San Antonio public media outlets turn to listeners amid funding cuts
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Public TV and radio stations in San Antonio may find themselves with holes in their budgets after Congress rescinded $1.1 billion in Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) funding, according to publicly available financial data collected by a former NPR staffer and shared with Axios.
Why it matters: Public media outlets serve essential community newsgathering and emergency roles, but the Trump administration and others on the right have long accused them of left-leaning bias.
Zoom in: Of the total federal funding distributed, KLRN receives 17.3%, while KPAC, part of Texas Public Radio, receives 6.9%.
Zoom out: For hundreds of stations with available data, CPB grants made up about 10.3% of U.S. public TV stations' overall funding as of fiscal year 2023, and 4.1% for radio stations.
- That share is much greater for some stations.
- For example, it's more than 90% for KCUW in Pendleton, Oregon; KUHB in St. Paul, Alaska; and WVLS in Dunmore, West Virginia.
Between the lines: Public media stations in relatively populous, high-income cities tend to have better access to donors.
- But rural stations tend to be more reliant on federal dollars — while also serving key roles for local news and emergency broadcasts.
The bottom line: Many public TV and radio stations have recently ramped up their donation appeals to generate revenue amid federal funding cuts.
- "We've already lost roughly $630,000 in direct and indirect federal funding. We can't let that define us," TPR president Ashley Alvarado wrote in an email to listeners, asking for donations to TPR's Resiliency Fund.