Alabama Public Television waiting on more information to renew PBS contract

This article was first published by the Alabama Reflector and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The director of the Alabama Educational Television Commission (AETC) said Tuesday he is still waiting for financial information to be used in a decision later this year on renewing with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS).

APT Executive Director Wayne Reid said after the meeting Tuesday that financial information from PBS should come to the station soon.

“They said at one point it was going to be December. Now they’re saying this month we should get our dues information. I think they’re, they’re still, I think, getting feedback from stations and trying to figure out how to proceed forward there. So pretty interesting to see what they come back with. But that, once we get that, then we’ll take the picture and look at it,” he said.

The commission in November voted to maintain PBS programming through the end of its contract in June after two commissioners suggested dropping the programming citing the current administration’s budget cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) this summer. 

The idea of dropping PBS drew sharp criticism from PBS supporters, and Gov. Kay Ivey urged the board to delay a decision on the issue. Following the commission’s decision to maintain its PBS contract in November, APT’s membership at the end of the year was over 25,800. Chief Financial Officer Melissa Austin said during the Alabama Educational Television Foundation Authority meeting the number is a “nearly 2,500 member increase” from October.

Ivey’s proposed 2027 Education Trust Fund budget recommends a $10.8 million budget for fiscal year 2027, a 1.45% increase from the commission’s appropriation in fiscal year 2026.

Jack Williams, director of external affairs for APT, said Tuesday that a letter advocating for funding restoration was written by himself and signed by himself and other general managers in 19 other red states, then sent to Republican Senators in the U.S. Congress. 

“When the President proposed the rescission package he voiced his concern about the political leanings of NPR and PBS. The goal seemed to be to find a way to minimize or silence the messaging coming from these two national organizations,” the letter reads. “We are not seeking to undo the rescission, just to find a way to save local stations.”

Arkansas’ educational television network board voted in December to pull PBS from its public television station and rebrand as Arkansas TV. Reid said APT will watch the impact of Arkansas’ decision on that state before making a decision in June.

“There’s some similarities and some differences. I don’t think they have the legislative support that we have here in Alabama, [the] governor’s support we have here in Alabama,” Reid said. “So for us, I think it gives us an opportunity to see what happens there when they make some of these changes, because there could be some radical drops in membership and funding for them that could be a good indicator for us and what to do next.”