The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has long helped pay for PBS, NPR and 1,500 local radio and television stations and programs like \u201cSesame Street.”<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and television stations as well as programs like \u201cSesame Street\u201d and \u201cFinding Your Roots,\u201d\u00a0said Friday that it would close<\/a> after the U.S. government withdrew funding.<\/p>\n The organization told employees that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. A small transition team will stay until January to finish any remaining work.<\/p>\n The private, nonprofit corporation was founded in 1968 shortly after Congress authorized its formation. It now ends nearly six decades of fueling the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and emergency alerts about natural disasters.<\/p>\n
President Donald\u00a0Trump signed a bill<\/a> on July 24\u00a0canceling about $1.1 billion<\/a> that had been approved for public broadcasting. The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense, and conservatives have particularly directed their ire at NPR and PBS.<\/p>\n Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced concern about what the cuts could mean for some\u00a0local public stations<\/a> in their state. They warned some stations will have to close.<\/p>\n The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday reinforced the policy change by excluding funding for the corporation for the first time in more than 50 years as part of a broader spending bill.<\/p>\n
Congress passed legislation creating the body in 1967, several years after then-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow described commercial television a \u201cvast wasteland\u201d and called for programming in the public interest.<\/p>\n The corporation doesn’t produce programming and it doesn’t own, operate or control any public broadcasting stations. The corporation, PBS, NPR are independent of each other as are local public television and radio stations.<\/p>\n
Roughly 70% of the corporation\u2019s money went directly to 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations across the country. The cuts are expected to\u00a0weigh most heavily on smaller public media<\/a> outlets away from big cities, and it\u2019s likely some won\u2019t survive. NPR’s president estimated as many as 80 NPR stations may close in the next year.<\/p>\n Mississippi Public Broadcasting has already decided to eliminate a streaming channel that airs children\u2019s programming like \u201cCaillou\u201d and \u201cDaniel Tiger\u2019s Neighborhood\u201d 24 hours a day.<\/p>\n Maine\u2019s public media system is looking at a hit of $2.5 million, or about 12% of its budget, for the next fiscal year. The state’s rural residents rely heavily on public media for weather updates and disaster alerts.<\/p>\n In Kodiak, Alaska, KMXT estimated the cuts would slice 22% from its budget. Public radio stations in the sprawling, heavily rural state often provide not just news but alerts about natural disasters like tsunamis, landslides and volcanic eruptions.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0first episode of \u201cSesame Street\u201d<\/a> aired in 1969. Child viewers, adults and guest stars alike were instantly hooked. Over the decades, characters from Big Bird to Cookie Monster and Elmo have become household favorites<\/p>\n Entertainer Carol Burnett appeared on that inaugural episode. She told The Associated Press she was a big fan.<\/p>\n “I would have done anything they wanted me to do,\u201d she said. \u201cI loved being exposed to all that goodness and humor.\u201d<\/p>\n Sesame Street said in May it would also get some\u00a0help from a Netflix<\/a> streaming deal.<\/p>\n Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.\u00a0started \u201cFinding Your Roots\u201d<\/a> in 2006 under the title \u201cAfrican American Lives.\u201d He invited prominent Black celebrities and traced their family trees into slavery. When the paper trail ran out, they would use DNA to see which ethnic group they were from in Africa. Challenged by a viewer to open the show to non-Black celebrities, Gates agreed and the series was renamed \u201cFaces of America,\u201d which had to be changed again after the name was taken.<\/p>\n The show is PBS\u2019s most-watched program on linear TV and the most-streamed non-drama program. Season 10 reached nearly 18 million people across linear and digital platforms and also received its first Emmy nomination.<\/p>\n Grant money from the nonprofit has also funded lesser-known food, history, music and other shows created by stations across the country.<\/p>\n Documentarian Ken Burns, celebrated for creating the documentaries \u201cThe Civil War,\u201d \u201cBaseball\u201d and \u201cThe Vietnam War\u201d,\u00a0told PBS NewsHour<\/a> said the corporation accounted for about 20% of his films’ budgets. He said he would make it up but projects receiving 50% to 75% of their funding from the organization won’t.<\/p>\n
Children\u2019s programing in the 1960s was made up of shows like \u201cCaptain Kangaroo,\u201d \u2019\u2019Romper Room\u201d and the violent skirmishes between \u201cTom & Jerry.\u201d “Mr. Rogers\u2019 Neighborhood\u201d mostly taught social skills.<\/p>\n \u201cSesame Street\u201d was designed by education professionals and child psychologists to help low-income and minority students aged 2-5 overcome some of the deficiencies they had when entering school. Social scientists had long noted white and higher income kids were often better prepared.<\/p>\n One of the most widely cited studies<\/a> about the impact of \u201cSesame Street\u201d compared households that got the show with those who didn\u2019t. It found that the children exposed to \u201cSesame Street\u201d were 14% more likely to be enrolled in the correct grade level for their age at middle and high school.<\/p>\n Over the years, \u201cFinding Your Roots\u201d showed Natalie Morales discovering she\u2019s related to one of the legendary pirates of the Caribbean and former \u201cSaturday Night Live\u201d star Andy Samberg finding his biological grandmother and grandfather. It revealed that drag queen RuPaul and\u00a0U.S. Sen. Cory Booker<\/a> are cousins, as are actors Meryl Streep and\u00a0Eva Longoria.<\/a><\/p>\n
\nLosing funding <\/p>\n
\nHow it began <\/p>\n
\nRural stations hit hard <\/p>\n
\nFrom Big Bird to war documentaries <\/p>\n
\nInfluence of shows <\/p>\n