G4 requests OMB meeting for $307 million FY2010 pubcasting supplemental

CPB, APTS, PBS and NPR on March 6 jointly submitted a letter to Peter Orszag, director of the Office of Management and Budget, requesting a meeting “in the next two weeks” regarding a $307 million supplemental funding request for fiscal 2010. The leaked document appears on the Talking Points Memo website. “Some local stations may disappear entirely, undermining the universal service mandate of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967,” the letter states. It adds that the “longstanding mechanism” of two-year advance funding for CPB, “while vital to public broadcasting, is ill-suited to the current economic crisis.” Supplemental funding for FY2012 would be “simply too late” for stations, so a line item for FY2010 is “indispensable” for the system. A $211 million supplemental for fiscal FY2010 was requested during APTS Capital Hill Day in February for CPB and PBS. The additional $96 million is NPR’s supplemental request, according to an NPR spokeswoman. That is usually made separately for public radio stations.