Austin PBS seeks $6M to help secure future of ‘Austin City Limits’

The team behind the live music series Austin City Limits is asking for donations from music fans to help the Texas-based program last another half century.

Austin PBS, which launched the series in 1976, announced the creation of the Austin City Limits Trust last month. The station aims to raise $6 million over three years to create a financial cushion for the show.

CDO Lori Bolding said station leaders had discussed a fundraising campaign for Austin City Limits for years and saw the Masterpiece Trust launched in 2011 by GBH in Boston as an example to follow. The campaign took on added urgency last year.

“We had loosely talked about it, but then it became … absolutely a key strategy once the rescission or elimination of federal funds was a reality,” Bolding said.

In fiscal year 2024, Austin PBS received about $2.2 million from CPB, about 12% of its income. Austin City Limits generated about $7.7 million of the station’s total income of $24 million in FY25. The show’s average annual production cost is about $3 million, according to Bolding.

Bolding said the station’s board of directors is just beginning to discuss long-term fundraising plans for Austin City Limits. The $6 million request over three years “felt like the right ask for the time,” she said.

Austin PBS is framing supporters as “founding donors, early adopters, so that we leave ourselves an opportunity … to build a larger campaign if in fact that is where our board directs us,” she said.

Supporters who donate at least $5,000 to the trust will be recognized on the station’s website for at least a year. Those who donate at least $50,000 by Sept. 30 will have their names placed on a wall at the entrance to the Moody Theater, where Austin City Limits’ acts perform.

Austin PBS’ last successful outreach for major gifts was in 2019, when it raised $10 million for a new headquarters. Bolding said the station learned from that campaign that it needed to ensure that donors would continue to give their usual annual amount while adding support for the new initiative. The message to donors then was “We need you to think about doing more,” she said.

Following that model, the station launched the silent phase for the Austin City Limits Trust in October and secured lead gifts before going public. “Our goal was to have $2 million by the end of the first year and basically $2 million a year, and we are on track to meet that goal,” Bolding said.

A not-so-secret weapon to reach music lovers

Terry Lickona, the show’s longtime EP, said that as an ambassador for the campaign he mentions the Austin City Limits Trust during live tapings and reminds viewers how important it is to support the program.

Lickona said he also plans to leverage his connections to the artist community. After last year’s rescission of federal funding, he asked Jason Isbell, a three-time Austin City Limits performer, to help fundraise for Austin PBS. Isbell staged a private event in Austin last August for 350 people that wasn’t taped for broadcast with ticket prices ranging from $500 for individual seats to $25,000 for packages.

Austin PBS is considering something unprecedented in ACL’s history to raise money for the trust. “We talked about possibly going on the road, so to speak, to different places, different markets, where ACL has been popular over the years,” Lickona said. The station has considered the idea even before the rescission and the idea of the ACL Trust.

“It’s all a work in progress at this point, since the whole idea of the ACL Trust is pretty brand new and we’re just getting it off the ground,” Lickona said.

Austin PBS might partner with stations in other cities to host events. It hasn’t been determined whether the performances would be recorded or streamed.

Another factor motivating the creation of the trust is the rising cost of touring for musicians. The show’s performers often stop in Austin during tours, with elaborate gear that they leave on the truck when they enter the Moody Theater.

“It costs them money out of their own pockets to come and to tape our show,” Lickina said. “Being a PBS show, we pay the talent scale. We pay them literally hundreds of dollars, and that’s all they get in terms of their talent fees. And all of the other costs are really up to them or their record label, if their record label is willing … to pay for it.”

Lickona said he hopes that the ACL Trust might be able to offset the cost of performers’ truck rentals. “We understand that it costs money for them to come and do the show, no matter how much they may value Austin City Limits and how much they want to do it,” he said. “We have to do what we can to be a good partner and collaborate with them to get them here so they can do the show.”

“We need to reach out to our fans, our supporters out in the wide world, not just here in Austin. We know that they are there,” Lickona added. “We know people value the show and they get how important it is, but until now there really hasn’t been a way for them to contribute directly to support the show and to help protect our future. That’s where the ACL Trust comes in.”