In 2011, NPR executives “drafted a secret plan for the worst”
What would happen if Congress defunded NPR and PBS — something Republicans have renewed their push for following a House hearing last week?
First things first: “The funding bill passed by Congress and signed into law by Trump earlier this month included $535 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the entity that disburses funds to 1,500 local radio and TV stations,” CNN’s Brian Stelter and Liam Reilly noted last week. “Congress budgets money for CPB two years in advance, so the recent bill means public broadcasting is funded through 2027.” But the Trump administration has repeatedly attempted to freeze or cancel congressionally appropriated funding it doesn’t like.
The New York Times’ Ben Mullin obtained a copy of a report drafted by NPR executives back in 2011 that outlines what happen if the U.S. government stops funding the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, home to NPR and PBS. (And the situation has grown more dire since 2011, as radio listenership has continued to decline.)
The document, which has not previously been reported, is bleak. It describes a precarious radio system that will bear the blow poorly, with consequences for listeners across the nation.
“Most NPR member stations operate at, or barely above, break-even,” it begins. A cutoff would cause up to $240 million to vanish and up to 18 percent of roughly 1,000 member stations to close. The Midwest, the South and the West would be affected the most. Nationwide, up to 30 percent of listeners would lose access to NPR programming.
scoop in The Morning: When NPR faced defunding a decade ago, the board was shown a secret report laying out the potential carnage. It’s devastating. Up to 180 member stations would close down and $240 million would vanish from the public radio system.https://t.co/sPT2hpF9mu pic.twitter.com/R4na4RlfTR
— Ben Mullin (@BenMullin) April 1, 2025
Following her testimony at the House hearing, NPR CEO Katherine Maher spoke at ISOJ last week about the importance of federal funding for NPR:
In order to maintain the network that truly serves the whole country, you have to have federal funds. The cost of maintaining infrastructure in the high desert of the Southwest, the cost of maintaining infrastructure in the collars of Appalachia, in the valleys of our mountain systems, is extraordinarily high.
Infrastructure is not cheap. It requires people who can drive out towers and make sure they’re working. It requires the ability to ensure that that infrastructure stands up to tornados and hurricanes and all of the extreme weather events that we have across the nation. That is essential, and that is what a lot of federal funding goes into support.
It also means that rural stations, in particular — rural stations, tribal stations, stations that serve communities that are not very well off financially — are able to continue to exist and report, which allows for Americans across the country to hear from one another. So it is all well and good that New York may have hundreds of different media options for its residents, but if you don’t have the opportunity to hear from someone in, say, South Dakota, when something meaningful and important happens in South Dakota, we are no longer a 50-state network.