The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) shut down back in January 6th after funding cuts by Congress caused the CPB’s board of directors to vote whether or not to dissolve the company. Ultimately, the vote passed leading to the dissolution of the corporation. The company was previously responsible for funding and promoting public media and public media stations around the country. Additionally, the CPB has also provided funding National Public Radion (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) along with funding for many of PBS’s shows that many will recognize one of which is Sesame Street among many others. Now without the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, both NPR and PBS are faced with monumental financial challenges but have assured that they will not be shutting down and will continue to serve their mission. Even so, the closure of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been a major blow to public media and public media funding.
Created on November 7th, 1976 right when President Lyndon B. Johnson had signed the Public Broadcasting Act of 1976, the CPB was tasked with developing educational, cultural, and other programming not provided by commercial broadcasters along with broadcasting programs to audiences who have been underserved or unserved by commercial networks. To fulfill this duty, the CPB worked in tandem with the Network for Educational Television (NET) which distributed educational TV programs around the nation. NET then would end up being replaced by PBS on October 5th, 1970 though the NET brand wouldn’t be fully retired until 1972 . Three years after its creation, the CPB had created NPR and unlike PBS, National Public Radio both produced and distributed programs. However, in 1978, Richard Nixon would be elected president. This would turn out to be the first signs of opposition to public media as President Nixon was well known for his dislike towards the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Public Broadcasting Service and vetoed funding bills among other actions hoping to dismantle the CPB. Back then, these efforts did not end up shutting down the CPB, at least, not until recent times.
Recently, one of the main focuses of Trump’s presidential agenda is to cut unnecessary federal funding in order to reduce the national debt and deficit. Due to this, funding towards many programs outside of public media were cut or heavily reduced alongside public media. On May 1st, 2025, Executive Order 14290 which was titled “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Biased Media” signed by President Trump called to end federal funding for NPR, PBS, and CPB. A couple weeks later on June 3rd, 2025, President Trump filed a recession bill that included congressional appropriation for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The bill was passed 9 days later. Then on August 1st, the CPB announced it would lay off a majority of its staff by September 30th, 2025 and would run on a skeleton crew until January 2026 to distribute whatever funds it had left and royalties. Finally, on January 5th, the CPB announced it would dissolve to avoid being exploited.
Since being dissolved PBS and NPR stations are left to fund themselves with some of them facing severe cuts to funding and staff especially smaller, rural stations with some even facing closure. For now stations are focusing on other streams of revenue such as donations, corporate sponsors, or state/local resources. Despite this, public media still lives on but the future looks uncertain but for now public media remains standing, bruised but not beaten.
