System/Policy
Fields proposes trust fund but caps size at $1B
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Federal appropriations to public broadcasting will end at close of business, Sept. 30, 2000, under the House Republican leadership’s proposal introduced Feb. 28 by Rep. Jack Fields (R-Tex.). The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would live on, however, as overseer of a new trust fund endowed through the auction of vacant noncommercial TV channels. In the meantime, Fields’ Public Broadcasting Self-Sufficiency Act of 1996 delays panic in the field by authorizing annual sums of $250 million a year for fiscal years 1998, 1999 and 2000, and maintaining the traditional 75/25 split between public TV and public radio for these next few years.