It’s been a year since Congress cut off federal funding for public media. How are things going?

Last July, the Republican-led Congress voted to end federal funding for public media, clawing back $1.1 billion in funds that had been previously allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. (The CPB officially shut down this past January.)

The depressing one-year anniversary is being marked by a slew of articles and updates on how public media is faring. The good news? The situation is not as bad as feared, thanks in part to a surge of public support — “white-hot rage-giving,” as a South Dakota Public Broadcasting executive put it to NPR’s David Folkenflik. But it’s unclear whether that level of giving is sustainable. “A boom in fundraising after a crisis often precedes a big decline when donors move on to the next emergency,” Current notes.

Here are some interesting bits from reporting on the anniversary.

An unprecedented level of donations gives stations “breathing room.” Tim Black, the CEO of WNIN in Evansville, Indiana, told NPR he’d “expected to pull about $770,000 from a reserve fund. But he hasn’t had to touch a penny of it. He says the station’s members have contributed a bit more than $1 million — about 40% more than usual.”

A recent Contributor Development Partnership report found that “all types of public media stations — radio, TV and joint licensees — saw double-digit percentage increases in total donors from 2024 to 2025,” Current notes. “For radio stations, the surge ended four years of year-over-year declines.”

“The number one thought on my mind in the last year has been, how do I retain these donors?” Rob Risko, VP of development and membership at LAist, told Current. “How do I keep this momentum going? How do I turn this movement into longevity?”

(It’s worth noting that the increase in donations and gifts has not prevented layoffs at stations large and small. Semipublic’s Public Media Layoffs Tracker counts 550 public media jobs lost between July 18, 2025 and May 27, 2026.)

Some states come to the rescue; others add their own cuts. Rural and tribal radio stations, which received a significant portion of their overall funding from the federal government, have been particularly hard-hit by the funding cuts. In response, Native Public Media (NPM) has established two new funds to sustain tribal broadcasting, the Alliance of Rural Public Media reported in April. And “New Mexico’s state legislature has included language in its FY27 budget to continue funding public media stations within the state, including four tribal stations in NPM’s network.”

Other states, though, have added their own funding cuts on top of federal ones. “In Alaska and Alabama, the next governor will influence whether state money for public broadcasting comes back (Alaska) or goes away (Alabama),” NPR public editor McBride notes. “The Wyoming legislature recently came close to cutting the $800,000 it contributes every year to public media, but restored the money to its budget after a public outcry.”

Some universities are walking away. More than half of NPR member stations are affiliated with a public university or college. Now, some of those institutions are reconsidering whether those relationships are worth the trouble, reports McBride:

Penn State University and the University of Missouri are both divesting their public media licenses.

After negotiations to transfer its license initially broke down, Penn State’s board of trustees voted last September to shut down WPSU as a way of saving $3.4 million a year in subsidies the university was supplying to the station. But in response to public pressure, they agreed to transfer the licenses to WHYY in Philadelphia. WHYY will take on the additional fundraising to keep WPSU, which serves central Pennsylvania, running with local programming. That deal is awaiting FCC approval.

The University of Missouri announced in 2025 a three-year window to convert the public media stations in St. Louis and Kansas City to community-run boards. The NPR and PBS stations in both communities are currently working to manage the transition. Mizzou is keeping KBIA in Columbia, which is run by the university’s legendary journalism school.

Other colleges that hold public media licenses are cutting the level of support they provide. WOUB in Athens, Ohio lost $1.2 million in federal funding, which resulted in staff cuts earlier this year. The station then learned that Ohio University was also trimming the station’s annual allocation, prompting the acting general manager to warn that more cuts may be coming this year, including possible program cuts.

Stronger together? WHYY and Penn State’s WPSU aren’t the only stations merging. The Public Media Bridge Fund, a philanthropic effort to sustain public media through the funding crisis, told McBride it is “currently reviewing around 20 applications for collaborations, mergers, and other cooperative agreements.” Boston’s GBH and New England Public Media merged in May. Rocky Mountain Public Radio announced earlier this month that it will acquire Community Radio for Northern Colorado. And this week, WAMC Northeast Public Radio announced its own collaboration with newsrooms around the region, including the Times Union, The Berkshire Eagle, and the Adirondack Explorer.

“The initiative reflects something we’ve long believed at WAMC,” the station said in its announcement. “Public media’s job isn’t just to produce good journalism, but to make sure good journalism finds its audience.”