Congress has voted to cut $1.1 billion in federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). The CPB has long supported public radio and television stations, including NPR and PBS. What does this mean for member stations like NPR Illinois? Randy Eccles, General Manager of NPR Illinois, and Kate McKenzie, Director of Development, sit down with Bea Bonner to discuss the impact of the funding loss and what the future holds for public media.
Transcript edited for clarity.
Bea Bonner: Hello there, everybody. It's Bea Bonner. You're listening to Community Voices right here on NPR Illinois. Today we are here with a very special recording of the show. We have been awaiting news about the state of public media and its funding. Well, last night we received news that the House approved a plan to rescind $9 billion. in previously allocated funds, including $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. that is the CPB. That is the move that cuts all federal support for NPR, like the station you're listening to right now, the member stations. I'm sure listeners, supporters, everybody listening right now have some questions and we're going to answer those today. With me, I have NPR Illinois general manager Randy Eccles, and our director of development, Kate McKenzie. Thanks for being here, guys. Even though it's a down occasion for being here today on the show.
Randy Eccles: It's always a challenge. We always face different things. The most important thing to say is that we are still going to be here. This doesn't shut down NPR Illinois or the NPR network. It does present some real big challenges when you're taking $500 million a year out of the system. That's going to have an impact.
Kate McKenzie: This is the federal funding, it's one of the funding sources that we have, and for us it's about 12% of our budget, usually about $200,000 at least, maybe a little more annually.
Randy Eccles: NPR gave us an analysis that said, beyond the grant we receive which is between $200,000 and $250,000, we also get additional benefits from the CPB funding. This includes the payment of music licensing fees and payment of interconnection fees -- things like satellite delivery to connect all the stations and the network together. The true loss to recover CPB funding is closer to a $400,000 impact on NPR Illinois. Thant's just this one local station on an annual basis.
Kate McKenzie: That's important, It's annual. It's not a one-time loss. This is the next two years that the funding was rescinded for, and we don't have an expectation that they're going to ever put it back in the federal budget. We'd be delighted if they would, but we have no expectation that this funding source will return.
Randy Eccles: NPR president Katherine Maher on Morning Edition alluded that some deals were made in congress. There's a Nebraska congressman who has been told some funding for PBS may be put into the next budget cycle. That was to get his vote. At this point, we don't know what will go through and be passed in the future by congress? There is some thought that money for native nation radio stations will be restored. The hard thing is, you still must pass a bill through Congress, and there's no guarantee that's going to happen. This public media defunding takes effect at the beginning of the fiscal year. Come October, that's when the money that we've depended on will disappear.
Kate McKenzie: The federal fiscal year.
Randy Eccles: We expected the FY2026 grant to be distributed to us at that point and now it won't.
Bea Bonner: Let's break this down. What does this loss of money for NPR Illinois mean right now?
Randy Eccles: For NPR Illinois, we are in pretty good shape immediately. What it does mean is that a lot of other entities that we work with, partners in the network, are going to suffer because all the stations individually help give a little bit of money, to American Public Media for example, which produces Marketplace. That funds Marketplace and a lot of these stations are no longer able to spend that money. It may be difficult for a show like that, or even more so a weekend show like This American Life to continue.
Kate McKenzie: It's a relatively small portion of our budget. There are stations throughout the country where it is a much larger part of their budget, sometimes 50% of their budget. While we may not be impacted immediately, there's going to be stations that are. Each station pays fees for programs. National programs that you love. Some stations may close. They may go off the air as they no longer have resources to pay fees. Could our fees change? We don't know. There's so much uncertainty and what the repercussions will be throughout the network that we really can't predict.
Bea Bonner: PBS stations will be more affected because they get a larger amount of that money. Can we talk about that?
Randy Eccles: The PBS stations generally get 75% of that funding and the radio stations get 25%. Public radio’s scale of economics is slightly different. It costs more money to produce videos. PBS stations are much more vulnerable to closure. For us here at NPR Illinois, we're going to be fine for now. The ecosystem may change quite a bit over the next two years. That may mean shows you really like will disappear. It could also mean that we must stop playing music because the CPB pays for the music license for all the stations in the country.
Bea Bonner: We'll go into that a little bit more, Randy, because I think people don't realize that NPR Illinois does do quite a bit of music.
Randy Eccles: We have a heritage of music since we started 50 years ago. Bluegrass Breakdown, Nightsounds Nightsounds Jazz, and CV-X are all locally produced music shows. CV-X features lots of local bands and artists. NPR Illinois Classic and The X from NPR Illinois are our HD/streaming music channels. Music licensing is required for all this programming. There are several different music licensing organizations to pay. It takes a lot to negotiate those fees, and it's not inexpensive. It may end up that music programming could be disrupted come the end of the year. That's when the licenses run through. Hopefully, something will be done to continue to allow music programs. Public media music has been a huge discovery platform for new artists. Somebody like Sabrina Carpenter is not going to need public media to get them out there, but for many of the new and emerging artists, it really is something they depend on, that exposure from their local public media station or things like Tiny Desk.
Bea Bonner: We've held the local Tiny Desk competition here within our studios and have been able to get artists in our community out there. On a community level, we're going to be affected. Talk about our local donors, our community members that will be affected by what's happened.
Randy Eccles: More of the burden of funding public media, your local station NPR Illinois, your local PBS station, and the network is going to fall on donors and businesses. There are some who suggest we start running commercials. Businesses can't advertise by FCC regulation on non-commercially licensed stations. We are prevented from running advertising on the air, but we are allowed to do what's called underwriting or business gift acknowledgments. In turn they receive neutral, descriptive announcements on the air. The script can't include a price; there are all kinds of different restrictions like that. Donors have been great. They've helped build this. A shout out to people who've spent 50 years building NPR Illinois and the public media system. Now, the government’s commitment is being pulled back. I think it's not the right decision. Public media was started because the commercial ecosystem in media was less than ideal, especially children’s television.
If you watched Saturday morning cartoons back in the day, there were all kinds of cereal and toy ads. The shows were designed to get kids to stick around and want things, whereas PBS works with educational researchers to make sure these programs have a value to the kids who watch them. Many think the internet replaces public media, but there are plenty of folks who can't afford a smartphone, can't afford a data plan, or might be somewhere where broadband is not available. PBS has filled the children’s education role. On the NPR side, local news coverage has been a big part of service. Some of the NPR journalism is contentious; folks disagree with the news coverage that PBS and NPR provide. Beyond that, stations deliver local connection, you have engagement, you have music, and cultural coverage. Community Voices talks with so many people in the region about topics that are not necessarily commercially viable. Because we're not dependent on selling commercials, we've been able to do that. That was the original idea behind public media. That is going to be tougher now.
Kate McKenzie: That's what's been lost in some of this debate about this perceived bias some people may have about NPR and PBS, the motherships, Essentially NPR national and PBS national, they're going to be affected the least. Most likely, what's going to be affected are the member stations like us.
Kate McKenzie: You're never going to get a Community Voices produced by national NPR. You're not going to get a Bluegrass Breakdown or a Nightsounds produced by them. In the more rural areas where stations are covering the weather, in cities where they are the only news, and the emergency alerts local stations provide, our member stations are largely what the emergency alert system runs through. Let's say a station closes in a more rural area. People are saying use your cell phone. Cell phones often don't work during bad weather when you need those alerts.
Bea Bonner: We've had a lot of extreme weather these last couple months and I just heard an NPR report that during some hurricanes or major floods that have been happening, NPR was able to get alerts to people when they didn't have cell phone service. They were in areas where people didn't quite know what was happening.
Kate McKenzie: In rural areas, phones die. There, people listen to NPR, to public media stations, on their emergency radios and their hand cranked radios.
Bea Bonner: That's what's at risk. The evacuation alerts.
Randy Eccles: That emergency weather notification that comes up, that's based on a system that's set up by both the Illinois Emergency Management Association and FEMA, among others and it mostly runs through PBS and public radio. NPR Illinois is the key point of distribution in Springfield. If the alert system is triggered, NPR Illinois then distributes it to all the other stations. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has their weather radio transmitter on our tower in Mechanicsburg. I don't think a lot of folks who are voting to defund public media understand the role we play in making sure people are secure. Talking about floods, Asheville, North Carolina ended up losing power for well over a week from post-hurricane flooding. Cell phones couldn't be charged. Most of the broadband and cellular systems were down. But if you had a crank radio or batteries for your radio, Blue Ridge Public Radio was able to keep you informed.
In central Illinois, we went through a similar event with the 2023 derecho. Power was out in many areas for almost a week. If you had a crank radio or a battery-operated radio, you could still get information while your cell phone, your laptop, or your TV didn't have power or connection. Public emergency response is a key service we deliver and we're going to need to figure out how to pay for that infrastructure.
Additionally, rural service; WIPA is a signal that we took on years ago to make sure that everybody, in an area where there's not universal broadband, and not a lot of other media can get information and get emergency alerts. About a year ago, the transmitter failed at WIPA. We've been working to get a CPB grant to replace that transmitter and upgrade it, so it is dependable. Because of the move to end federal funding, repairs to WIPA haven't happened and we're looking at between $200,000 if we just do the minimal, to $500,000 if we put in housing that doesn't leak and update other technology. This defunding is forcing us to consider whether we can maintain WIPA.
Bea Bonner: It really makes you put things into perspective.
Kate McKenzie: It does. This is where I'd like to talk about how listeners can help out. First, Randy, talk about the survey.
Randy Eccles: We hope we don't have to make any big programming changes. In the past, we’ve sent out a listener survey and asked you what programs are vital to you. It shows us the ones that aren't being used too much and that will help guide us if we must replace shows or if we need to give feedback to the system on what shows to make sure they save. You'll be seeing an e-mail soon asking you to complete a survey on how you are using NPR Illinois.
Kate McKenzie: Then we're going to rely on our donors to fund these programs. Fund what you enjoy. I want to acknowledge, many of you showed up big time for us during the spring drive in May. Thank you. We raised more than $150,000. We're grateful for your support. We know a lot of you have already given. We're taking a three-pronged approach. We need new donors. We need sustained giving, and we need major gifts. Let's start with new donors. About 10% of people who listen to public media financially support the station they listen to. If you listen and you appreciate what you hear and you, but you haven't given, now is the time to support this service. Think about all the streaming services that you do already support. If you're using NPR Illinois every day, consider funding the service. My next prong, monthly giving is going to help NPR Illinois the most.
Randy Eccles: The Calendar Club.
Kate McKenzie: Yes, just like your household needs a steady, reliable income. You can make a monthly donation in a couple ways. Use your credit or debit card, or set up a bank transfer, if you're at University of Illinois employee, you can set up a payroll deduction.
Randy Eccles: One of the positives about sustained giving that helps this station, as opposed to the one-time a-year donation are two things. We can better project what NPR Illinois can rely on for funding right now. That's huge. Also, it's been common in the past with folks who donate once a year that we'll get a phone call asking. “When was the last time I gave? I think it was last fall.” Turns out it was it was fall two years ago and they meant to last year, but it didn't happen because time slides. The Calendar Club automatic monthly donation program makes sure your intent to donate on a regular basis happens. Then you sustain the service NPR Illinois provides.
Kate McKenzie: If you want to start that monthly sustaining gift, you want to join our Calendar Club, go to nprillinois.org, click on the red “Donate” button. The Calendar Club option is at the top. It'll tell you different ways to do that. You can always call us here at the station if you have questions 217-206-9847. We're happy to help you if you're already a Calendar Club member and you'd like to increase your monthly donation amount. Email me your name, address and the amount you want to increase your gift to. My email is Kate.McKenzie@uis.edu. I'll take it from there. We love sustained giving. If you can only do a one-time gift, we appreciate that too. You can use debit or credit card, PayPal, Venmo, or Google Pay. if you want to write a check, go to that same place at nprillinois.org and you can find an address to mail it to. The address is in Chicago. It's the University of Illinois Foundation because we're part of the University of Illinois. UIS holds our license. We are the beneficiary of the University of Illinois Foundation. They do all our gift processing. They help us with planned giving. They help us with so many things.
Randy Eccles: There’s no charge to NPR Illinois. Other universities, even here in Illinois, do charge for foundation services. So, it's a real benefit.
Kate McKenzie: It's a six-figure benefit. It's it is not inexpensive what they're providing for the cause. Please send it to the University of Illinois Foundation Chicago. If you send it to hear us here at the station, I'm literally going to turn around and send it to the same address
If you want to wait for a letter from NPR Illinois, keep an eye on your mailbox. It's going out in late August.
Randy Eccles: Our fiscal year starts July 1 and goes through June 30. Receiving your one-time donations as early in the fiscal year as possible helps us know what we'll have to work with.
Kate McKenzie: I want to mention one other way to give. I've heard from several donors recently that they're at the point in the year where they must make a required minimum deduction or an RMD from their retirement accounts. If you're able to support us that way, thank you. I would appreciate it if you could let me know about that too. Sometimes when those checks come through, it doesn't say who it's from. I have one right now that I don't know who it's from. If you've made a gift recently from an RMD, and you haven't received a receipt from the foundation or a thank you from me, give me a call and we'll resolve it.
Finally, if you have the capacity for a larger gift, five-figures or bigger, give me a call here at the station, 217-206-9847. Or email me. Let's talk about what is needed to continue the service of NPR Illinois because this federal defunding is an annual loss. Larger gifts are needed to sustain the journalism, music, and connection NPR Illinois provides for the community. This is something we can start talking about. Could you do a major gift this year? Could we make a pledge over five years? Give me a call. Send me an e-mail and let's fill up my calendar and talk about how you can help support some something you obviously appreciate.
Randy Eccles: I review the numbers all the time. In my dreams, too. If the $400,000 impact the end of federal funding will create requires more donors, If donors double what they donate annually, that will cover the federal loss.
NPR Illinois has an operating budget of almost $2,000,000 annually. We are very efficient. We have the smallest staff we've ever had. We watch our expenses, but that $2 million budget, maybe there's an angel out there. An endowment that would produce the annual operating revenue needed, $2,000,000 a year, would require a $50 million endowment. You may not have that much, but every bit adds up. Please contact Kate and let her know what you can do. Who can help get us closer on our 50th anniversary? I'm totally fantasizing about a $50 million endowment, but I'm putting it out there.
Kate McKenzie: We are in the process of interviewing for two sponsorship account executives. Randy was talking earlier about those people who will help us work with businesses to get underwriting. We're hoping to have some good news on that front in the next month. They will be generating revenue from local businesses who want to support the mission and gain some recognition for their business.
It's been a rough 45 days since the recession was first announced, the possibility of it. The listeners and the donors are what have gotten us through it. You are amazing. When you call with your support or we see your donation and you send a comment. Thank you because we know we're in this together. Together we are in NPR Illinois, and it has never felt more like that than it has during the last couple weeks.
Randy Eccles: Together, we've built a great community, and we want to keep that going. Thank you very much.
Bea Bonner: To listen to past Community Voices segments, search this site. Production is provided by the Community Voices team. Special thanks to the Micah Walk Band for our theme music. Thanks for listening.
