A pending request from the White House to essentially eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is headed to the House floor and could spell disaster for some local media stations across the nation, including Unalaska’s KUCB.
The Trump Administration formally requested last week that Congress slash the budget for CPB, cutting $1.1 billion in previously approved funding.
According to KUCB’s General Manager Lauren Adams, the Unalaska public radio and television station would lose nearly half of its annual budget if this rescissions package is approved.
“We will all of a sudden be in a pretty dire situation,” Adams said.
If Congress approves the request, previously approved funding would be cut immediately. Adams said that type of on-the-spot funding cut is unique.
“The way that Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding works is it gets appropriated two years in advance,” she said. “So we have always, in the past, felt that the immediate future for our funding was pretty stable.”
The president’s proposed cuts to CPB are part of a larger $9.4 billion rescissions package. It’s money that Congress has already approved, and the administration is asking them to take it back.
CPB allocates funds to National Public Radio (NPR) and Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which President Trump has accused of being biased and partisan. But they also fund other grants and small, local organizations, like KUCB.
“One of the things they do with the funds is they distribute them to stations through community service grants,” Adams said. “And KUCB has a community service grant, and it is over $230,000, so about 40 or 41% of our budget.”
Adams said the radio station would likely sound very different if this funding is taken back. There would likely be less local content, and KUCB may have to go back to being more of a repeater station, instead of broadcasting its own news, music and coverage of local events.
Still, she said, compared to some organizations, Unalaska’s is lucky.
“We have a municipal grant, and we operate out of a municipal building,” Adams said. “So that means that our station is not going dark. Some stations won't be so lucky. There will be stations that go off the air entirely and probably give up their licenses in the next couple of years. KUCB is not in that boat thanks to local funding, local support, and also just the in-kind donation of the building that we rely on, that we work out of.”
KYUK News Director Sage Smiley told High Country News that the proposed cuts would be “catastrophic” for the public radio and television station based out of Bethel, which would lose 70% of its revenue.
The White House’s rescissions request passed the House Rules Committee and will head to the House floor for a vote Thursday. If it passes the House, it will head to the Senate floor next. It has to be approved by a majority of lawmakers in both chambers by July 18 to become law.
