Public broadcasting in the U.S. has grown from local and regional roots at schools and universities into a nationally known source of news and entertainment for millions of listeners and viewers. Our timeline of public broadcasting’s history traces its growth from the earliest radio broadcasts to its days as the home of Big Bird, Frontline and Terry Gross. We hit the landmark events, like the signing of the Public Broadcasting Act, and include lesser-known milestones as well — like the airplane circling over Indiana that broadcast educational TV shows to six states. Dive in and discover how public media became what it is today.
This is a revised and updated version of the timeline that appeared in our book A History of Public Broadcasting, published in 2000. A new version of the book is forthcoming.
Entries by Karen Everhart, Mike Janssen and Steve Behrens
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1862
With the Morrill Act, Congress endows state universities with land grants, creating what some observers believe was a philosophical precedent for public broadcasting and its public funding.
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1895
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1930
The Carnegie Corporation of New York, with NBC, creates the National Advisory Council on Radio in Education (NACRE) to promote a “Cooperation Doctrine” — alliances between commercial radio and educators.
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July1930
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June27, 1945
The FCC moves FM service to the VHF band and expands noncommercial FM reservation to 20 channels (88-92 MHz) of the total 100 FM channels.
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1955
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Sept.12, 1960
Taped live with an early videotape machine recently installed at Denver’s KRMA, The Ragtime Era premieres. It becomes NET’s most popular show, adding fun to educational TV’s arts programming and making Max Morath a star.
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December1960
Eastern Educational Television Network (EEN) incorporates after a 1959 demonstration of a hookup between Boston and Durham, N.H. Founded by WGBH President Hartford Gunn to boost the supply of programs available to stations in the Northeast, it was the first regional public TV network. Julia Child’s The French Chef, produced at WGBH, later becomes one of EEN’s most successful programs. EEN later grows into the national distributor now known as American Public Television.
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Educational TV stations begin airing the BBC’s An Age of Kings, a 15-part combination of Shakespeare’s history plays that becomes one of public TV’s earliest hits.
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May1, 1962
President Kennedy signs the Educational Television Facilities Act, bringing the first major federal aid to public broadcasting. The act was a predecessor of the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program.
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Sept.9, 1962
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WGBH begins airing Julia Child’s first French Chef series, later distributed nationally.
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June10, 1963
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July25, 1963
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Aug.1, 1966
The Ford Foundation proposes to the FCC that profits from a nonprofit communications satellite system for all broadcasters would go to public broadcasting. The proposed “Bundy Bird,” named after Ford Foundation President McGeorge Bundy, was quashed at the FCC by “bureaucratic torpor” induced by opposition from “all the giant communications companies,” James Day writes in The Vanishing Vision: The Inside Story of Public Television. But media coverage of the “Bundy Bird” called attention to educational TV’s funding needs. The proposal also helped make the case for an interconnection system to transmit programs to stations.
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Jan.26, 1967
Carnegie I releases a report proposing federal aid and an extension of educational TV called “public television.”
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An NAEB report, The Hidden Medium, promotes aid to educational radio as well. Though the Carnegie report and original legislation would have aided only TV, the final Senate bill creating CPB also includes radio, thanks to a concerted campaign by Jerold Sandler and other radio advocates.
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President Johnson signs the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, authorizing federal operating aid to stations through a new agency, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. CPB funding decisions would be made year to year; Congress wouldn’t consider endowing a long-term funding source.
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March27, 1968
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September1968
Newsroom, a daily local news program that KQED in San Francisco launched as Newspaper of the Air during a newspaper strike, returns with funding from the Ford Foundation. Staffed by a team of print-trained reporters and anchor Mel Wax, the show pioneered the roundtable format of journalists discussing news of the day. Newsroom won duPont-Columbia and Peabody Awards during its nine-year run, but KQED couldn’t sustain it when Ford’s grant ended.
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Nov.3, 1969
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Nov.10, 1969
Sesame Street debuts. The show’s creator, Children’s Television Workshop, developed Sesame with new levels of collaboration among writers, producers and researchers, and extensive testing on young viewers to determine how effectively the program achieved its educational goals. An instant success, Sesame Street goes on to win two Peabody Awards, dozens of Emmys and many other honors.
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February1970
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Feb.26, 1970
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November1970
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Nov.9, 1970
PBS carries NET’s Banks and the Poor by Morton Silverstein, generating controversy.
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Nov.20, 1970
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May3, 1971
NPR launches All Things Considered with a 24-minute sound portrait of protests against the Vietnam War that took place that day in Washington, D.C. Robert Conley hosts the program. In 2017, the broadcast was inducted into the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
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July1971
CPB announces the creation of the National Public Affairs Center for Television (NPACT) as a headquarters for public affairs programs covering the nation’s capital. Sander Vanocur, an experienced NBC journalist, is hired to co-anchor programs with Robert MacNeil, a Canadian broadcast journalist and international correspondent. In his book The Vanishing Vision: The Inside Story of Public Television, James Day writes that the hiring of Vanocur and MacNeil enraged President Nixon, who was nursing a grudge over Vanocur’s aggressive questioning during his 1960 presidential campaign.
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Oct.21, 1971
Nixon aide Clay Whitehead challenges public TV in a speech at an NAEB meeting. Criticizing local broadcasters for betraying the vision of the Carnegie Commission, he assails decisions to create PBS and NPACT as moves to centralize program decisions and turn over control of public-affairs programming to the Ford Foundation.
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June30, 1972
President Nixon vetoes a two-year CPB authorizing law; a reduced one-year bill is enacted later. John Macy resigns as CPB president over the board’s refusal to protest the veto. Macy is succeeded by Henry Loomis. Frank Pace, CPB’s first chairman, also quits, succeeded by Tom Curtis.
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October1972
To shield program funding decisions from political interference following Nixon’s veto of CPB’s authorization, PBS President Hartford Gunn proposes the Station Program Cooperative, a marketplace for stations to choose which national programs they would support. PBS manages the SPC until 1989.
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Jan.11, 1973
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May31, 1973
CPB and PBS resolve a dispute over interconnection and program decision-making with the Partnership Agreement, which allows PBS to manage program feeds and requires CPB to consult with PBS on programs it proposes to fund.
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September1973
With Texas businessman Ralph Rogers as chair, PBS reorganizes its governance by adding a board of lay leaders — prominent citizens usually involved with their local stations — to balance the oversight of a station manager board. The change solidifies PBS leadership as it cuts parental ties with CPB.
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March3, 1974
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July6, 1974
A Prairie Home Companion debuts at the Janet Wallace Auditorium at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn. Hosted by Garrison Keillor, the show charges $1 admission, 50 cents for kids. “There were about 12 people in the audience,” according to the show’s website.
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Oct.5, 1974
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April1975
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Sept.15, 1975
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Oct.20, 1975
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Feb.20, 1976
The Native American Public Broadcasting Consortium is formed to support Native programming for public broadcasting, making it the first of the system’s five minority consortia to incorporate. In 1995 it changes its name to Native American Public Telecommunications; in 2013, it becomes Vision Maker Media.
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May4, 1977
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Aug.1, 1977
Frank Mankiewicz begins work as NPR president. The son of Herman Mankiewicz, a co-author of the screenplay for Citizen Kane, Frank Mankiewicz had worked for the Peace Corps under President Kennedy’s Administration and for Sen. Robert Kennedy. He also helped run George McGovern’s 1972 presidential campaign and wrote two books about Watergate before joining NPR.
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March1, 1978
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Jan.30, 1979
The Carnegie Commission on the Future of Public Broadcasting releases a report calling for a fundamental restructuring of what it sees as a flawed system. It proposes a Public Telecommunications Trust to supplant CPB and a semi-autonomous Program Services Endowment to invest in programming. The Commission also calls for more federal funding to public broadcasting from general tax revenues and a spectrum fee levied on all users of the public airwaves. Neither Congress nor the Carter administration picks up on the recommendations.
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June1979
In a reorganization that further separates PBS’ role in national programming from stations’ interests in federal policy in Washington, public TV splits lobbying functions from PBS to create the National Association of Public Television Stations, later renamed America’s Public Television Stations. David Carley is its first president.
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Aug.23, 1979
In response to the Carnegie report, CPB President Robben Fleming proposes to create an insulated program fund within the corporation to be headed by a director who will make final decisions about the programs CPB supports. The board approves, and the plan for the CPB Television Program Fund takes effect in January 1980.
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March1980
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May3, 1980
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May12, 1980
“Death of a Princess” airs nationally on PBS. The docudrama about a 19-year-old Saudi princess executed for adultery in 1977 is broadcast as part of World, a WGBH-produced documentary series that was the forerunner to Frontline. In the weeks leading up to its U.S. premiere, the Saudi government pressured PBS through the U.S. State Department and Congress to drop the film. Mobil Oil, a major corporate underwriter of Masterpiece Theater on PBS and a partner in the Arab-American oil venture Aramco, criticized the film in newspaper ads. Some stations — including KUHT in Houston, Alabama Public Television and South Carolina ETV — choose not to air it.
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June20, 1980
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Asian-American activists from around the country gather in Berkeley, Calif., to discuss creating an organization to bring their community’s voices to public media. A steering committee is formed on the last day of the conference that becomes the board of the National Asian American Telecommunications Association, founded later in the year. NAATA changes its name to the Center for Asian American Media in 2005.
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The weeknight newscast Nightly Business Report debuts nationally on public television, produced by WPBT in Miami. The half-hour show goes on to be television’s longest-running business news broadcast. CNBC took over production of the show in 2013 and announced in 2019 that it would stop producing the show at the end of the year.
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Nov.3, 1981
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Oct.10, 1982
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Nov.4, 1982
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Jan.17, 1983
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Feb.23, 1983
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April19, 1983
NPR President Frank Mankiewicz steps down from his management role as word spreads about the financial crisis at the network [GAO summary, 1984]; he resigns May 10. An interim management team takes steps to bring operations under control, with Ron Bornstein filling in as CEO. The network lays off 84 employees, cuts newscasts and drops Sunday Show, a weekly program of arts and music.
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Aug.2, 1983
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Sept.5, 1983
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Oct.4, 1983
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March1984
The FCC loosens sponsorship rules to allow “enhanced underwriting.” The revised regulations follow up on recommendations from the commission’s Temporary Commission on Alternative Financing, authorized by the Public Broadcasting Amendments Act of 1981. Under the new rules, sponsorship announcements can include logos and slogans that identify but do not promote or compare locations, value-neutral descriptions of a product line or service, trade names, and product or service listings. But the regulations uphold prohibitions on interrupting programs for underwriting spots or fundraising activities “on behalf of any entity other than itself.”
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August1984
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Nov.28-30, 1984
In a meeting at the Wingspread conference center in Racine, Wis., a group of lay trustees and professional station managers develop a statement of editorial integrity for independence from state governments. The boards of PBS and the National Association of Public Television Stations later endorses the statement.
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1985
CPB begins aid to the Public Television Outreach Alliance, a station-led effort to create programs and outreach materials that deal with “pressing social issues of interest to many or all segments of American society,” according to CPB’s annual report. Kentucky Educational Television led the alliance with KCTS in Seattle, WQED in Pittsburgh, Nebraska’s NET and WETA in Washington, D.C. In 1986, the alliance mounted “Generation at Risk,” a follow-up campaign to The Chemical People, a 1983 limited series about drug and alcohol abuse.
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June1985
A CPB-funded study led by researcher David Giovannoni reveals that almost 90 percent of public radio listeners don’t contribute direct financial support to stations. The study, nicknamed “Cheap 90,” found that listeners’ perceptions of the importance of public radio in their lives was key to differentiating those who donated from those who didn’t. Current begins publishing “Radio Intelligence,” Giovannoni’s regular column on audience research, in January 1987.
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Nov.2, 1985
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July15, 1986
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Sept.30, 1986
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Jan.21, 1987
Henry Hampton’s Eyes on the Prize, a landmark six-part documentary series about the U.S. civil-rights movement in the 1950s and ’60s, premieres on PBS. Producers at Hampton’s Blackside Inc., were already working on a second package of documentaries, Eyes on the Prize: America at the Racial Crossroads 1965–1985, which premiered in 1990.
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Oct.11, 1988
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December1988
CPB publishes the final installment of Audience 88, a landmark study that provides a detailed portrait of public radio listenership and introduces a research-based vocabulary for making decisions about what programs to air. Directed by consultant David Giovannoni, the research’s message that “programming causes audience” aids public radio in significantly growing listenership and donor support in coming years. Giovannoni shares CPB’s 1994 Edward R. Murrow Award with Tom Church, founder of the Radio Research Consortium, in recognition of their work. Audience 98, a follow-up study examining the attitudes that motivate listeners to give, is completed in 1999.
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September1989
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Sept.22, 1989
The Independent Television Service, a program service to aid independent producers, is incorporated. In 1988, Congress passed legislation requiring CPB to establish an independent program service “to expand the diversity and innovativeness of programming available to public broadcasting.” ITVS begins operation in June 1991.
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October1989
In a restructuring of public TV’s funding and decision-making about national programs, PBS names Jennifer Lawson as its first chief programming executive. CPB adds $23 million to her budget. With her appointment, PBS implements its 1988 plan to end the Station Program Cooperative, created in PBS’s early years to let stations decide which national programs to fund. Lawson pledges to refresh PBS’ National Program Service, focusing first on children’s programming.
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Feb.16, 1990
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Sept.23-27, 1990
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July1991
“Tongues Untied,” a POV documentary about black gay identity, wins applause and alarms stations with its explicit language and sexual imagery. Don Wildmon of the conservative religious American Family Association criticizes the use of public funds to produce the film.
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Aug.26, 1992
President Bush signs a CPB reauthorization act with a Senate amendment requiring CPB to monitor “objectivity and balance” in programming.
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October1992
Congress authorizes the Ready to Learn Act, co-sponsored by Sens. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Thad Cochran (R-Miss.), supporting production and distribution of educational programs for preschool and elementary-school children. The Department of Education, which oversees the grant program, is authorized to contract with public broadcasters to create a “Ready to Learn channel” on the public TV satellite.
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Sept.16, 1993
California-based Radio Bilingüe starts a Satélite radio service for Latino public radio stations.
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January1994
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July1, 1994
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July11, 1994
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Oct.31, 1994
The American Indian Radio on Satellite (AIROS) network begins operations, serving stations on reservations.
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Dec.6, 1994
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May15, 1995
A House and Senate conference committee agree on a budget-cutting bill that reduces CPB’s advance-funded appropriations for fiscal years 1996 and 1997 to $275 million and $260 million, respectively. The rescissions trim 12 percent and 17 percent from amounts Congress had appropriated previously under the normal two-year forward funding process. CPB funding for 1998, to be set in the annual appropriations process, is yet to be determined.
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September1995
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September1995
The Markle Foundation backs a proposal by former PBS President Lawrence Grossman for two nights of ad-supported weekend programming on public TV. The idea goes public in June 1997 but falters.
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Jan.2, 1996
The CPB Board adds radio station audience and fundraising criteria for grant eligibility, effective October 1998.
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Feb.28, 1996
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August1996
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upholds the set-aside of digital broadcast satellite capacity for noncommercial programming.
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April1997
A group of public TV stations pledges not to air 30-second spots; others already have them on the air.
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April3, 1997
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June30, 1997
Public broadcasting’s total revenues pass $2 billion by the end of fiscal year 1997.
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October1997
The presidents of NPR and Public Radio International propose a merger; their boards say no.
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March1998
Minnesota Public Radio expands its endowment by selling its mail-order subsidiary Rivertown Trading for $120 million.
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April1998
Children’s Television Workshop announces its Noggin cable venture with Nickelodeon.
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May18, 1998
In Forbes v. Arkansas ETV, the Supreme Court rules that Arkansas’ state public broadcasting network has journalistic discretion to exclude a minor candidate in on-air debate, overturning an Eighth Circuit decision of August 1996.
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Seven public TV stations are among the first DTV broadcasters; PBS premieres Chihuly Over Venice, the first national broadcast of a program produced and edited in HDTV. The stations air a first test broadcast of “enhanced” (interactive) DTV, adapting Ken Burns’ Frank Lloyd Wright.
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December1998
The Gore Commission, formed to study the public-interest obligations of digital television broadcasters, recommends an additional digital TV station in every market for noncommercial educational purposes. It also backs a trust fund for public broadcasting. The White House, Congress and the FCC take no action.
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Feb.1, 1999
Former PBS Home Video distributor and Monkee Michael Nesmith wins a $47 million civil judgment against the network. (In July, PBS settles with Nesmith for an undisclosed amount.)
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July1999
House leaders erupt as Washington hears about mailing-list deals between WGBH and the Democratic National Committee. CPB releases new rules regarding mailing lists July 30.
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Sept.6, 1999
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Jan.20, 2000
FCC establishes a new class of noncommercial low-power FM licenses reserved for nonprofit organizations.
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February2000
NPR’s first ombudsman begins work: Jeffrey Dvorkin, the network’s former VP for news and information.
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Feb.4, 2000
PBS hires Pat Mitchell, a CNN documentaries executive, as its first woman president. She is also the first producer to hold the job.
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April12, 2000
Minnesota Public Radio expands into California — buying Marketplace Productions in Los Angeles — soon after taking on management of KPCC-FM in Pasadena.
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Oct.25, 2000
Six years after the collapse of American Playhouse, U.S. drama returns to PBS with occasional programs on Masterpiece Theatre, with other new dramatic series planned.
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December2000
NPR and other broadcasters lead a successful campaign to limit interference by restricting the number of LPFM stations that can be licensed.
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March15, 2001
PBS lays off 60 employees, the first in a series of workforce reductions that will shrink its staff by more than a quarter — from 623 to 456 — from fiscal year 2001 to FY2007.
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Sept.11, 2001
The attack on the World Trade Center knocks New York’s WNET and seven other stations off the air. WNET engineer Rod Coppola dies in the attack.
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2002
Channel proliferation shaves viewers from public TV’s average weekly cumulative audience. For the 2001-02 season, its full-day cume slips below 50 percent after hovering between 50 and 60 percent for many years.
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Jan.7, 2002
NPR launches The Tavis Smiley Show, a weekday morning show developed for public radio stations with large African-American audiences. Smiley quits two years later in a dispute with NPR and later returns to public radio with a weekly show for Public Radio International.
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Feb.21, 2002
A central figure in public radio’s rise, 19-year CPB official Rick Madden, dies at age 56. The public radio system had honored him with CPB’s Murrow award in 2001.
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Nov.2, 2002
NPR opens a West Coast production facility in Culver City, Calif. It becomes home for the new show Day to Day in 2003 and a co-host of Morning Edition in 2004.
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Nov.8. 2002
Bill Moyers’ blunt critique of Republican strategies on PBS’s Now outrages conservatives. CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson later says the incident prompted his campaign to adjust PBS’s political balance.
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Dec.13, 2002
PBS’s biggest underwriter, ExxonMobil, announces it will stop funding Masterpiece Theatre in spring 2004.
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Jan.31, 2003
In the largest efficiency-driven combination yet fostered by CPB, the New York City area’s WNET and WLIW merge.
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February2003
After consultants McKinsey and Co. deliver a study of public TV’s future, CPB says it will focus on projects to improve stations’ major-gift fundraising programs. A major-giving training initiative for public TV stations launches in 2004, and CPB backs a similar effort for public radio stations in 2007.
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Feb.27, 2003
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May1, 2003
More than half of public TV stations miss the FCC’s deadline for putting digital signals on air; the commission promises waivers.
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May30, 2003
The Public Radio Exchange (now PRX), a market for independent radio productions first proposed by independent producer Jay Allison in 2001, begins operations under the auspices of the Station Resource Group.
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September2003
Software developer Dave Winer expands RSS web syndication technology to enable attachment of audio files. The first use of this new version of RSS is to distribute interviews recorded by Christopher Lydon, a fellow at Harvard University’s Berkman Center for Internet and Society and a former host on Boston’s WBUR. Winer’s innovation paves the way for podcasting. Lydon later returns to radio with Open Source, a show building on his experiments merging radio and the internet.
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Sept.15, 2003
A California judge approves new Pacifica Foundation bylaws that adopt a democratic governance system.
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October2003
StoryCorps, developed by independent public radio producer David Isay, installs its first recording booth for what becomes a growing, nationwide oral-history project.
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NPR announces that McDonald’s heiress Joan Kroc, who died Oct. 12, had left the network more than $200 million.
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March23, 2004
NPR removes Bob Edwards as Morning Edition anchor, provoking listener outcry. Edwards takes a job at XM Satellite Radio in July.
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May21, 2004
The General Accounting Office advises Congress that CPB did not have the congressional authority to spend funds from its TV Future Fund, a pool of R&D money. Anticipating the ruling, CPB had already discontinued the TV fund in January. It later ended a comparable Radio Future Fund.
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July2004
Minnesota Public Radio splits with its offspring, Public Radio International, to distribute its national programming under the name American Public Media.
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Aug.12, 2004
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Oct.20, 2004
PBS announces a pact with Comcast, Sesame Workshop and Hit Entertainment to create a new PBS Kids channel available only to digital cable subscribers.
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Jan.25, 2005
Margaret Spellings, the new U.S. Secretary of Education, writes to PBS with “very serious concerns” about an episode of the children’s show Postcards from Buster, an animated spinoff of Arthur. The episode in question featured its animated rabbit protagonist meeting a family with two mommies. PBS withdraws the episode, but stations covering half the country air it anyway.
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Jan.30, 2005
The Association of Public Television Stations and the cable industry announce that major cable operators have agreed to carry as many as four multicast program streams from each public TV station in a market. Stations ratify the agreement April 14.
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April5, 2005
CPB appoints two journalists as ombudsmen, one of a series of decisions made by Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson, who had privately embarked on a campaign to bring more conservative voices to PBS public affairs programming.
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April8, 2005
CPB announces it will replace Kathleen Cox, who had clashed with Chairman Ken Tomlinson in her 10 months as president.
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The New York Times breaks the story of CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson’s campaign to influence PBS program decisions.
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June23, 2005
The House of Representatives votes 2 to 1 to restore cuts in CPB aid approved by its Appropriations Committee. Later the same day, the CPB Board elects Patricia Harrison as president. Major public broadcasting groups opposed the appointment because Harrison had been co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
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Nov.15, 2005
PBS’s first ombudsman begins work: Michael Getler, a former Washington Post writer, editor and ombudsman.
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Nov.15, 2005
CPB’s Inspector General finds that CPB Chairman Kenneth Tomlinson violated the Public Broadcasting Act and CPB guidelines, meddling in program decisions and injecting politics into hiring. Tomlinson had resigned days earlier after the CPB Board heard the inspector general’s preliminary report.
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January2006
Create, a multicast channel featuring how-to and lifestyle programming, begins national distribution through APT with carriage on 174 public TV stations covering nearly 63 percent of the country. World, a multicast channel with a nonfiction public-affairs focus, goes national in August 2007.
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January2007
Iowa Public Radio, a statewide network created through the merger of three university-owned stations, launches its news/talk service on 10 stations. It introduces a statewide classical music service in September.
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March2007
Vme, a Spanish-language multicast channel, launches on public TV stations in 16 markets. The PBS-styled variety service mixes educational children’s programs and general-audience fare, including how-tos, movies, current affairs programs and a telenovela teaching financial literacy.
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April2007
Leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus object to PBS’s response to complaints about the omission of Hispanic and Native American veterans in Ken Burns’ documentary series on World War II.
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July2008
NPR acquires Public Interactive, which provided specialized web publishing systems and tools to 170 public broadcasting stations, from Public Radio International.
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Nov.11, 2008
NPR chooses Vivian Schiller, GM of NYTimes.com, as its next chief executive and first female president.
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December2008
Stations and national producers including NPR, APM and WGBH lay off employees and cancel programs in response to funding losses triggered by the recession. Public broadcasters in Pennsylvania and Maine cite reduced government funding, while others point to sharp declines in membership and underwriting. NPR cuts its workforce by 7 percent and cancels two shows, Day to Day and News & Notes.
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February2009
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April7, 2009
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August2009
Reading Rainbow, a children’s literacy series starring LeVar Burton and widely used in classrooms, ends its PBS run when broadcast rights expire.
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October2009
A report by The Knight Commission on the “Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy” calls for public broadcasting to do more to “move quickly toward a broader vision of public service media, one that is more local, more inclusive and more interactive.” The blue-ribbon panel also recommends a modest increase in public funding to support a more robust and public media system, along with policy changes for broadband access, media education and government transparency.
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December2009
Congress allocates $25 million in “fiscal stabilization” funding to public broadcasting in a federal budget that also commits to increase CPB’s annual appropriation over three years. CPB received $420 million in fiscal 2010, as well as funds to support digital conversion ($36 million), public radio interconnection ($25 million) and Ready to Learn ($27.3 million.)
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April2010
CPB invests $10.5 million to build newsgathering capacity at stations through Local Journalism Centers, news units that produce multimedia coverage. Organized as collaborations among multiple stations, the centers cover topics of special interest within their regions.
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Bill Moyers delivers the last edition of Bill Moyers’ Journal, one of the anchors of PBS’s Friday-night public affairs block. His retirement doesn’t last long: In January 2012, Moyers returns with a weekly public affairs show, Moyers & Company.
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October2010
KCET notifies PBS that it will drop its membership Dec. 31, giving up its status as the flagship station in Los Angeles. KOCE in Huntington Beach, Calif., agrees to become the primary station for the region.
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Oct.20, 2010
NPR fires news analyst Juan Williams over his remarks during an appearance on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor. He acknowledged feeling worried about being on an airplane with people wearing “Muslim garb,” a statement that NPR said violated its ethics standards. The firing sparks a partisan attack on public broadcasting fueled by O’Reilly and prominent Republicans. Ellen Weiss, the senior news VP who fired Williams, resigns in January after a law firm that investigated the dismissal reports to NPR’s board.
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December2010
A coalition of public media advocates unveils “170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting,” a campaign to defend public broadcasting from federal funding cuts. APTS and American Public Media co-sponsor and co-manage the campaign.
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Jan.4, 2011
President Obama signs the Local Community Radio Act. Approved in the last days of the 111th Congress, the law clears the way for expansion of low-power FM stations by giving the FCC more flexibility to assign channels and resolve interference problems with full-power FMs and their translators.
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Downton Abbey, a British drama chronicling the social turmoil that World War I triggered for Britain’s landed gentry, debuts on PBS’ Masterpiece. With storylines centered on Lord Grantham, his American wife and three daughters, the seven-episode serial also features downstairs dramas among servants who run the vast estate. The debut season won an Emmy. The show became a break-out hit for PBS with the debut of the second season in January 2012.
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March8, 2011
Conservative activist James O’Keefe releases a secretly recorded video of NPR Senior VP of Development Ron Schiller and a member of Schiller’s staff. The video shows Schiller meeting with two men working for O’Keefe, who posed as prospective NPR donors representing a Muslim organization. Recorded at a Washington, D.C., restaurant in February, it features Schiller describing Tea Party members as “racist, racist people” and discussing the “anti-intellectual mood” of the Republican Party. NPR fires Schiller, and NPR President Vivian Schiller (no relation) resigns the next day.
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April8, 2011
In negotiations over a continuing resolution to fund the government, Congress agrees to eliminate the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program. The $20 million Department of Commerce program, which had long been targeted for elimination before the Obama administration took up the cause of shutting it down, provided matching grants to support signal expansion, replacement of old equipment and digital conversion of public TV and radio stations.
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June6, 2011
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announces the new operators of the stations that make up the state-owned New Jersey Network, which he is moving to dismantle. WNET in New York City secures a five-year management contract to operate NJN’s four full-power TV stations. New York’s WNYC acquires four radio frequencies; Philadelphia’s WHYY buys five FMs.
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September2011
CPB begins investing in joint master control operations for public TV stations with a $6.6 million grant funding startup of a centralcasting facility at WCNY in Syracuse, N.Y. A second facility at WJCT in Jacksonville, Fla., created with participation from seven stations in Florida and Georgia, receives $7 million in startup funding in March 2012.
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July26, 2012
WGBH in Boston acquires Public Radio International, the Minneapolis-based distributor and co-producer of national news programs PRI’s The World, which originates from WGBH, and The Takeaway, headquartered at WNYC in New York City.
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Oct.1, 2012
The declining health of Car Talk co-host Tom Magliozzi prompts producers of the show to stop taping new episodes. Car Talk ends production of original shows but continues distributing Best of Car Talk, a weekly compilation of archival material. Magliozzi dies in 2014 at the age of 77 from complications from Alzheimer’s disease.
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Oct.3, 2012
In a televised presidential debate, Republican candidate Mitt Romney reiterates his campaign pledge to eliminate federal funding for public broadcasting. Responding to a question about the federal debt, he tells debate moderator Jim Lehrer, executive editor of PBS NewsHour: “I’m sorry Jim, I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS. … I like PBS. I love Big Bird. I actually like you, too. But I’m not gonna keep on spending money on things to borrow money from China to pay for it.”
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Oct.16, 2012
The boards of KCET in Los Angeles and Link TV, a San Francisco-based satellite channel that shares KCET’s focus on serving nontraditional public TV audiences, approve a merger to take place Jan. 1, 2013.
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May8, 2013
Roku unveils the first collection of PBS programs to be offered on a streaming video-on-demand platform. Viewers can choose from a limited number of prime-time series such as Antiques Roadshow, Nova and Masterpiece.
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June28, 2013
Talk of the Nation, a midday NPR talk show that launched in 1992, broadcasts its last episode. NPR replaces it with an expanded version of Here & Now, produced by WBUR in Boston.
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PBS NewsHour Weekend, a 30-minute broadcast produced at WNET in New York City and hosted by Hari Sreenivasan, debuts. PBS backed the show to fill holes in its news lineup. Meanwhile, at PBS NewsHour, co-managing editors Judy Woodruff and Gwen Ifill become the first female co-anchor team on a network news broadcast.
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Oct.8, 2013
Robert MacNeil and Jim Lehrer, co-founders and former anchors of PBS NewsHour, announce plans to transfer the weeknight program to presenting station and partner WETA in Washington, D.C. The station assumes ownership July 1, 2014.
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Dec.2, 2013
The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a ban on political and public-issue commercials on public TV stations. Minority Television Project, licensee of KMTP in San Mateo, Calif., is a key party in the case, stemming from fines imposed by the FCC in 2003. NPR and PBS had filed an amicus brief urging the court to uphold the ban.
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Jarl Mohn, a philanthropist and investor who built his fortune in commercial television, signs on as NPR president. At the time of his appointment, he was board chair for KPCC in Pasadena, Calif.
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July28, 2014
NPR One, an app that uses an algorithm and user feedback to generate an audio stream of news content from NPR and stations, launches in Apple and Android app stores.
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Aug.1, 2014
NPR ends production of Tell Me More, a weekdaily program hosted by Michel Martin and focusing on news topics related to people of color. The show aired on 136 stations at the time of its cancellation.
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April23, 2015
PBS unveils a plan to invest in promotion and social-media marketing of its independent film series POV and Independent Lens, resolving a months-long conflict over primetime scheduling of the programs. Filmmakers had pressed PBS to designate the series for common carriage.
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Sesame Workshop enters a five-year contract with HBO to produce and premiere new episodes of Sesame Street on the premium cable channel. After a nine-month window of exclusivity, PBS and its stations will broadcast episodes. The program deal also adopts a shorter, 30-minute format for Sesame Street that PBS introduced on a trial basis in fall 2014.
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Dec.15, 2015
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Musician Chris Thile marks his debut as Garrison Keillor’s hand-picked successor to host of A Prairie Home Companion. The show is renamed Live From Here in December 2017. In June 2023, American Public Media Group cancels the show amid cutbacks prompted by the coronavirus pandemic.
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Gwen Ifill, a political journalist who helmed two of PBS’s signature public-affairs series, dies of cancer at age 61. Ifill simultaneously served with Judy Woodruff as co-managing editor and co-anchor of PBS NewsHour and helmed Washington Week as managing editor and moderator. In 2004, early in her tenure on PBS, Ifill became the first black woman to moderate a vice-presidential debate.
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Diane Rehm hosts the last broadcast of her eponymous midday talk show, winding down a radio career that she started as a volunteer at WAMU in Washington, D.C., in 1973.
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Jan.16, 2017
PBS Kids, a multicast channel and streaming service delivering 24 hours of daily educational children’s programming, launches on 73 public TV stations.
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April13, 2017
Public TV reaps at least $1.9 billion in the FCC’s television spectrum auction. Most public broadcasters earn millions through channel-sharing deals or moves to low-VHF channels, but eight agree to sell all of their spectrum and go off the air.
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Oct.31, 2017
The flood of revelations about sexual harassment in the media world engulfs public media as NPR puts Senior VP of News Michael Oreskes on leave. A Washington Post article published the same day details accusations against Oreskes of incidents of sexual harassment that occurred in the 1990s. The same day, NPR Media Correspondent David Folkenflik reports on a complaint filed by an NPR producer about an incident involving Oreskes in October 2015. Oreskes resigns the next day. Chief news editor David Sweeney also leaves NPR later in November following an investigation of sexual harassment complaints by two employees. The Washington Post publishes an exposé Nov. 20 about multiple accounts of inappropriate behavior by PBS host Charlie Rose; the network drops Rose’s show the next day. Citing “inappropriate behavior,” Minnesota Public Radio cuts ties with former Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor Nov. 29. A Dec. 1 article published by New York magazine reveals multiple accounts of harassment involving John Hockenberry, former host of WNYC’s The Takeaway. And PBS and Public Radio International drop shows hosted by Tavis Smiley in December after an investigation into allegations of misconduct.
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February2018
With fallout from the #MeToo movement continuing to roil public media, NPR confirms Feb. 6 that Daniel Zwerdling has left the network as Current prepares to break news of harassment complaints against the longtime investigative reporter by NPR employees. An outside review of NPR’s handling of harassment allegations, delivered to NPR’s board Feb. 14, reveals that leaders at the network were told of concerns about former news VP Michael Oreskes’ behavior before hiring him.
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Aug.15, 2018
PRX and Public Radio International announce a merger. PRX CEO Kerri Hoffman is named leader of the new company, while PRI CEO Alisa Miller transitions to a governance role as executive chair of the board. WGBH supports the merger with a $10 million investment. The new company is headquartered in Boston, with additional offices in Minneapolis and New York.
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March2020
The spread of the pandemic across the U.S. spurs public broadcasters into action. Stations and networks offer guidance to keep employees safe and prepare for remote work. PBS cancels its spring conferences, and other industry events are suspended. A March 27 federal coronavirus relief bill includes $75 million for CPB to assist stations. Meanwhile, broadcasters begin experiencing the financial impact of the crisis, particularly radio stations that depend on underwriting income from restaurants, travel businesses and event organizers. Stations and networks implement cutbacks and layoffs.
As the pandemic deepens, changes in listening habits take a toll on public radio’s audience that will endure for years. Public TV, however, experiences audience gains as homebound viewers stream more programming. Amid the disruption, public broadcasters step up to provide critical health information to their communities. They also work with educators and state entities to deliver virtual classes to students unable to attend school.
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June2020
The killing of George Floyd May 25 spurs widespread soul-searching about public media’s commitment to diversity, both in programming and within workplaces. Several stations review their social media policies after employees challenge policies that prohibit them from expressing solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. People of color within public media form Public Media for All, a coalition that asks participating stations and organizations to commit to changes within their workplaces focused on diversity, equity and inclusion. In January 2021, journalist and public media host Celeste Headlee publishes a call to action on Medium and in Current on behalf of the Public Media Anti-Racist Partnership.
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Dec.10, 2020
An FCC Report and Order on the transition to NextGen TV gives public stations flexibility to develop and deliver datacasting services as one of the “primary uses” of their spectrum.
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Jan.19, 2021
The FCC issues a Report and Order establishing new technical standards for distributed transmission systems to enhance ATSC 3.0 digital signals for public broadcasters. The ruling allows public and commercial stations to build DTS systems with limited spillover without individual waivers, providing the necessary certainty for broadcasters planning ATSC 3.0 conversions.
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November2021
A consolidation of PBS’ news productions moves PBS NewsHour Weekend, which originated from the WNET Group of New York, to NewsHour Productions, a subsidiary of WETA in Washington, D.C. NewsHour hires Geoff Bennett, a former White House correspondent for NBC, as chief Washington correspondent and host of NewsHour Weekend. (The actual move of the show was to be completed by April 2022.)
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Dec.1, 2021
NewsHour Productions takes over management of Washington Week, previously a separate production of WETA.
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June26, 2022
The NPR board approves a bylaws change to allow the rollout of the NPR Network, a plan to collaborate with stations on digital fundraising and to introduce NPR+, a bundle of ad-free podcasts available to donors. The NPR+ bundle launches Nov. 1.
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April2024
2024 begins with a surge of layoffs and buyouts throughout public media as stations move to counteract revenue downturns. The most layoffs occur in April and May. Stations cite growing expenses and declining underwriting income, including podcast advertising, as financial pressures.