Emails show viewer backlash over PBS program’s removal from Arkansas TV

This article was first published by Arkansas Advocate and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The removal of a PBS news show from Arkansas airwaves and the rescheduling of another has incensed Arkansans after a successful crowdfunding campaign kept PBS programs in the state.

Supporters of the campaign expressed opposition in emails to the network over the decision to remove Washington Week with The Atlantic from its schedule and move PBS News Hour from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weeknights as of July 1. The Advocate obtained the emails via a public records request.

Viewers told the network they believed the move was ideologically driven, echoing complaints heard earlier this year when Arkansas TV was poised to drop PBS entirely.

“While management has defended these shifts as a financial necessity to pivot toward local content, the targeted reduction of respected, national journalism looks less like a budget decision and more like a deliberate effort to suppress balanced, critical news programming that holds leadership accountable,” one person wrote to Arkansas TV CEO Carlton Wing.

Some people said they felt the programming changes were a misuse of the donations to help fund a year of PBS programs. Others said fears of such removals or changes were why they hadn’t backed the crowdfunding efforts. 

The state’s public television foundation saw an exodus of donors after Arkansas TV Commission moved to cut ties with PBS. The move came at the same time the network rebranded from Arkansas PBS to Arkansas TV.

The network lost more than 3,700 donors from December through February, Arkansas TV Foundation CEO Marge Betley said in March.

Sarah Thompson said she and her husband are longtime donors who continue to support Arkansas TV even after the programming changes. They contributed to the PBS Dues Fund, which the foundation launched in March to collect funds specifically to pay for PBS programs.

The Thompsons drove from Fayetteville to Conway to join dozens of people, including PBS CEO Paula Kerger, urging the Arkansas TV Commission at its March meeting to reconsider leaving PBS.

The network’s decision to pay for PBS programs but change the programming schedule felt “deceptive” and “like somebody pulled the rug,” Thompson said.

“They can say, ‘Well, we didn’t get rid of them, we just rescheduled them,’ and they’ve put them in places that are very inaccessible or inconvenient,” she said.

Thompson still watches PBS News Hour at its regular time on the PBS Passport app, but she and other Arkansans said moving PBS News Hour four hours later alienates many older viewers who do not stay up until 10 p.m.

Ruth Hooper, a retired teacher from Little Rock, told the Advocate she found it curious which programs Arkansas TV rescheduled or removed.

“I was concerned that widely-trusted news programs were deemed expendable,” said Hooper, who no longer donates to the network. “Why news programming, of all things?”

Many viewers said Washington Week and PBS News Hour are unbiased broadcasts and accused Arkansas TV of censoring them.

“This is our best source of televised OBJECTIVE news — I’m sorry that you deem it harmful because it tells the often disastrous truth that is the Trump administration,” one viewer wrote about PBS News Hour.

‘Big Brother’

Wing said for months that the station could not afford to renew its PBS membership after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting lost funding and shut down in 2025. Arkansans from all 75 counties, with the help of some wealthy individual donors, raised more than $2.1 million for PBS dues.

Two former Arkansas first ladies started Friends of Arkansas PBS in February to spearhead the fundraising, and they expressed frustration with the programming changes last month, calling it “just another example of [Arkansas TV] leadership moving the goalposts.”

The Arkansas TV Commission agreed June 12 to use the $2.1 million for its intended purpose, but “the changes are inconsistent with the spirit of remaining affiliated with PBS,” Commissioner Cynthia Nance said in a June 24 email to an individual with questions and concerns.

Nance and Annette Herrington were the only two members of the eight-member commission to vote against cutting ties with PBS. Herrington has since resigned, and another member’s term expired.

Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders is expected to appoint two new commissioners in addition to the three she has already appointed: Maria Sullivan, Charlene Fite and Chairman Gary Newton.

Wing and Fite are former Republican state lawmakers, and Fite is running to regain her former seat in Van Buren. Several frustrated viewers mentioned Sullivan’s husband, a Republican state senator who has called Washington’s Week’s coverage “left-leaning.”

“We do not need Big Brother removing shows,” one person wrote.

Sen. Dan Sullivan of Jonesboro told the Advocate that he is “not micromanaging” Arkansas TV and that he believes Wing is “doing a good job” running the network.

Wing said in an email to a viewer that the programming changes were not politically motivated. The station’s goal is to increase the amount of local programming from 5% to 30%, he said.

“Had we placed new programs in the 7-10 p.m. prime hours, the new schedule would have been much more intrusive,” Wing said. “The 6-7 p.m. hour was the only consistent hour available. Moving PBS News Hour to the other traditional news time slot was more natural.”

‘Trust has been broken’

The majority of Arkansas TV’s funding comes from state funds. The agency’s appropriation faced resistance from House Republicans several years in a row until this spring, when some lawmakers praised Arkansas TV’s potential disaffiliation from PBS.

Wing, who resigned from the House of Representatives to become CEO of Arkansas TV in September, has said one of his goals is to prioritize Arkansas-focused programming.

New, locally-made shows that have premiered this year focus on topics ranging from Arkansas history and politics to health and nature. The public affairs show Arkansas Week has also expanded from 30 minutes to one hour.

Viewers said new programming should not come at the expense of national news. One viewer expressed concern that Arkansas TV’s local programming would have a conservative bias due to the network’s many Republican connections.

“We’re tired of being jerked around by politics,” another viewer wrote to the network. “Give us the PBS shows we know and watch!”

Wing has called the schedule changes “minimal,” but many Arkansans disagreed.

“Trust has been broken,” one viewer wrote. “If Carlton Wing said it was raining, I would go outside to check.”