(The Center Square) – Leaders in Wisconsin public broadcasting said they are expecting to lose $6 million every year after Congress passed $1.1 billion in federal funding cuts to public broadcasting.
The cuts, first reported by WMTV-15 News, will directly affect the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS Wisconsin and Wisconsin Public Radio.
PBS Wisconsin and WPR receive 10.4% of their revenue from federal funding.
However, a broadcasting official said the rippling consequences of the cuts may run deeper than just the $6 million loss.
“This rescission will have a significant effect on public media in Wisconsin and across the system, but we do not yet know the scope and specifics of those effects until we learn more about how the funding cuts will be implemented and what the impact will be on the larger public media system,” Marta Bechtol, executive director of Educational Communications Board, said in a statement to The Center Square.
Bechtol said because CPB provides centralized services to the public media system such as educational research, content development and other contracted services, the cuts could force other Wisconsin stations to absorb the costs, driving up additional financial consequences.
While the funding cuts won’t be immediate, Bechtol said several changes are already being planned for next year, such as the cancellation of new shows at PBS kids and the ending of four programs on WPR due to budget challenges.
“We know that this rescission will reshape public media in our state,” Bechtol said. “But, our mission to provide essential public media service and statewide emergency alerts to Wisconsin will not waver.”
Some conservatives in the state, however, have pushed back on public broadcasting leaders’ views.
“These funds should have been cut years ago,” Mike Nichols, president of the Badger Institute, told The Center Square. “Government subsidies turn journalists – usually leftist ones – into lackeys for politicians, undermine the true value of the so-called Fourth Estate, and create unfair, subsidized competition for privately funded media.
“At any rate, if you can’t find out about a tornado or how to grow flowers somewhere other than public media, you don’t own a cell phone or a computer,” Nichols concluded.
The $1.1 billion cuts to public broadcasting were signed into law by President Donald Trump Thursday.
