Carr Calls for FCC Investigation of PBS and NPR Underwriting

“I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials,” Carr wrote. If federal funding is “being used to support a for profit endeavor or an entity that is airing commercial advertisements, then that would further undermine any case for continuing to fund NPR and PBS with taxpayer dollars.” "It is important to me, as Chairman of the FCC, that NCE broadcast stations stay true to their important missions and refrain from operating as noncommercial in name only," Carr wrote.

“This appears to be yet another Administration effort to weaponize the power of the FCC,” said Commissioner Anna Gomez in a post on X. “The FCC has no business intimidating and silencing broadcast media.” Public television and radio stations “play a significant role in our media ecosystem,” said Commissioner Geoffrey Starks. “Any attempt to intimidate these local media outlets is a threat to the free flow of information and the marketplace of ideas. The announcement of this investigation gives me serious concern.” Carr's letter is "baseless," Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said in a post on X. "He cites no evidence at all. Instead, this investigation is a dangerous attack on public media and local journalism."

The Carr letter warns NPR and PBS that their member stations may be carrying underwriting announcements “that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements." FCC rules require noncommercial educational (NCE) station underwriting spots from for-profit entities to avoid promoting the purchase of goods or services or including prices or "calls to action."

Carr said he would share the letter with lawmakers because the FCC’s investigation “may prove relevant” to a debate in Congress over public broadcast funding. “I do not see a reason why Congress should continue sending taxpayer dollars to NPR and PBS given the changes in the media marketplace since the passage of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967," he wrote.

PBS responded in an emailed statement: “We work diligently to comply with the FCC’s underwriting regulations and welcome the opportunity to demonstrate that to the Commission.”

NPR CEO Katherine Maher also defended her organization. “NPR programming and underwriting messaging complies with federal regulations, including the FCC guidelines on underwriting messages for noncommercial educational broadcasters, and Member stations are expected to be in compliance as well,” she said. “We are confident any review of our programming and underwriting practices will confirm NPR’s adherence to these rules.”

America's Public Television Stations didn't comment.

'Very Surprising'

Attorneys who have long represented NCE stations told us they were surprised that Carr took aim at public broadcasting. PBS and NPR are “exceedingly careful” to comply with FCC underwriting restrictions, emailed Margaret Miller of Gray Miller Persh, who represents some PBS member stations. “If one looks at the FCC’s past enforcement records on underwriting, it is clear that other noncommercial educational broadcasters (non-PBS and non-NPR stations) have accounted for the vast majority of the (very few in total) underwriting enforcement actions that the FCC has taken over the years.”

Although Republican criticism of PBS and NPR has been constant, Foster Garvey attorney Brad Deutsch said he didn’t expect Carr to get the FCC involved in the debate. Carr's letter is “just theater,” but the actual actions the Enforcement and Media bureaus take in pursuing the investigation could burden PBS and NPR member stations, he said. FCC investigations can require stations to turn over huge amounts of information on tight deadlines, becoming prohibitively expensive before fines are assessed, Deutsch added.

When Carr laid out his goals for the FCC in the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 plan, he didn’t mention public broadcasters. Another chapter in the plan, written by Heritage Foundation senior fellow Mike Gonzalez on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said the FCC should “exclude the stations affiliated with PBS and NPR from the NCE denomination and the privileges that come with it.” Carr was asked in a July press conference if he agreed with Gonzalez’s chapter but declined to discuss it. NCE attorneys told us they viewed Carr's exclusion of NCE stations in his portion of the plan as an indication that it wasn’t an issue for him. It's "very surprising ... that Chairman Carr sent this letter and initiated this inquiry,” Miller said.

Violations of the underwriting rules are typically assessed against individual stations and result in fines at most, Deutsch said. It would be unusual under FCC precedent for a station to lose its noncommercial license over such violations, he said. Historically, such investigations have been kicked off by specific complaints about underwriting content, he added. In fact, NCE attorneys told us it’s not clear if FCC rules allow the agency to begin an investigation that isn’t tied to a specific complaint. “I am not even aware of any pending enforcement activity, or even a complaint, against a public broadcaster that relates to underwriting,” Miller said.

Deutsch also noted there isn’t an existing process for punitively removing a station’s NCE designation because they operate on frequency bands that are reserved for noncommercial use. Removing the NCE designation of all PBS and NPR stations would likely require an act of Congress, he added.

The leaders of the Senate Appropriations Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies (LHHS) Subcommittee, which have jurisdiction over CPB funding, told us before Carr launched his probe that they expected there would be another attempt to at least end advance funding for public broadcasting in this Congress. The House and Senate Commerce committees and those panels’ Democratic offices didn’t comment Thursday.

“That’s always something that comes up,” and the House Appropriations Committee “has defunded [CPB] in their [annual] bill before,” said Senate LHHS Chair Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., who was the subpanel’s ranking member during the last Congress. House Appropriations cleared its FY 2025 LHHS bill last year without advance FY 2027 funding for CPB, while Senate Appropriations retained that money in its proposal (see 2408010059). “We’ve always restored [CPB’s money],” but “we’ll wait and see what happens” with the new Trump administration, Capito said. She noted that the Department of Government Efficiency advisory group has eyed CPB as a potential target (see 2411220042).

“Senate Appropriations’ bills tend to be very bipartisan and get the support of the vast majority of committee members, and [CPB funding] has always been included” in those measures, said Senate LHHS ranking member Tammy Baldwin, D-Wis., who was the subpanel’s chair during the last Congress. “It will be a condition of bipartisan support” from Democrats again in this Congress.