APTS President: PBS Funding Challenge 'Unprecedented'

“While this situation is unprecedented, it's important for us to recognize there is a path forward for success,” she said in her first speech at the summit as APTS president. Riley took over from longtime leader Patrick Butler last year.

“Federal funding is essential to the entire public media ecosystem,” she said. In letters to PBS and NPR, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said he was concerned that public broadcasters are breaking FCC underwriting rules by carrying commercials and thus shouldn't receive federal funding (see 2501300065). Riley and several attorneys representing public broadcasters told us they aren't aware of additional communications from the FCC to broadcasters about that investigation.

Carr said in an interview with the Policyband newsletter posted Monday that more action on the PBS and NPR investigations was coming. "We're preparing additional investigatory materials to look at the individual NPR and PBS stations to make sure that the materials they are running there are, in fact, underwriting and sponsorships and not crossing the line into commercialization." There is "also a broader debate in Congress right now about whether taxpayers should continue to be forced to fund NPR and PBS," Carr said. "And at this point, I've not seen a very compelling reason that that should continue." Franz Joachim, chair of the APTS board and general manager of New Mexico PBS (KNME Albuquerque), said public TV is facing “probably the biggest challenge to our funding since our inception.”

Riley said in an interview that President Donald Trump's executive order pausing federal grant programs has frozen funds going to about 40 stations connected with next-generation warning system grants. Those stations were counting on the funds for “critical updates to their infrastructure that delivers emergency alerts and warnings.” She said diversity, equity and inclusion policies and dependence on grants differ on a station-by-station basis, and APTS is advising stations to “look carefully at everything." Executive actions affecting the Department of Education also have implications for programs and grants involving public broadcasters, she said.

Cutting or eliminating federal funding would “have a devastating impact” on public television's local services in communities around the country, Riley said. Public broadcasting provides essential services, such as early education resources, emergency communications and “some of the last locally controlled media in the country," she said.

To preserve federal funding, Riley urged the gathered station managers to pitch lawmakers on their services and local focus and stress that PBS stations “are uniquely positioned” to offer a wide variety of perspectives. She said the 2025 summit saw record participation, with 389 registered to attend and meet with lawmakers, and APTS also invited 74 “community leaders” from station markets to help make the case. Funding for public TV amounts to one-hundredth of a percent of the federal budget, she said. Public broadcasting has “a positive impact on the lives of American people” that is “worthy of the federal investment,” she added in the interview.

Amanda Miller Kelley, general manager of WNIT South Bend, Indiana, said Riley's breakdown of the defunding possibilities was important for stations to hear. “Right now we have to be really honest about what all the options are,” she said. She said she's optimistic that public media will pull through. “PBS has been doing this for years.”