PBS stations in major markets will likely be able to carry on due to donations and corporate underwriting, but stations in rural areas (the types of places where Internet streaming is less viable due to poor infrastructure) will be heavily affected. Some rural stations get up to half their budgets from the CPB, and these cuts will likely make them have to shut down. In heavily rural states like West Virginia, Alaska, New Mexico, and Montana, the average public media station relies on CPB funding for over 30% of its budget. All of those stations are now at risk. More information: https://current.org/2025/04/heres-how-much-public-media-reli...

I think the idea that people in rural markets are watching PBS OTA linear content is a claim that will need to be supported with evidence. Linear television is dead, pretty much everywhere.

Sure! I'd love to provide you with evidence.

In West Virginia, a state with a population of 1.8 million, West Virginia Public Broadcasting reported 193,687 weekly TV viewers and 85,933 weekly radio listeners in FY 2023. https://wvpublic.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/WVPB-Annual-...

In New Mexico, a state with a population of 1.8 million, New Mexico PBS reported 720,000 weekly TV viewers in 2024. https://www.newmexicopbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/NMPB...

In Montana, a state with a population of 1.1 million, Montana PBS estimated around 250,000 weekly TV viewers and Montana Public Radio estimated 70-80 thousand weekly radio listeners as of a couple weeks ago. https://www.krtv.com/news/montana-and-regional-news/montana-...

I looked only at the New Mexico numbers, and they seem to be dwarfed by their own streaming numbers through Passport. Those OTA viewers are just going to switch to streaming.

The NM report says that there were 900,000 total Passport streams in 2024. Because there are 52 weeks in a year, that's an average of only about 17,300 streams per week.

Have you looked any closer at these numbers? This is something like 90% of the entire New Mexico household audience. Does that sound plausible to you?

If you're accusing them of lying on their report because it disagrees with the off-the-cuff remark you made about OTA TV being dead everywhere, then I'm not sure what I can do. I'm not a journalist. Personally I find it inspiring that New Mexico PBS has managed to become one of the most watched PBS stations in the country (often in the top 10 for prime-time viewership) when it serves the 37th most populous state, and feel that it's a great example of how public broadcasting is able to reach underserved communities.

No, I don't think New Mexico PBS is lying. I think it's much more likely that we don't understand the stat we're arguing about. Uh, I'm just going to come out and say it: even in 1995, at the height of linear television, 80+% of the NM market was not watching PBS. Sorry, this doesn't pencil out.

Streaming is not viable in the vast majority of the country. Just because it's available to the vast majority of the population doesn't mean that the minority who live in rural areas don't count.

If New Mexicans were truly going to turn en masse to PBS Passport streaming, why haven't they done so already?

– Nearly one in five households lacks any fixed home internet connection. Many of those rely on cellular data that’s unreliable or capped, i.e. not viable for high‑quality streaming. [1]

– Over 20% of residents, especially in rural and tribal areas, live in broadband deserts where wired speeds of 25/3 Mbps simply aren’t available. [2]

– Among tribal communities, up to 80% of individuals may lack internet access altogether. [3]

– Even for those who can stream, broadband plans often cost around $69/month, and Passport itself requires a donation of at least $60/year or $5/month. [1][4] That may not sound like a lot to us, but it’s a non-trivial monthly expense for a family living in the 6th-poorest state in the US. [5]

Public broadcasting remains vital for people without digital access, whether due to infrastructure shortages, affordability, or demographic factors like age and tech comfort. Streaming can complement, but cannot replace, over‑the‑air reach in New Mexico. The same is likely true for overlapping reasons in the other states that OP mentioned.

1. Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. Affordable Broadband for Every Household in New Mexico. https://www.benton.org/blog/affordable-broadband-every-house...

2. Viante New Mexico. Broadband Internet in New Mexico. https://viantenm.org/broadband-internet-in-new-mexico

3. Native American Budget and Policy Institute / UNM. Broadband Access on Tribal Lands in New Mexico. https://nabpi.unm.edu/assets/documents/covid-19-research/nab...

4. PBS Digital Support. What is PBS Passport? https://pbsdigital.freshdesk.com/support/solutions/folders/5...

5. https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/poorest-sta...

good post, thank you.

this thread so patiently explains to us that these people do not even exist. Oh, but not in significant numbers. Oh, but they have other options. Oh, but they will get broadband in 20 years.

Nobody who MATTERS is impacted. Nothing to see here, move along. /s

Only an anecdote, but when we vacationed in southern West Virginia, we relied on public radio. It's the only thing we could regularly get.

I watch OTA television.

I listen to linear NPR. But I know what the statistics are. None of this is going to be here 20 years from now.

the important thing about 20 years from now is that it isn't now

A valid point. Plain old tv is the past.

For the small number of people using it, it’s better to spend the money on internet infrastructure to bring them into the current century. Broadcast tv is one step up from old time radio.

If I was in a place without internet streaming, I'd get Starlink.

This sounds awfully close to "If I were poor, I would simply choose not to be poor."

If you were in a place without internet streaming, consider whether you’d have the economic means to pay for Starlink. Not everyone is earning the median Hacker News contributor’s income.

Starlink: $600 + $120/month

Radio: $20 + $0/month

Musk gave out free Starlinks during Hurricane Helene.

Pretty much everyone has a cell phone.

500 Starlinks? https://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/elon-musk-sta...

As opposed to 95% of US homes that have at least one radio receiver? https://www.insideradio.com/inside-story-radios-in-more-u-s-...

Usable digital cell service still doesn’t reach a good chunk of rural Americans.

I’m not sure why an expensive, technically-complicated solution would be an alternative to a free, simple, widely-deployed one.

> Usable digital cell service still doesn’t reach a good chunk of rural Americans.

What's the percent of that?

And what's the percent of people that leave their radio on 24/7?

"Musk gave out free Starlinks during Hurricane Helene."

Did he?

> As it turns out, the offer wasn’t as generous as it seemed, it’s really more of a new customer promotion.

> The Register pointed out that if anyone goes to sign up for the “free” service, there’re hit with a harsh reality: you have to pay for the equipment.

> But try to sign up for the ostensibly “free” service in an area Starlink has designated as a Helene disaster zone, and surprise: You still have to pay for the terminal (normally $350, but reportedly discounted to $299 for disaster relief, though that’s not reflected in Starlink’s signup page), plus shipping and tax, bringing the grand total to just shy of $400...

> According to the Starlink Helene page, new customers who qualify for free access will be automatically moved to a paid $120-a-month residential subscription tied to the location the terminal was set up for after 30 days.

> Even if you’re a victim that happens to be an existing Starlink customer, if you want those fees waived, you’ll have to file a waiver and then wait for it to be approved. [1]

Not sure why you're taking the world's richest sociopath at his word. And even if he were as charitable as you say, that would mean... what? We wait for another Hurricane Helene to hit every person without internet access? Then wait even longer for a billionaire to bail them out?

1. https://qz.com/elon-musk-free-spacex-starlink-hurricane-hele...

> if you want those fees waived, you’ll have to file a waiver and then wait for it to be approved.

Oh, the horror! Do you know that to get government services, you also have to file a form and wait for it to be approved?

Nice cherry-picking. Your post framed it like Musk was Father Christmas, handing out gifts to needy kids. It’s more like Columbia House [1] for internet access, and targeting hurricane victims to boot.

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_House

FEMA failed, and Musk stepped in to help.

If people didn't like Musk, nobody made them do business with him.

Complaining that someone would have to fill out a form to get free money is not a compelling argument.

So “help” and “buyer beware” are now synonyms. Got it.

> I call BS on the expectation that hurricane victims will read the fine print about a $120/month rate increase after they’ve just lost their homes.

They can simply cancel.

> If Musk’s goal is to “help” hurricane victims, maybe he can offer them something better than a bait-and-switch.

Again, FEMA offered nothing. Musk came in with Starlink. I should look into Starlink. It's cheaper than my cell phone plan plus internet plan.

My Comcast monthly cable bill is more than that.

And how much is your cell phone bill?

$70/month fiber internet. No tv. Streaming would be complicated because of CC rebates, but maybe $40/month net. Then $25/month cell phone.

But I set myself up to have to interact with cable providers, ISPs, and cellular carriers a bare minimum. Because they are just the worst.

> The actual PBS and NPR shows you're familiar with are generally developed and produced privately

Off the top of my head, two programs I watch that get CPB funding include: Frontline https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/about-us/our-funders/ NOVA https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/funders/

This is one place some sorta "trickle down" economics worked. CPB contributed to developing the content on PBS. Now PBS either has to cut costs by either canceling programs or ordering cheaper content that corporate sponsors like, run more pledge drives, or seek more corporate sponsors. None of those are appealing to me.

Also CPB helps keep rural stations open means all the niche local productions about state history or geology or whatever can happen.

It's a cut to the already strained budget of a wonderful resource. I'd be surprised if there weren't lost jobs and less quality as a result.

I think the cuts are bad and certainly there will be programming losses. It's just not an existential threat to public media in America, which has over the last 20 years become far less dependent on local stations. GBH, which produces Frontline, gets $177MM in revenue from major donors and viewer subscriptions.

I think I am starting to get paranoid but I wouldn’t be too surprised if they went after these donors next.

Yeah, I think you underestimate the structural dependency.

Xkcd comic is closer to reality. There is a base load to public good and we are about to find out

We'll find out, but I think always the bias on HN is towards whichever interpretation of an event is most dramatic.

It's unfortunate, but as someone who's been on HN since probably 2010, I remember the ethos of this site to news like this used to be a lot more "let's find an opportunity" – maybe I'm looking with rose colored glasses.

People would say "should we setup a donation site" or "how can we build a product that saves local affiliate stations money" etc etc etc. Maybe that's still happening quietly. But I just see a lot more doom nowadays in HN comments. (Just a feeling, obviously no data whatsoever to back it up)

> how can we build a product that saves local affiliate stations money

Let's bring back those supposed good 'ol days!

What are some valid business models that could successfully fund local affiliates? Knowing nothing of the industry, some initial questions come to mind:

- Is there value in cross-affiliate connections and referrals where a broadcasting association could work?

- Direct donations seems like a filled market, but what about donation pooling?

- Does private equity have an interest in these affiliates and why or why not?

- Is there a product in marketing and branding local stations that appeases YouTube and related algorithms? Would this fundamentally work against the mission?

Thanks for humoring me :-)

- Are there potential alternatives for some of the alerting products provided by the rural areas, that is lost in this process?

- Can we also use some of the same tech that's used by influencers, etc to reduce the costs for local affiliates? Like could the shows be produced at home, with cheaper gear, reducing their in-studio costs?

- Program scheduling can be done in the cloud, and maybe the content can be posted on YouTube for more monetization options, however small?

- It could overall lower the costs involved in running a station.

I feel like when society has an air of doom you are more likely to see it wherever you are. HN is still fairly international though.

I don't think it's HN-specific; I see the same thing on the other (local) board I spend time on. I think this is just human nature.

We had 15 years seeing how well "just throw a startup at it" actually pans out

It doesn’t help that many of even those rose-colored startups created 15 years ago have since crossed the rubicon.

It’s solid PR to mumble something about effective altruism being the justification for predatory capitalist behavior.

It just becomes hard to believe after the company was sold and the employees screwed over and the customers screwed over and the founders used their gains to financially support whatever authoritarian fantasies they had all along.

Turns out, people who are good at being ruthless aren’t doing so for a secret ethical reason: they’re just ruthless people.

Yeah... I have no idea why HNers seem more negative these days?

We are now in a timeline where dramatic concerns are legitimate. I would love to be proven wrong on this, but there's plenty of clues to show that I'm not.

Next up in the timeline - when a bad jobs report lands, the person reporting the unwanted data gets fired [0]. Undoubtedly a toadie will be put in their place who will report numbers that make fearless leader look better.

We are now well on our way to George Orwell's 1984 dystopia.

[0] https://www.cnn.com/2025/08/01/business/trump-job-report-num...

And how will not having semi-reliable data affect Wall St?

Honestly no one knows but two scenarios could play out:

1. The economy goes bad quickly as actoes realize they cant rely on data to make rational economic decisions.

2. Certain actors pay some quasi-governmental organization (say, "Friends of Mar-a-Lago Book Club") to get access to more accurate data, on the agreement that they make the stock market go brrrr, and they continue to make money.

Wasn't a significant contributor to the 2008 crash the fact that the ratings agencies were cooking the data?

Obviously different data and utilization, but as economic models require accurate data to forecast accurately, it could be a cascading effect.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Credit_rating_agencies_and_the...

They are horrible, and given that we now live in a fascist state run by fascists, I am just waiting for the pendium to reverse, and knock all of them out of existence, AGAIN. (Frontline rocks, NPR, and all of PBS rocks).

I don't know if I'm the only one that finds fault with:

> GBH, which produces Frontline, gets $177MM in revenue from major donors and viewer subscriptions.

Given Frontline is a production for public consumption, for public good, it shouldn't have to be financed by donations, it absolutely should be financed by the federal government.

I find your tone (sorry) offensive, in the sense that you DON'T find it dramatic and just plain terrible that CPB had to cease operations, just because billionaires feel it's a waste of "money that could be in their pocket" and obviously they prefer the greater population to be clueless and ignorant.

Me? I am furious. But what can I do besides the usual? Write my congresscritters, call them, write angry posts on Hackernews, donate?

Frontline is a product, just like all the rest of journalism. The time to have gotten on this high horse was when Craigslist slaughtered local media.

I guess you could blame Craigslist for commoditizing their competitor’s complement, which mattered because newspapers found their lunch being eaten from both ends: first by Craigslist with classified ads (which CL capitalized on with low-ish transparent flat fees for job, rental, real estate, and commercial posts), then by Facebook, which first became a direct source of truth for citizens to find local and regional newsworthy information, and then again when Facebook Marketplace became a competitor with classified ads in newspapers and on Craigslist.

Elon Musk talks about wanting X to be a super app, and I think he’s jealous of Zuck and Meta. Meta is a super app without having to be one, but since the failure of Libra Meta has been trying to get another bite at a similarly large apple, and general purpose AI isn’t a bad one to bob for, and X is trying to swim in those same waters.

This is useful, though it leaves open the question of what it means in practice that the grant-making organization is disappearing.

> and then purchased by local PBS stations

If those stations go off the air, who is buying that content?

It's like arguing it doesn't matter if the stream dries up the plants don't get water from the stream, the plants get the water from the ground. Where did that water in the ground come from? The stream!

You're right, these shows aren't going off the air tomorrow. But this does affect the funding for the shows produced by PBS and NPR.

This would make sense if CPB cuts meant all stations were going off the air, but the major market stations where most of the money comes from are fine.

If 20% of your pretty static set of clients went bankrupt wouldn't that pretty negatively affect your company? Or would it only affect it if all your clients went bankrupt?

Don’t worry, they will be able to get plenty of grants for content promoting Trump’s businesses

torrenting is a lot easier than using an antenna and ota dvr...

that said now that I have more than enough skills for these things...barely watch tv anymore anyway

it's so absurd to torrent public media that you can just record directly with a TV tuner and rabbit ears

I mean you kind of made it sound not too bad at all.

PBS doesn’t make PBS content either. They acquire it from people who make it using CPB money, among others. Then the stations that don’t make the content license it from PBS, mainly using CPB money. And they use it to attract members/donors.

You’ve framed this as if the disappearance of CPB and its money is basically a big nothing-burger, which is extremely far from the truth.

Source: I work in the system at a level with visibility into these things.

I don't think it's a nothing-burger. I think there will be programming cuts and layoffs even in the major market stations. But it's clearly not an existential threat to PBS.

> because you almost certainly weren't watching those shows on linear television anyways.

I'm just one person, but I definitely am watching the local PBS over an antenna, and so do several members of my family (living in different households).

The local broadcast is excellent quality, I get a good signal to it, never any glitches, and I enjoy the local news and other programming too.

I don’t watch my local PBS over antenna much anymore, but it is great, just like you describe. Amazing what you can watch for free OTA, when you think about it.

I've been running a MythTV backend to record OTA content since the early 2000's and PBS is, by far, my most recorded channel.

Here's a summary of the changes and the impact: https://democracy.diy/issues/save-pbs-and-npr/

The PBS budget has been cut by 15%, and the NPR budget by 1%. That's not enough to end either one at the national level. However, local stations depend on the CPB funding for 50% or more of their budgets. (Local stations provide local disaster alert systems and local programming.) There will definitely be local station closures and major cutbacks in the stations that survive. Large metropolitan areas will be the least affected. PBS and NPR will continue at the national level, as before.

The funding cuts are the result of an executive order that Trump issued on May 1, ordering the immediate cessation of all federal funding. Similar executive orders have been found to be illegal in federal court. (Congress had already guaranteed funding for CPB from 2025-2027, and only congress can take that money away.)

However, congress supported Trump a short while later (on July 24) by passing the Rescissions Act, which officially (and legally) ended all funding for CPB. And that's the reason for the current crisis: all federal funding for CPB is ending by the end of this year, which is only a few months away.

> Local stations provide local disaster alert systems

These days sending alerts via texting them to phones should be far more effective.

Not reliable, as cell sites can go down in disasters, while the giant secured antennae that broadcast PBS and NPR aren't going anywhere.

I have NEVER tuned into PBS for weather and disaster alerts. Growing up in rural America I've seen this headline multiple times, but I'm 99% sure in my community PBS doesn't actually do any weather coverage during tornadoes or similar. You MIGHT get a required alert tone and a banner, but no radar or anything of real value.

Our local news stations do an amazing job and they don't ask me to donate.

I spent over a week in an area that went without electricity and most utilities after a widespread disaster. By virtue of living through one previously, I had a generator hooked up to the gas line, so I still had power during and after this disaster.

Internet access was down, cable was down, cell service wasn't there or was overloaded 2G that was useless, but I had did have OTA DTV. The local PBS partner station covered pertinent information about what was going on, recovery efforts, when/where to get fuel and other assistance, what kind of disaster relief to expect and when, etc.

I understand my experience is subjective, but I'm actually a bit amazed. Thanks for the info, and I'm glad you had something.

Something similar happened to me like 15 years ago, and I just had a AM radio.

Wasn't service supplied during the Helene hurricane with Starlink?

When I was a kid in Kansas in the 1960s, the tornado warnings were done with a siren. And yes, we got hit by a tornado, but were safe because we heeded the siren.

> PBS and NPR will continue at the national level, as before.

It is not a given that they will continue as they did before, CPB's funding mostly goes to PBS and NPR for content, some programs are funded more than other via the CPB.

It is likely PBS and NPR will continue, but not as before, the cuts will impact programming and their ability to buy content that's produced at smaller stations that rely on CPB funds more.

Given that CBP is only 15% of PBS funding, I’m surprised they don’t start a national fundraising campaign instead.

I’d happily donate some cash to keep PBS’s lights on in red states.

Do you subscribe to your local station and have a Passport account? Consider doing that first.

I'm in the SF Bay Area. That's like spraying water at someone that's drowning.

I want a lazy way to send cash and have it go to whichever station needs it to keep the lights on.

Nothing stops any of us from donating to local stations or PBS/NPR directly. Here's a good reference link:

https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/5000692392-w...

With a quick search online, here's a list of the donation links for the 21 states that are currently listed as "Red" (based on 270toWin.com). It's kind of a Googlish reply.

Some are a little difficult because they're kind of fractured, like Missouri is a St. Louis link, Texas is an Austin link, Tennessee is a Nashville link, so its challenging to tell if your donation is going to the state in general or just the local town PBS. (May want to check specifically if you're targeting a specific market). Most tend to be statewide portals. However, you seem like you want to support PBS, so here's some links.

Alabama (https://donate.aptv.org/aptv/donate), Alaska (https://alaskapublic.org/support), Arizona (https://azpbs.org/support/), Georgia (https://www.gpb.org/support), Idaho (https://idahoptv.pledgecart.org/home?campaign=1FF20990-A386-...), Kansas (https://donate.kansascitypbs.org/kcpbs/donate), Kentucky (https://ket.secureallegiance.com/ket/WebModule/Donate.aspx?P...), Louisiana (https://lpb.secureallegiance.com/lpb/WebModule/Donate.aspx?P...), Mississippi (https://donate.mpbfoundation.org/mspb/donate), Missouri (https://www.ninepbs.org/support/), Montana (https://donate.montanapbs.org/kusm/donate), Nebraska (https://donate.nebraskapublicmedia.org/alleg/WebModule/Donat...), North Dakota (https://www.prairiepublic.org/support/), Oklahoma (https://www.pbs.org/donation/?station_id=edf8065c-f56a-42f7-...), South Carolina (https://www.pbs.org/donation/?station_id=50ac3de0-09e0-43db-...), South Dakota (https://sdpb.pledgecart.org/donate/home), Tennessee (https://donate.wnpt.org/wnpt/donate), Texas (https://donate.austinpbs.org/austinpbs/donate), Utah (https://donate.nprstations.org/upr/support-upr?gad_source=1&...), West Virginia (https://afg.secureallegiance.com/wvpb/WebModule/Donate.aspx?...), Wyoming (https://donate.wyomingpbs.org/kcwc/donate)

You may be right, but I'm guessing the Administration is not done with NPR and PBS yet. This is just phase I.

Maybe you weren't watching them on the TV but your grandma was most likely was.

The more important thing is that this is just another tiny step in the death spiral of the United States. Sad to watch.

CPB doesn't create programming. But they do write grants to the stations that purchase the programming. Isn't that just funding the creation of the programming with several steps in between?

> The actual PBS and NPR shows you're familiar with are generally developed and produced privately, and then purchased by local PBS stations

Purchased using funds from CPB. Most of the grants went to stations, not content producers. But pulling funds from stations will in fact harm the content producers too.

not something one gets to say very often, but you're insufficiently cynical, tptacek.

killing this means cutting of swathes of simple, orderly funding. what remains is donations etc, which is far less regular, and requires work to get, and is also easily attackable by presidential fiat.

we already know there's a bunch of actual lunatics in charge of the federal government, with a very wide variety of very stupid hobby horses. they get to ride them now and then, so how about some guesses at future trips:

- IRS starts going after big non-profit donors to public broadcasters, claiming they're in breach of some somewhat arbitrary and subjective rule that's been poorly enforced in the past, I don't know foundation disbursement rate or something, but also nudge nudge wink wink, if you stopped giving to PBS, maybe we'd forget about it

- FEC "clarifies" that promoting non-traditional-sexuality or whatever is political and thus it's illegal for non-profits to fund it, which of course would be an extremely funny turn given how the Right Wing Lunatics Association of America actually couped the country. this could of course be enforced entirely randomly - go after the NPR stations that are loud and annoying, go after the individual donors to them that the regime wants to make an example of.

- Congress passes some law that "clarifies" the purpose of non-profit status or something, to exclude anti-American speech, which is of course a clear abridgment of the 1st amendment, but of course that's fine in 2025 if it targets notional enemies of the regime.

killing this corporation just grants more power to the extremely partisan executive branch and extremely corrupted government and turns ever more of the functioning of the United States in to just expressions of the whims of the supreme leader and his favoured courtiers.

the current deliberate structural destruction of the united states seems underappreciated - every one of these moves turns the country in to more of a Whimocracy and destroys the bedrock of society that let it weather past terrible administrations.

Nixon was a historically horrible president, but the Washington Post fucking took him down. now almost all the big media is owned by Rich Cunts who make a public show of displaying subservience to the Dear Leader.

One of the biggest viewerships of these programs is the 2,500,000 prisoners in the USA. Most jails and prisons just pump the cheapest broadcast plans around to all the televisions in the facilities. I speak to people in prisons regularly and I'm often asked for schedules for things like NOVA.

Truth. The people who will lose it are the ones still consuming it over the airwaves.

... unfortunately, they're the ones who need it most, but when in America has bad government policy not hit the poor hardest and first?