The Corporation for Public Broadcasting says it will wind down its operations after the Trump administration and Congress slashed its funding.
The organization funds PBS and NPR, as well as more than 1,500 local TV and radio stations. The “majority of staff positions” will end on September 30, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting said in a statement. A “small transition team” will remain through January 2026 to help close out operations.
NPR and PBS receive about half a billion dollars in public funds through the organization, CBS News reports.
“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” Corporation for Public Broadcasting President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement.
The organization cited a recent Senate Appropriations Committee bill for the upcoming fiscal year, which excluded Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding “for the first time in more than five decades.”
The organization also cited a “federal rescissions package,” which canceled $1.1 billion that had been approved for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. President Donald Trump signed the bill last week after threatening to withhold endorsements from Republican Senators who didn’t vote to approve it.
“Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country,” Harrison said. “We are deeply grateful to our partners across the system for their resilience, leadership, and unwavering dedication to serving the American people.”
Trump also issued an executive order in May instructing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and other agencies “to cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.” The White House went on to post a statement accusing the outlets of “bias” and spreading “radical, woke propaganda.”
NPR President and CEO Katherine Maher called the executive order “an affront to the First Amendment rights of NPR and locally owned and operated stations throughout America to produce and air programming that meets the needs of their communities.”
PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger called the order unlawful and said it “threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years.”
Kerger and Maher also defended their organizations against accusations of bias at a Congressional hearing in March.
