The White House’s threat to pull funding from public television and radio has sparked concern among Pittsburgh-area public media leaders, who say the move could seriously impact local communities.
The White House is expected to ask Congress to cut two years’ worth of funding that goes to PBS, NPR and their member stations, but it would not include $100 million allocated for emergency communications. Much of the 2025 funding has already been sent to local stations. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is funded two years in advance, so if Congress approves the rescission request, stations will mostly lose funding for 2026.
According to New England Public Media, funding for public broadcasting costs each American taxpayer $1.60 per year.
Per the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, only 18% of the $545 million in 2025 funding goes to fund programming content; 50% goes to support local member TV stations like Pittsburgh’s WQED-TV.
WQED president Jason Jedlinski said that funding accounts for 11% of WQED’s revenue. Jedlinski said WQED already received most of its 2025 funding. What’s hanging in the balance is mostly funding for the fiscal year 2026 and the provisional 2027 Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding of $535 million that was included in the March Continuing Resolution passed by the House and Senate and signed by President Trump.
On the radio side, 15% of Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s 2025 funding goes to local stations like Pittsburgh’s WESA-FM. Only 7% goes to national radio sources like NPR.
Terry O’Reilly, president of WESA parent Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting Corporation, said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting provides about 4.8% of total budgeted cash revenue for PBCB’s fiscal year. It has already received the $396,965 in community service grants expected for 2025.
But O’Reilly points out that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting also provides funding that benefits all public radio stations indirectly, not in cash, but for things that cover the entire system, including satellite feeds that deliver NPR and other public radio programming to local stations and paying for music license fees.
“We would each be required to replace (those at our cost) if CPB’s system-wide investments were to end,” O’Reilly explained.
On Monday evening, The White House issued a list of grievances targeting the Public Broadcasting Service and National Public Radio, as well as local public broadcasters to support its efforts to cut all funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
Among the gripes:
• PBS aired a documentary in 2024 that explored reparations for slavery, presumably a reference to a WQED co-production that confronted the issue with context and nuance.
• “Sesame Street,” which airs in second run on PBS but is not a PBS show, partnered with CNN for a town hall about Black Lives Matter.
• In 2024 NPR “ran a Valentine’s Day feature around ‘queer animals.’”
• In 2021 NPR reported “Many Scientists Still Think the Coronavirus Came from Nature.”
In late March, the heads of PBS and NPR appeared before Congress in a contentious hearing. Republicans assailed the public broadcasters with accusations of unfair coverage; Democrats supported the services, particularly PBS’s children’s programming.
That same day, WQED’s Jedlinski sent an email to WQED supporters, saying, “Whatever happens in Washington, D.C., WQED is not going anywhere. We are a Pittsburgh institution, founded 16 years before the Public Broadcasting Service.”
None of this back-and-forth is new to public broadcasting. The late Fred Rogers testified before Congress in 1969 when there was a threat to cut funding at the dawn of PBS’s existence.
Pittsburgh-based Fred Rogers Productions said the Corporation for Public Broadcasting helped finance the creation of all its PBS Kids series, including “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood,” “Donkey Hodie,” “Alma’s Way” and “Odd Squad.”
“Fred Rogers Productions relies on the professionals at local public television stations like WQED to reach children and families where they live and learn,” the company said in response to The White House’s Monday blast. “Thanks to partnerships with stations across the country and contributions from corporate and foundation funders, we offer free Daniel Tiger ‘Be My Neighbor Day’ events that encourage children and families to participate in family volunteer activities that help them contribute to their communities as neighbors.”