System/Policy
Key lawmaker downplays threat to CPB funding
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If the White House is serious about reducing the deficit, its budget will target larger programs, Rep. Cole says.
Federal budget
Proposed federal budget includes level CPB funding, support for Ready To Learn, new interconnection system
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The CPB funds, which are approved two years before being paid out, not only stay at the current level but would include annual increases of roughly 2.2 percent through 2025.
Quick Takes
House passes GOP budget zeroing CPB funding
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The spending plan, the House GOP’s blueprint for balancing the federal budget by 2024, now goes to the Democratic-controlled Senate, which is widely expected to defeat it.
System/Policy
CPB sets aside 10 percent
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The looming political battle over federal spending — and the possibility of across-the-board budget cuts imposed through sequestration — has prompted CPB to alter distribution of Community Service Grants to stations. The change, implemented after CPB execs negotiated an agreement with the White House Office of Management and Budget over possible sequestration of its $445 million appropriation, boosts the amount of money stations will receive in the first of two CSG checks to be issued by CPB for fiscal 2013. But the second batch of checks, to be issued in March, will be much smaller. How much smaller depends on the outcome of the Nov. 6 general election and whether lawmakers and the Obama administration can work out a deal that would forestall some $1.2 trillion in automatic spending reductions required under the Budget Control Act of 2011.
Development
Obama would keep CPB at $445 mil, end aid to rural pubTV
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President Barack Obama released his fiscal 2013 budget Feb. 13, which, as expected, contains $445 million in advance funding for CPB in fiscal year 2015. CPB has some chance of remaining at that level for four straight years. Congress appropriated $445 million for fiscal 2012 and 2013 as well, but those amounts are vulnerable to rescission, depending on the political winds. For fiscal 2014, the Democratic-controlled Senate would repeat the same allotment while the Republican-controlled House would reduce it to zero.