BETHLEHEM, Pa. — National Public Radio’s chief executive officer and representatives for Eastern Pennsylvania public media organizations said Thursday a clawback of federal funding would mean significant cuts to local programming.
The officials appeared in “Broadcast in the Balance,” an hour-long series of panel discussions and interviews broadcast from Lehigh Valley Public Media’s headquarters in Bethlehem.
The U.S. House of Representatives this month approved a bill rescinding $1.1 billion appropriated for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting over the next two fiscal years.
Virtually every public radio and public television station is legally entitled to money from the CPB, which in turn receives all of its revenue from Congress.
In an interview with PBS39 Executive Producer Brittany Sweeney, National Public Radio CEO Katherine Maher focused attention on NPR's member stations, rather than to the national organization she heads.
“This impact is direct to your local station That's the sort of thing that we want our lawmakers to understand is that this will directly impact their communities. It will directly impact jobs, and it will directly impact the ability of their constituents to know what's going on around them.”National Public Radio CEO Katherine Maher
Maher emphasized that the cuts will mainly affect the local nonprofit broadcasters that viewers and listeners know more intimately than NPR.
She also said the cuts will most acutely impact small stations in rural communities — areas often represented by Republican legislators that support defunding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
“This impact is direct to your local station,” Maher said. “That's the sort of thing that we want our lawmakers to understand is that this will directly impact their communities.
"It will directly impact jobs, and it will directly impact the ability of their constituents to know what's going on around them.”
Less than 1% of NPR’s funding comes directly from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, she said.
Some of the federal money paid to member stations returns to NPR as licensing fees. By law, about 24% of the CPB funding allocated for member stations must go to buy national radio and television programming.
'We are very concerned'
Lehigh Valley Public Media, which operates LehighValleyNews.com, PBS39 and WLVR, receives more than $1 million from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting each year, which amounts to about 20% of its revenue.
WVIA, which similarly manages radio, television and online offerings, also receives about 20% of its budget — roughly $1.2 million — from the federal government.
WDIY, meanwhile, gets roughly 15% of its revenue from CPB.
Critically for WDIY, the CPB also negotiates and pays for licensing agreements that allow member stations to air recorded music.
If federal funding disappeared, the station would need to come up with about $200,000 to pay for NPR programming and music rights, WDIY Executive Director Margaret McConnell said.
Both LVPM and WDIY posted budget deficits last year, leaving them less able to cope with losing revenue.
If the Senate approves the clawback measure, all three nonprofits would have to find ways to replace programming they could no longer afford to license or produce, Thursday’s panelists said.
“If we were to lose this funding, many of our programs would have to be cut back or reduced altogether," said Kate Sickora, chief development officer at Pittston-based WVIA.
“So we are very concerned. What's at stake is all the amazing community programs and services that we provide.”
"Broadcast in the Balance" also highlighted a Lehigh Valley Public Media summer enrichment program that was axed after the nonprofit lost a federal grant.
The Ready to Learn grant was cancelled because of a Trump administration order freezing funding for PBS and NPR.
The enrichment program now is moving forward once again after Bethlehem-based nonprofit the Garrigan Foundation stepped in with funding.
'We've had a lot of questions'
“Broadcast in the Balance” is meant to explain how the federal clawback would affect what local broadcasters offer, said Sweeney, who produced the program.
“We've had a lot of questions,” she said. “I think that it's important to make sure that we are showing people ‘Hey, this is really impacting real life kids and parents and families.”
Even though her employer relies on federal funding for a fifth of its budget, Sweeney said she and her collaborators at Lehigh Valley Public Media took pains to avoid making an infomercial for public media.
“We went through the script a couple different times,” Sweeney said. “We scrutinized every line, every word, to make sure that we weren't giving favor to our specific organization or the public media side in general.”
The broadcast examines the specifics of what public media organizations do and how funding cuts could change that, she said, rather than advocating for federal funding.
Sweeney said she invited several members of Congress to join Thursday’s conversation, including Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, Sen. John Fetterman and Sen. David McCormick.
All either declined to participate or did not respond, she said.
“I hope that we were able to show people the value in public media, because obviously we are a public media entity, but I also hope that we represented some of the voices on the other side,” Sweeney said.
“Sometimes it's really hard when people won't show up live.”
