03/01/2026
Today, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting formally dissolved as a corporate entity.
For nearly 60 years, CPB stewarded the federal appropriation for public media in ways that enhanced the lives of all Americans, ensuring everyone, regardless of where they live or how much they earn, has access to public media and the essential services it provides, free of charge. As a whole, public media provided such value, at so little cost to the taxpayer, that it received bipartisan support for decades and few thought it would be defunded.
However, throughout 2025, CPB and public media became the target of heightened, relentless partisan attacks with the goal of defunding CPB. Millions of Americans who value their public media station and recognize that public media's trusted, educational and informational content is vital to our democracy, expressed support for public media and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB.
Against the wishes of the majority of Americans, in July 2025, Congress defunded CPB by passing the Rescission Act of 2025 — a maneuver that enabled Congress to "claw back" already appropriated funds by just a single-vote margin.
Since then, CPB has survived mainly on private donations because Congress failed to provide basic closing costs. The CPB team has worked with unwavering professionalism to honor existing commitments and distribute remaining grants to local stations, producers, PBS, and NPR, even when only a handful of us remained. We mark their dedicated service with respect and gratitude.
Some have asked if CPB could survive on private donations alone until a more favorable political climate emerges that would favor restoring funding to CPB. The CPB Board of Directors gave very careful consideration to many options and concluded that dissolution was the only responsible path.
The longer CPB tried to exist without funding, the greater the probability that our remaining funds would never reach the public media system. Moreover, we grew increasingly concerned that funding directed to public media could become subject to new content restrictions, and that compliance would further harm stations and erode the trust we worked decades to build.
These risks were real and dangerous, and we would not allow them to take shape.
We could have survived by complying with demands for political control over news coverage, by rewriting history, by limiting the stories and information shared with the American public, by abandoning diverse talent, or by supporting content that increases divisiveness through disinformation.
But the American people deserve more. So, CPB took its last stand.
We invested in the innovative, sustainable solutions that will empower public media to survive in our absence.
Since October, we have provided over $170 million in funding into organizations, stations, and programs with the power to carry public media forward.
We made strategic investments that preserve public media’s legacy and strengthen its future, safeguarding the American Archive of Public Broadcasting so our shared civic history endures; maintaining national distribution of locally produced programming through American Public Television; supporting trusted, research-backed educational content; commemorating the nation’s 250th anniversary through StoryCorps; and advancing rigorous research that documents public media’s impact and role in supporting our democracy.
All of these measures reflect CPB’s enduring purpose: to strengthen education, preserve democratic memory, amplify local voices, and ensure that public media remains valuable to the public it serves.
The Board took the heart-wrenching but necessary step to dissolve this venerable institution not only for financial reasons but to protect CPB from continued attacks or other interventions that would diminish the institution, as has occurred at other federally funded agencies.
We are grateful for the public's decades of support for our mission and work, and thankful for your continued support to local stations struggling in the wake of the rescission.
The Public Broadcasting Act, which envisioned a public media system that put the public interest above profit, still exists. Let us look to a future when public media funding is restored in ways that honor that mission.
Thank you.
Often when you think you’re at the end of something, you’re at the beginning of something else. - Mister Rogers
