President’s FY 2021 Budget Eliminates Public Media Funding

By Cait Beroza |

On air

The President’s annual budget has again proposed the elimination of federal funding for public media.

For the fourth time in a row, the administration has recommended cutting funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provides critical support to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations across the country, including in the most rural and remote communities.

All proposals to cut funding are serious because:

  • Studies confirm there is no replacement for federal funding.
  • Rural communities could lose their only source of local media.
  • Low-income families with preschool age children could lose their children’s only source of educational media.

Enacted cuts to funding would harm local stations and Americans throughout the country.

Public media funding represents .01% of federal spending and amounts to about $1.40 per American annually. Cutting funding wouldn’t impact the federal deficit but would hinder stations’ ability to serve their communities.

What you can do right now:

Register your support for public media funding with your lawmakers today by taking one or more actions:

  • Call your lawmakers in support of public media funding. Our user-friendly patch-through calling system will connect you with your lawmaker’s offices in about five minutes.
  • Email your lawmakers to request that they vote for public media funding in just two minutes.
  • Text “PUBLIC MEDIA” to 58266 or sign a petition calling for the President to reconsider his position on public media funding (text message and data rates apply) in just one minute.
  • Sign up for action alerts in only one minute.

Soon, Congress will consider the President’s budget and debate federal funding for many programs, including public media. To protect funding, your lawmakers need to hear that public media matters to you and your community right now.

This isn’t the first threat to funding, and it probably won’t be the last. But we have been successful in continuing public media funding because we’ve voiced our support to Congress when it matters the most. Now is that time.