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.