Arkansas TV creates fund for donations supporting PBS dues
Katie Adkins / Arkansas Advocate
A PBS fan attending the March 12 Arkansas TV Commission meeting holds a sign expressing support for maintaining PBS membership.
This article was first published by the Arkansas Advocate and is republished here under a Creative Commons license. It has been edited for style and to clarify references to the Arkansas TV Commission.
Arkansas’ public television network will set aside donations meant to support continuing to air PBS programs that will be given back to donors if the state cuts ties with the national network, Friends of Arkansas PBS announced Monday.
Arkansas public television’s governing board voted earlier this month to pause its plans to cut ties with PBS for 180 days following an outcry. The panel voted in December to disaffiliate following new CEO Carlton Wing’s assertion that PBS dues were unaffordable after CPB shut down.
PBS supporters expressed relief about the pause, but some questioned whether the network would use their donations to pay for PBS programs or for the Arkansas-focused programs that new CEO Carlton Wing has said are the agency’s priority.
The PBS Dues Fund will be a separate bank account kept by the Arkansas TV Foundation, which manages financial gifts to the network, according to the foundation’s website. Donors can specify that they want their money to go toward PBS dues, and they can give any amount one time or in a recurring donation.
If Arkansas TV, the rebranded name for Arkansas’ PBS network, ultimately cuts ties with PBS or if the fund does not raise enough money for dues, donors will get their money back upon request.
Arkansas TV’s PBS dues for the fiscal year that begins July 1 will be about $2.1 million, PBS CEO Paula Kerger told the Arkansas TV commission at its March 12 meeting.
Former Arkansas first ladies Barbara Pryor and Gay White, co-chairs of new nonprofit Friends of Arkansas PBS, expressed gratitude for the fund’s creation in statements Monday.
“It is my sincere hope that our leadership at the capitol and the AETN Commission continue to work in good faith with the people of Arkansas and that together, we find a responsible way forward,” Pryor said, referring to the original name of the state’s public television commission.
Arkansas is the only state that responded to the closure of CPB by taking steps to end its PBS membership. Only member stations can purchase PBS programs. Before CPB shuttered, the state network used about half of a $2.5 million community service grant for this purpose.
An influx of donations to the Arkansas TV Foundation after CPB closed covered about half of the current fiscal year’s PBS dues, but the network lost 3,738 donors between Nov. 30 and Feb. 28 and likely would lose more after leaving PBS, foundation CEO Marge Betley said at the commission’s March 12 meeting.
Several Arkansans told the commission in person and via emails hat they would not financially support the network without PBS programs and called the change an ideological move.
The commission’s next meeting is June 4. Before then, Arkansas lawmakers will hold the fiscal session to approve the state budget and its appropriations for the fiscal year that begins July 1.
Arkansas TV’s spending authority has repeatedly faced resistance in the state legislature’s Republican-led House, where it needs 75 votes to pass. Wing was a Republican House member before he resigned in September to take over Arkansas TV, and he urged his colleagues to pass the appropriation in 2024.
“The Arkansas TV Foundation has created a way for viewers who value PBS programming to help secure the funding needed for it to continue,” Wing said in a Monday statement. “Recent federal funding cuts have significantly altered the financial landscape for public television, removing our ability to cover the more than $2 million in annual PBS dues.”
Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has appointed three members to the eight-member Arkansas TV Commission and is expected to appoint two more in the coming weeks. One of her appointees, recently-elected Chairman Gary Newton, told the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette last week that he hopes the governor will fill the two vacancies soon so the full commission can meet to clarify the 180-day pause on leaving PBS.
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