—now have their future in limbo. Without federal support, many of these stations may struggle to survive, leaving a significant void in media accessibility and diversity.