Board dissolves Corporation for Public Broadcasting after funding cuts

• Congress clawed back more than $1 billion in funding for the corporation in July after President Donald Trump said neither NPR nor PBS "presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal" of news.
• The corporation said it would distribute remaining funds and support archival efforts.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has announced its board voted to dissolve the nearly 60-year-old organization, attributing the decision to a lack of federal funding and “sustained political attacks.”  

Such factors “made it impossible for CPB to continue operating as the Public Broadcasting Act intended,” according to a news release announcing the Jan. 5 vote.

The 1967 legislation established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a nonprofit and nongovernmental organization tasked in part with developing “programs of high quality, diversity, creativity, excellence and innovation” with a “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.” 

Over the decades, the programs that aired on PBS with support from the organization included children's programming like “Sesame Street,” “Mister Rogers' Neighborhood” and “Arthur”; cooking shows by luminaries such as Julia Child; documentaries from “Frontline”; science programs like “NOVA”; and “Masterpiece” dramas. Federal funding also supported a public alert system to warn viewers and public radio listeners of impending dangers.

President Donald Trump called for the federal government to stop funding National Public Radio and PBS, which received operating money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Trump claimed “neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.” 

Congress voted in July to claw back $1.1 billion that had been earmarked for public broadcasting over the next two years, prompting the corporation to announce the next month that it was starting an “orderly wind-down of its operations.” 

Organization employees were told Aug. 1 that most of the roughly 100 staff positions would be slashed by the end of the fiscal year Sept. 30. Some staff would remain through January 2026, the corporation’s news release said, to “ensure a responsible and orderly closeout of operations.”   

More than 70% of its federal funding went to local public media stations, the corporation said. PBS advocates told USA TODAY in July that the budget cuts would disproportionately affect rural areas. 

In the Jan. 5 statement, Patricia Harrison, the corporation’s president and CEO, applauded the service provided to Americans “regardless of geography, income or background” over the decades.

“When the Administration and Congress rescinded federal funding, our Board faced a profound responsibility: CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks,” Harrison said.  

Corporation for Public Broadcasting Chair Ruby Calvert called the developments “devastating” to public media. 

“Yet, even in this moment, I am convinced that public media will survive, and that a new Congress will address public media’s role in our country because it is critical to our children's education, our history, culture and democracy to do so,” Calvert said. 

The corporation said its “orderly closure” would include distributing remaining money and supporting the American Archive of Public Broadcasting in its efforts to preserve “historic content.” It added that it has partnered with the University of Maryland to preserve its own archives, which the corporation said would be made publicly available. 

BrieAnna Frank is a First Amendment reporter at USA TODAY. Reach her at [email protected]. 

USA TODAY's coverage of First Amendment issues is funded through a collaboration between the Freedom Forum and Journalism Funding Partners. Funders do not provide editorial input. 

(This story was updated to add a video.)