The board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting voted to dissolve the organization after Donald Trump‘s successful effort last year to roll back federal funding.
The move is not a surprise: After it became clear that funding would not be restored, the CPB announced in August it would be shutting down operations. It had about 100 employees, and a transition team has been in place since the fiscal year ended September 30.
Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the CPB, said in a statement, “When the Administration and Congress rescinded federal funding, our Board faced a profound responsibility: CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic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.”
The board vote was at the corporation’s Dec. 10 meeting, but it was announced on Monday.
GOP lawmakers voted to rescind $1.1 billion in federal funding already allocated to the CPB for the next two fiscal years.
The CPB was formed by an act of Congress in 1967 to distribute funds to public media outlets, including local stations and, through the years, NPR and PBS. The CPB has noted that the majority of its funding, about 70%, goes to local stations, not the national outlets.
As part of the closure, the CPB will distribute remaining funds and provide support to the American Archive of Public Broadcasting. CPB’s own archives will be preserved in a partnership with the University of Maryland.
Ruby Calvert, chair of the CPB board of directors, said in a statement, “What has happened to public media is devastating. After nearly six decades of innovative, educational public television and radio service, Congress eliminated all funding for CPB, leaving the Board with no way to continue the organization or support the public media system that depends on it. 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.”
In November, the CPB and NPR reached a settlement over litigation over a contract to provide almost $36 million in interconnection funds. NPR had claimed that the CPB withheld the funds in response to a Trump executive order. That executive order is being challenged in court, and CPB agreed not to enforce it unless a judge directs them to do so.
The CPB, meanwhile, has moved to dismiss its lawsuit against the Trump administration over its effort to remove board members last spring. “This case is moot and should be dismissed,” the CPB and the Trump administration said in a joint status report filed on Monday.