APTS responds to report of proposed rescission to CPB funding

America’s Public Television Stations is urging Congress to reject any rescission of public media’s federal funding after reports of a White House plan to do so surfaced Monday. 

The New York Post first reported on a Trump administration pitch for Congress to claw back $1.1 billion appropriated to CPB. The New York Times also reported that figure, saying it would total about two years of CPB funding and noting that the proposal excluded about $100 million for emergency communications. 

CPB’s federal funding is appropriated two years ahead of the federal budget. The fiscal year 2025 spending bill approved by Congress in March included CPB’s two-year advance appropriation of $535 million in FY 2027. The same amount has been set for CPB for FY26. 

“Rescinding previously appropriated federal funding for public broadcasting defies the will of the American people and would devastate the public safety, educational and local service missions of public media stations — services that the American public values, trusts and relies on every day,” APTS President and CEO Kate Riley said in a statement. 

Riley said a rescission would threaten the “very existence” of the entire public broadcasting system. 

“This includes the over 160 locally operated and controlled public television stations that serve communities small and large throughout this country from the most remote corners of Alaska to the hollows of Appalachia, public broadcasting is a lifeline in hundreds of communities where there is no other source of local media,” Riley said. 

CPB has not commented on the rescission proposal. Its board held a closed executive session Monday night to “discuss legal and contractual matters.”

A March 26 hearing of the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency ended with chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) calling for the defunding of CPB. NPR CEO Katherine Maher, PBS CEO Paula Kerger and Alaska Public Media CEO Ed Ulman testified before the committee. 

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is using taxpayer dollars to actively suppress the truth, suppress diverse viewpoints, and produce some of the most outlandish, ludicrous content,” Greene said in the hearing.

This story has been updated to reflect a corrected APTS statement that changed the spelling of “hollers” to “hollows.”