(Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty)
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
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Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
(Saul Loeb / AFP via Getty)
Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images
Before NPR, and before there were threats to defund NPR, there was a decentralized scattering of stations across the U.S. airing mostly educational programs.
There was WHA in Wisconsin, which broadcast updates on 4-H clubs and rising dairy prices. And KPFA in Berkeley, Calif., featuring Beat poets and interviews with civil rights leaders.
It wasn’t until the 1960s, when Congress began working on the Public Television Act, that the idea of federal funding for public radio came to the fore. Lobbyists from the University of Michigan’s radio station successfully convinced lawmakers to change the name of the legislation to the Public Broadcasting Act, tacking on the words “and radio” with scotch tape — literally. The legislation created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (the CPB). Not long after, NPR was founded and began to broadcast the All Things Considered news magazine in 1971
NPR’s All Things Considered news magazine officially launched in 1971. The network of stations carrying NPR shows grew from there, and the funding model was simple. Congress sent money to the CPB, and then the CPB would pay NPR to make radio shows.
But in the 1980s, NPR ran into financial problems. There was mismanagement under former NPR President Frank Mankiewicz. President Ronald Reagan wanted to substantially reduce public media funding; Congress compromised by reducing the CPB’s funding by 20%.
“We literally couldn’t pay the rent,” said Jack Mitchell, NPR’s first employee and former head of programming. “The phones were going to be cut off. They could padlock the door. It was at that moment of ‘we could go off the air’.”
NPR negotiated with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting for a $7 million bailout. They agreed that instead of giving NPR a lump sum, the CPB would send most of this funding to local stations who would then choose to buy radio shows from NPR. That’s an arrangement that exists to this day.
“Partly just to keep the money coming because the Republicans who were all for cutting it all off,” said Mitchell. “But it was less unacceptable to them if it went through the stations. And there was a philosophy that: public broadcasting was to represent the entire country.”
Today, NPR receives only about 1% of its operating budget directly from the federal government. Other revenue includes donations, returns from its endowment and corporate sponsorship.
However, NPR also receives about 30% of its funding from fees for its programs, mostly from its 246 member stations. Those stations receive an average of about 13% of their funding from the CPB, although there’s a lot of variance across stations.
Attempts to cut off federal funding are regular in Washington. In the 1990s, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich attempted to eliminate funding for public media. More recently, on May 1 this year, President Trump signed an executive order halting federal funding to NPR and PBS.
The executive order aims to stop federal funding directly to NPR, and orders member stations not to use any federal money they receive to benefit NPR. It’s unclear whether this means member stations cannot buy any NPR shows without losing federal funding.
“We’re really all just in a very much a wait and see mode of how that will play out,” said Gabrielle Jones, interim co-CEO of Louisville Public Media.
For now, stations like Louisville Public Media are working with their community.
“We’ve been focused over the last several weeks, in talking to our community about ways that they can make their voices heard and reach out to lawmakers and people like that to let them know how important public media is to them,” said Jones.
Under NPR’s protocol for reporting on itself, no corporate official or news executive reviewed this story before it was posted publicly.
For sponsor-free episodes of The Indicator from Planet Money, subscribe to Planet Money+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.
Fact-checking by Sierra Juarez. Music by Drop Electric. Find us: TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Newsletter.
