Attention Builds Around Possible Administration Objections to Public Broadcast Funding

Public broadcasting officials said they had heard reports of Trump administration plans to defund the corporation, though none knew for sure of such a proposal. “We don’t know what he is going to propose,” America’s Public Television Stations President Patrick Butler told us. Until a concrete proposal is issued, APTS is going to “hope for the best,” Butler said.

CPB hasn't heard from the Office of Management and Budget on FY 2018 budgeting, a spokeswoman said “We recently provided the OMB with CPB’s FY 2018 budget justification in the ordinary course of business,” she emailed. “We look forward to working with the new Administration and Congress in raising awareness of how the small national investment in public broadcasting pays huge dividends in education, public safety and civic leadership to millions of Americans and their families including those in rural and under-served communities.”

CPB is one of nine programs targeted for elimination in OMB draft documents, The New York Times reported Feb. 17. It said OMB officials would ask those agencies for responses by Friday, with a list slated for finalizing by March 13.

CPB’s operating budget was $445.75 million in FY 2017 and $445.5 million in FY 2016. CPB expects its FY 2018 budget justification to be posted publicly in early March, coinciding with testimony submitted to congressional appropriators, the spokeswoman said. The White House is expected to provide some version of a FY 2018 budget proposal around mid-March. Mick Mulvaney, the administration’s Office of Management and Budget director, was confirmed Feb. 16.

“The budget process is a complex one with many moving parts," a White House spokesperson emailed us. "It would be premature for us to comment -- or anyone to report -- on any aspect of this ever-changing, internal discussion before the publication of the document. The President and his cabinet are working collaboratively to create a leaner, more efficient government that does more with less of tax payers’ hard-earned dollars.”

Appropriators at Play

CPB falls under the jurisdiction of the Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies subcommittee in both chambers.

In the upper chamber, Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., is chairman and Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., is ranking member. In the lower, Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., takes the lead alongside ranking member Rosa DeLauro, D-Ct. None of their spokespeople commented on the possibility of this administration proposal. Cole sent a letter to subcommittee colleagues last week saying the deadline for “programmatic and language submissions” for the FY 2018 bill is April 6. “Although the fiscal year 2018 President’s budget request is delayed, the Appropriations Committee anticipates moving forward with drafting its bills as needed to assure their availability for consideration by the House,” Cole said. Some Republicans have long objected to funding for CPB. Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo., reintroduced HR-727 this year to slash its funding (see 1701310070). The Heritage Foundation also has argued against its funding.

For any proposal to defund public broadcasting to succeed, it would have to make its way around several highly placed allies of the service in both parties, Butler said in an interview Friday. APTS in 2014 recognized Vice President Mike Pence, then Indiana's governor, as a champion of public broadcasting. “Public television plays a vital role in educating all of the public, but most especially our children,” said Pence in his acceptance speech, in which he said choosing to continue providing funding to public TV while cutting the state budget “was an easy call.” Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Thad Cochran, R-Miss., also has been named a champion, and Blunt, who chairs the subcommittee that oversees CPB, will receive the same honor at APTS’s summit this week. So will Senate Appropriations Committee ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., Butler said.

APTS “has a lot of good relationships” with the House and Senate lawmakers who control its funding, said ex-President John Lawson, now executive director of the AWARN Alliance and president of consulting firm Convergence Services. Through numerous attempts to defund public broadcasting, its allies on the political right helped it to weather the crisis, Lawson said. “Public broadcasting has always depended on the kindness of Republicans.”

A GOP aide to Senate appropriators said it would be premature to weigh in on the budget request now. “Each year the Appropriations Committee evaluates federal programs and considers whether they effectively meet public needs,” the official emailed. “The President’s budget proposal is considered as part of that process, as are requests from individual Senators, input from hearings, and other reviews. The same will occur this year.”

Potential to ‘Devastate’

Cutting off federal funding to the CPB “would devastate public media’s role in children’s education, public safety and promoting civil discourse for Americans in rural and urban communities alike,” a spokeswoman said Friday. GAO “concluded there is no viable private substitute for the federal funding that ensures universal access to public media’s programming and services,” she added. “A 2012 report said that ‘the loss of federal support for public broadcasting risks the collapse of the system itself.’” She cited recent national surveys from Rasmussen Reports and PBS that “reveal that voters across the political spectrum overwhelmingly oppose eliminating federal funding for public television.” The Rasmussen survey shows “Republican support for ending those federal subsidies at only 32 percent, while Democratic support for these cuts is a meager 12 percent,” she said. “In the PBS Hart Research-American Viewpoint poll, more than 7 in 10 see public television as a good or excellent value for their tax dollars, on par with investments in highways, roads and bridges. In addition, 83% of voters -- including 70% of those who voted for President Trump -- say they would tell their elected representatives to find other places in the budget to save money if asked their opinion about eliminating federal funding for public television.”

Without federal funding, public broadcasting would quickly collapse, Butler said: Smaller stations sometimes depend on federal funds for a majority of their budget, and such stations would quickly fail. Without them, the largest stations would soon fail as well, Butler said. There’s not enough funding from grants, foundations and “viewers like you” to sustain public broadcasting stations, Butler said.

Public broadcasting should work to find alternative sources of funding, Lawson said. ATSC 3.0, the petition for which his AWARN Alliance filed alongside NAB and CTA, presents such an opportunity, he said. The new standard will allow public broadcasters to make money by renting out their spectrum for wireless uses, industry officials have said. The transition to the new standard is going to require more funds, which could mean public broadcasting needing a funding increase, Lawson said. Butler said the costs for upgrading to 3.0 compatible equipment will be defrayed by the $1.75 billion incentive auction repacking reimbursement fund, though some broadcast attorneys said such upgrades may only be partially paid for by the fund. Public broadcasting should also work to appeal to a broader base of customers, Lawson said. More programming intended to appeal to working-class viewers might make it harder to find support to defund it, he said.

The incentive auction also could be a complicating factor for any funding battles about public broadcasting, Lawson said. If lawmakers see public broadcasters or the institutions that operate them receiving large cash payouts from the auction, it would undercut the case for federal funding, he said. The few noncommercial educational stations that have announced their results have received big sums, Butler said, though no major market station has reported selling out. With the auction’s smaller-than-expected-clearing target, he said it’s unlikely any NCE station will have received a huge payout. The amount of funds gained for public broadcasters from the auction won't come near to enough to replace federal funding, Butler said.

The allies on the Hill and a strong grassroots organization mean public broadcasting is “better prepared than ever before” for a funding fight, Butler said. But he didn’t want to minimize the potential problem. If a president proposed defunding public broadcasting “we know we’d have a big battle on our hands,” Butler said.

Public broadcasting survived proposals to cut funding from George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, but the current political climate could be even tougher, said attorney Todd Gray, who represents public TV stations with Gray Miller. “I wish I could say I was confident, but we live in a world where things have changed,” Gray said. “The question is, has this changed, too?”