public medium system

The Corp. for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for PBS, NPR, 1,500 local radio and television stations as well as programs like “Sesame Street” and “Finding Your Roots,” announced last week that it would close after the U.S. government withdrew funding.

The organization told employees that most staff positions will end with the fiscal year on Sept. 30. A small transition team will stay until January to finish any remaining work.

The private, nonprofit corporation was founded in 1968 shortly after Congress authorized its formation. Its demise ends nearly six decades of supporting the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and emergency alerts about natural disasters.

Here’s what to know:

Losing funding

President Trump signed a bill July 24 canceling about $1.1 billion that had been approved for public broadcasting. The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense, and conservatives have particularly directed their ire at NPR and PBS.

Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced concern about what the cuts could mean for some local public stations in their state. They warned that some stations will have to close.

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday reinforced the policy change by excluding funding for the CPB for the first time in more than 50 years as part of a broader spending bill.

How it began

Congress passed legislation creating the body in 1967, several years after then-Federal Communications Commission Chair Newton Minow described commercial television as a “vast wasteland” and called for programming in the public interest.

The corporation doesn’t produce programming and it doesn’t own, operate or control any public broadcasting stations. The CPB, PBS and NPR are independent of one another, as are local public television and radio stations.

Rural stations hit hard

Roughly 70% of the corporation’s money went directly to 330 PBS and 246 NPR stations across the country. The cuts are expected to weigh most heavily on smaller public media outlets away from big cities, and it’s likely some won’t survive. National Public Radio’s president estimated that as many as 80 NPR stations may close in the next year.

Mississippi Public Broadcasting has already decided to eliminate a streaming channel that airs children’s programming 24 hours a day, including “Caillou” and “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.”

Maine’s public media system is looking at a hit of $2.5 million, or about 12% of its budget, for the next fiscal year. The state’s rural residents rely heavily on public media for weather updates and disaster alerts.

In Kodiak, Alaska, KMXT estimated the cuts would slice 22% from its budget. Public radio stations in the sprawling, heavily rural state often provide not just news but alerts about natural disasters such as tsunamis, landslides and volcanic eruptions.

From Big Bird to war documentaries

The first episode of “Sesame Street” aired in 1969. Child viewers, adults and guest stars alike were instantly hooked. Over the decades, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and Elmo have become household favorites.

Entertainer Carol Burnett appeared on that inaugural episode. She told the Associated Press she was a big fan.

“I would have done anything they wanted me to do,” she said. “I loved being exposed to all that goodness and humor.”

“Sesame Street” said in May it would get some help from a Netflix streaming deal.

Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. started “Finding Your Roots” in 2006 under the title “African American Lives.” He invited prominent Black celebrities and traced their family trees into slavery. When the paper trail ran out, they would use DNA to see which ethnic group they were from in Africa. Challenged by a viewer to open the show to non-Black celebrities, Gates agreed and the series was renamed “Faces of America,” which had to be changed again after the name was taken.

The show is PBS’ most-watched program on linear TV and the most-streamed nondrama program. Season 10 reached nearly 18 million people across linear and digital platforms and also received its first Emmy nomination.

Grant money from the nonprofit has also funded lesser-known food, history, music and other shows created by stations across the country.

Documentarian Ken Burns, celebrated for creating the documentaries “The Civil War,” “Baseball” and “The Vietnam War,” told “PBS NewsHour” that the corporation accounted for about 20% of his films’ budgets. He said he would make it up but projects receiving 50% to 75% of their funding from the organization won’t.

Influence of shows

Children’s programming in the 1960s was made up of shows like “Captain Kangaroo,” ’’Romper Room” and the cat-and-mouse skirmishes on “Tom & Jerry.” “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” mostly taught social skills.

“Sesame Street” was designed by education professionals and child psychologists to help low-income and minority students ages 2 to 5 overcome some of the deficiencies they had when entering school. Social scientists had long noted white and higher-income kids were often better prepared.

One of the most widely cited studies about the effects of “Sesame Street” compared households that got the show with those that didn’t. It found that the children exposed to “Sesame Street” were 14% more likely to be enrolled in the correct grade level for their age in middle and high school.

Over the years, “Finding Your Roots” showed Natalie Morales discovering she’s related to one of the legendary pirates of the Caribbean, and former “Saturday Night Live” star Andy Samberg finding his biological grandmother and grandfather. It revealed that drag queen RuPaul and U.S. Sen. Cory Booker are cousins, as are actors Meryl Streep and Eva Longoria.

“The two subliminal messages of ’Finding Your Roots,’ which are needed more urgently today than ever, is that what has made America great is that we’re a nation of immigrants,” Gates told the AP. “And secondly, at the level of the genome, despite our apparent physical differences, we’re 99.99% the same.”

McAvoy writes for the Associated Press.

The Corp. for Public Broadcasting said Friday it was shutting down, about one week after President Trump signed legislation stripping its funding.

The group, which administers funds for PBS TV affiliates and NPR radio stations, said it would “begin an orderly wind-down of its operations.” A majority of staff positions will be cut Sept. 30, when the group’s fiscal year ends.

“A small transition team will remain through January 2026 to ensure a responsible and orderly closeout of operations,” the nonprofit said in a statement. “This team will focus on compliance, final distributions, and resolution of long-term financial obligations, including ensuring continuity for music rights and royalties that remain essential to the public media system.”

Since returning to office, Trump has made a priority of yanking federal funding for public broadcasters as part of a wider campaign against media outlets that he dislikes. The president derided PBS and NPR as government-funded “left-wing propaganda.” Congress fell into line.

It passed a measure in mid-July that clawed back $1.1 billion that previously had been allocated for public broadcasting for two years.

Separately, lawmakers introduced a Senate appropriations bill for 2026 that excludes funding for the Corp. for Public Broadcasting for the first time in more than 50 years. Conservatives have long wanted to strip funding from public media because of its perceived liberal bias.

The actions left the group without a steady source of operating money — and little hope that more would be on the way.

“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” Corp. for Public Broadcasting Chief Executive Patricia Harrison said in a statement.

The organization dates back nearly 60 years and has helped nurture such notable programs as “Sesame Street,” “PBS NewsHour,” “NOVA,” numerous Ken Burns documentaries and “Antiques Roadshow.” Through its partnerships with local stations and producers, the nonprofit made a mission of supporting educational and cultural programming, local journalism and emergency communications.

The move could cripple smaller public stations, including those in rural areas that struggle to mount high-dollar local membership campaigns. The Corp. for Public Broadcasting helps support more than 1,500 local public television and radio stations nationwide.

PBS SoCal, which operates member stations KOCE and KCET in Orange and Los Angeles counties, respectively, was set to lose more than $4 million in federal funding, Andy Russell, president and chief executive of the stations, previously told The Times.

NPR has two large affiliates serving Los Angeles: KCRW-FM (89.9) and LAist/KPCC-FM (89.3).

LAist, based in Pasadena, will lose about 4% of its annual budget — $1.7 million. Alejandra Santamaria, the station’s chief executive, told The Times last month that funding helped pay for 13 journalist positions in its newsroom.

KCRW in Santa Monica had been expecting $1.3 million from the Corp. for Public Broadcasting.

The stations have asked listeners to donate in order to compensate for the shortfall.

“Public media has been one of the most trusted institutions in American life, providing educational opportunity, emergency alerts, civil discourse, and cultural connection to every corner of the country,” Harrison said in the statement. “We are deeply grateful to our partners across the system for their resilience, leadership, and unwavering dedication to serving the American people.”