The Once and Future Debate Over Public Broadcasting

Liberals and conservatives have debated government support for public broadcasting since the 1967 Public Broadcasting Act was passed more than 50 years ago. The seemingly perennial argument centers on why the federal government should continue to support organizations like National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) and local stations across the country that use their programming. 

The issue is back in the hot seat as the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) scrutinizes NPR and PBS and Republican lawmakers and officials take aim at federal funding. Public broadcasters and their defenders are gearing up for another appropriations battle. The well-trod debate often revolves around allegations of left-leaning bias in public media, and this round seems no different. But researchers argue focusing on bias alone neglects a more important conversation on the role of public broadcast and how reforms to the system could better address current gaps in the informational ecosystem, particularly local news. 

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the original leaders of the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), teed up public broadcasting and its funding for another round of examination in a Wall Street Journal op-ed last fall. They specifically identified the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)—the congressionally established nonprofit institution that distributes some $535 million in annual federal funding to public media—as a target for cuts. But theirs was just the latest in a long list of attempts to zero out federal support. The Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 called for not only cutting funding but also revoking some of the licensing privileges for NPR and PBS stations. And President Donald Trump tried and failed in each of his first term budget proposals to eliminate the funding.    

In fact, as the author of Project 2025’s public media chapter noted, nearly every Republican president since Richard Nixon has tried to dismantle or pare back federal funding for public broadcasting. As a candidate, Mitt Romney took heat for advocating cuts to PBS in the 2012 presidential election. Then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich targeted public broadcasting in 1994 but eventually walked back his position. 

But public broadcasters fear this time could be different. Musk has succeeded in effectively dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and if not canceling, at least halting, billions in federal grants, all with Trump’s blessing. A hearing of the House Subcommittee on Delivering on Government Efficiency (DOGE) is set for late March, focusing on the “systematically biased content” of NPR and PBS. Subcommittee Chair Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, citing NPR’s handling of the Hunter Biden laptop story and PBS’ coverage of Musk’s questionable salute, suggested public media “doesn’t deserve a single cent of American taxpayers’ money.” 

While Greene’s subcommittee doesn’t make appropriations decisions, FCC Chair Brendan Carr is looking to add to the scrutiny. In January, he opened investigations into NPR and PBS over potential violations of the federal statutes governing underwriting for public broadcasters. The Communications Act bars noncommercial educational (NCE) stations—the licensing category under which public broadcasters operate—from running ads, but it allows for airing messages from station sponsors (also known as underwriters) so long as they don’t sound too close to commercial advertisements (e.g., the messages can’t contain things like pricing, comparisons to competitors, or calls to action).  

“The rules on underwriting have been relaxed over time,” Harold Furtchtgott-Roth, a former Republican FCC commissioner appointed by President Bill Clinton, told The Dispatch. If a station is found in violation of the underwriting rules, typically, the FCC and the violating station negotiate a consent decree to resolve the issue and a small fine may also be levied by the agency—the fines are usually in the thousands of dollars and almost never reach six figures. 

A veteran communications lawyer, who requested anonymity in order to discuss their experience working on these kinds of cases, told The Dispatch that the NPR and PBS investigations are highly unusual because the FCC normally doesn’t make a public announcement until after an investigation has found violations. Carr’s letter announcing the inquiries, which appears to scrutinize all 1,500 NPR and PBS network stations, suggests his actions aren’t based on current evidence of wrongdoing, saying only that he was “concerned” and that “it is possible” there are violations. 

But a narrow concern about underwriting doesn’t seem to be Carr’s goal in launching the investigation. “I believe this FCC investigation may prove relevant to an ongoing legislative debate,” he wrote at the end of his letter. “In particular, Congress is actively considering whether to stop requiring taxpayers to subsidize NPR and PBS programming. For my own part, 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. To the extent that these taxpayer dollars are 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.”      

Conservatives and critics of public broadcast argue the media environment has transformed such that the original need for federal support no longer exists. The growth of commercial radio and television broadcasts, cable television, and streaming services along with online content distributed via podcasts and YouTube reflects the vast expansions of the options available to people compared to the world of the 1960s, when just three major commercial networks dominated television. Illustrating how ossified this conversation has become, two George Will columns written nearly 20 years apart make the same exact argument about public media. 

PBS and NPR produce some much-beloved programs like Ken Burns’ documentaries and Morning Edition. But the argument that such programs would not exist today absent federal funding seems to have been overtaken by events. Sesame Street, for example, a lodestar for public broadcast defenders, moved to HBO back in 2016—although the program continued to air new episodes on PBS months after they were released, and the show is now back up for grabs. 

Republicans and conservatives also argue that NPR and PBS use taxpayer dollars to promote news and programming with a liberal bias that’s out of touch with broad swaths of the country. Former NPR senior business editor Uri Berliner’s April 2024 cri de cœur against the organization’s progressive bent provided fresh fodder for this argument; House Republicans held a hearing last May entirely premised on Berliner’s essay. Although often directed at public media broadly, NPR takes most of the heat for claims of bias. In contrast to NPR, PBS consistently ranks among the most trusted news sources although there’s a large partisan gap, with Democrats much more likely to trust the broadcaster than Republicans.  

Public media advocates counter that in our fragmented news environment with misinformation running rampant, federal support for public broadcasting is needed now more than ever, and public media offerings like PBS Kids are highly popular national treasures. Proponents also point to the importance of local public broadcast stations in the emergency alert system and distributing information during disasters when power, internet, and cell service can be lost. 

But researchers and some local broadcasters argue reflexive defenses of the status quo miss the need for the system to evolve. Seventy-five percent of CPB funding goes to local public broadcast stations in the form of community services grants, but much of that money flows back to NPR and PBS to pay for airing the national programming they produce. The Public Broadcasting Act requires local stations to spend 23 percent of their grant funds on national public radio programming and 25 percent for national public television programming. Stations also have to pay dues fees to NPR in order to broadcast its programs.

By design, this structure contributed to a decline of local production and programming. But in 2025, that’s where the need is, argued Howard Husock, a former CPB board member and research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. “It’s incredible what’s available commercially now at relatively low prices, but what’s not available is local journalism,” he told The Dispatch. Husock believes federal support should be reformed to allow and encourage local broadcasters to focus on local news. 

“There is a public good to be filled with local journalism, and they have got the network to do that with 1,000 licensees across the country,” he added. “But they’ve got to let those licensees keep their money. They’ve got to make a whole series of changes that would allow that to flourish.” Some of the larger local stations in big cities like WNYC do produce their own news programming and are important forces in their local news environments, Husock noted, but many smaller stations can’t afford to. Steve Waldman, the president of the Rebuild Local News coalition, argued that broadcasters have an opportunity to help fill the vacuum left by the local news crisis. 

NPR and PBS have traditionally banded together with local broadcasters in the debate over federal support, but the united front belies the tension between their interests. “PBS and NPR have their own ambitions and challenges,” argued Steve Bass, a 44-year public media veteran who served as the CEO of Oregon Public Broadcasting until last year. “We should expect them to be good partners, but they can’t and won’t solve our problems, even if that’s what they appear to be promising.” If federal funding is cut, many smaller local stations would take a harder hit than NPR and PBS, which would likely turn to large foundations and underwriters for more support.   

Distancing local public broadcasters from the bias debate surrounding NPR and PBS could potentially help those broadcasters gain more Republican allies on Capitol Hill. Rep. Claudia Tenney, a New York Republican, is one of the GOP lawmakers who has recently introduced legislation to cut federal public broadcast funds. But Tenney is also a leading proponent of increasing support for local news, sponsoring a bill in 2023 to provide tax credits to local news organizations. 

Regardless of whether doubling down on local journalism is the best path forward for public broadcasters, the status quo model is increasingly under stress as local stations have struggled to navigate the shift toward on-demand viewing and listening—stations pay to air NPR and PBS programs that viewers can alternatively access on demand via digital platforms. 

“There is a lack of candid conversation in public media about the changes occurring around us,” Bass argued. “National convenings often are celebrations of the status quo rather than opportunities for discussion and debate.” 

But if the policy conversation remains dominated by the two poles of abolition or staying the course, the more at risk the public broadcast becomes over the long term. “The funding debate should really be about what’s the need and the future,” Husock told The Dispatch. “[The] bias [conversation] assumes that everything is going to stay the same and you just don’t want it to be biased, but it’s got to be a much bigger debate.”