Lost CPB Revenue Would Be Hard to Replace For Some Public Stations

WAMU(FM) Washington would lose 5 percent, or $5 million of its budget, if CPB grants were eliminated, said General Manager Caryn Mathes. “That’s a large pinch that a radio station would feel.” Without CPB money, the station’s resources for buying national content would be affected, she said. That amount would be tough to replace from other sources of revenue, like membership or direct mail campaigns, she said. The average gift from one member is $135, she said, and “we don’t retain 100 percent of our individual givers every year.” Some memberships have longevity, while other members “will give one or two years in a row and then stop for a while,” Mathes said.

The station spends about $10 million annually on content, with the biggest bill coming from NPR, Mathes said. If any revenue source is cut, “then local dollars are going to have to step in and fill that need,” she said. “Local [programming] and new technology will suffer.” An elimination would pose a challenge for a joint licensee radio and TV network, like WHYY Wilmington, Del., said President Bill Marrazzo. “The loss could put additional pressure on us to find working capital to continue to invest in new media,” he said. “I can’t imagine a robust civilized society without a comparable public media resource to support it.” WHYY’s CPB funding for fiscal 2010 was $2.17 million, 7 percent of its revenue and support, a spokesman said.

The coverage area of Oregon Public Broadcasting includes some rural places, said President Steve Bass. That can’t be done without some subsidy.” About $2.4 million in CPB money is allocated to OPB each year, a spokeswoman said. “It would be “a huge loss to say to people in rural parts, ‘you're less important than people in urban parts,'” he said. Maine Public Broadcasting Network allocates about $1 million of CPB funding for TV and about $500,000 for radio, said Chief Financial Officer John Isacke. If public broadcasting lost its allocation, “we would survive as an entity, albeit a slightly changed entity, as we deal with that loss of funding,” he said. The biggest concern “is what happens to the national organizations if federal funding disappears and they lose dues from their affiliates,” he said.

The battle on Capitol Hill to defund public broadcasting by not having federal money pay for it is playing out differently than past such fights, industry executives agreed. Unlike in 1995 and 2005, the U.S. now faces an even bigger deficit, of $14 trillion, and widespread use of the Internet has changed how quickly information is distributed, they said. There now seems to be more focus on radio, some said.

"The big difference is that we're running this very large federal budget deficit,” said Pat Butler, president of the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS). Some lawmakers are looking for everything to cut, he said. “There’s a lot more chatter” among Americans about defunding, due to the Internet, which has positive and negative effects, Butler said. Digital platforms enabled the mass outpouring of public media supporters, during campaigns organized by public broadcasters, he said. But “lots of our opponents are using the same kind of social media to make the case against us,” Butler said.

In the current fight, “people have a greater understanding of the perilous fiscal condition,” said Claude Chafin, a spokesman for Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn. She voted for HR-1076. “At the same time, people have a better understanding of exactly how popular NPR programming is and believe that it can stand on its own two feet and it probably should,” he said. Some funding supporters expect the outcome to be the same as in previous years, with federal funding maintained. “It’s possible that public broadcasting can still win,” Lawson said. “I think that the White House will have a big say in the shape of the final compromise on FY 2011 funding and FY 2012.” Butler would accept a reasonable reduction in the federal subsidy, he said: Any reduction should be “consistent with the sacrifice they're going to ask others to make."

With the GOP in 2005 controlling both houses of Congress and the presidency, the threat was bigger than now, said President John Lawson of Convergence Services, who was the president of APTS at the time. “The big problem this year is there are few moderate Republicans, and the few that are left are hiding,” Lawson said. More emphasis on radio has emerged in the current battle, some executives said. “I haven’t seen them separate the two entities in the way that they're separated this year,” said Minnesota Public Radio President Bill Kling. HR-1076 “was aimed specifically at public radio and proposed to change the way public radio operates its program marketplace, with no mention of how PBS stations are to do the same,” he said. A larger radio audience has put more of the spotlight on public radio, Bass said. The industry “didn’t have a Juan Williams episode or a James O'Keefe tape,” Bass said. “There’s been a little more red meat that we've allowed to be thrown out there.” O'Keefe’s group taped an NPR executive criticizing members of the tea party, and the comments lead to President Vivian Schiller stepping down.