crs_reports: R48545

Congressional Research Service reports with summaries, authors, and topic classifications.

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R48545 Public Broadcasting: Background Information and Issues for Congress 2026-02-25T05:00:00Z 2026-03-05T14:07:53Z Active Reports Brian E. Humphreys Social Welfare, Telecommunications & Internet Policy, Public Broadcasting Discussion of public interest in educational or noncommercial programming dates to the early days of broadcasting. In 1938, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) set aside a portion of available radio channels for noncommercial and educational broadcasting, periodically updating policy as technology evolved. In 1965, the Carnegie Corporation of New York created the Carnegie Commission on Educational Television to make policy recommendations on public broadcasting. It recommended that Congress create a private, nonprofit corporation to support the development of local and national programming for public television (and later radio). This was enacted as part of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 (PBA; P.L. 90-129). The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was subsequently incorporated in 1967 as a private nonprofit corporation governed by a board of directors appointed by the President with the advice and consent of the Senate. The CPB served as primary custodian of federal investment in public broadcasting until it was defunded by Congress in July 2025. Congress rescinded previously enacted appropriations for FY2026 and FY2027 on July 24, 2025, through the Rescissions Act of 2025 (P.L. 119-28). However, appropriations authority remains under the jurisdiction of the Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies Subcommittees of the House and Senate Appropriations Committees should Congress decide to reestablish the CPB in the future. In addition to funds appropriated to it directly by Congress, the CPB was authorized to receive federal grant funds from other agencies for educational programming, support of public broadcasting emergency alerting functions, and other purposes. The White House took several actions in 2025 to curtail the CPB’s role in the public broadcasting enterprise, including directives to dismiss certain members of the CPB Board, to prohibit CPB funding of National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS), and to terminate or repurpose all other grant funding by federal agencies. Several of these actions were being litigated in federal court when the CPB announced the planned cessation of its operations. (The CPB periodically received private donations, but these were not sufficient to sustain operations.) On August 1, 2025, the CPB announced that it was beginning an orderly winding down of its operations in response to the rescission of congressional appropriations and Senate appropriators’ decision not to include CPB funding in their FY2026 appropriations bill. On January 5, 2026, the CPB announced its intention to completely dissolve the organization. The dissolution of the CPB reconfigured the landscape of public broadcasting. Historically, the CPB distributed appropriated funds to independent public broadcasting stations and content producers according to a statutory formula. In FY2024, approximately 10.6% of public television and 6.0% of public radio broadcasting revenue came from the CPB’s Community Service Grants (television and radio station grants). For some stations—particularly those in underserved or rural locations—the proportion of revenue was much higher. The CPB grants were the largest single source of funding for public television and radio stations and for programming development and distribution. Some of the nearly 1,500 independently licensed member stations that previously received CPB funding have announced staffing and programming cuts or announced plans to cease operations altogether. Many—but not all—of these stations are members of PBS and NPR, which were created by the CPB over 50 years ago to facilitate production and distribution of programming content in partnership with their member stations. With few exceptions, both PBS and NPR have retained member station affiliations and continued operations after the dissolution of the CPB, albeit with cutbacks. Much of their programming remains widely available as of the publication date of this report. Prior to the defunding of the CPB, much of the debate over the future of public broadcasting centered on the value of public broadcasting as a public good. Advocates for public broadcasting argued that public broadcasters provided balanced and objective information, news, children’s education, and entertainment in an internet-dominated media environment. Critics contended that public broadcasting has become less essential and that PBS- and NPR-branded public affairs comments reflected political and cultural bias. Congress may consider actions to clarify executive branch legal authorities vis-à-vis public broadcasting entities. Congress may also consider future annual appropriations to reestablish the CPB—under either current or amended authorities—or provide support to public broadcasting stations or content producers through other authorities and programs. Congress may also take no action. https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R48545/R48545.16.pdf https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/HTML/R48545.html

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