Federal Public Broadcasting Funder Votes to Dissolve After Congress, Trump Eliminate Its Financing

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting confirmed its permanent closure following the removal of federal funding and internal concerns about operating without resources.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the federally backed nonprofit that for decades distributed taxpayer funding to public media outlets including PBS and NPR, has voted to dissolve entirely, formally ending operations months after Congress approved and President Donald Trump signed legislation stripping the organization of its funding.

In a Monday press release, CPB announced that its Board of Directors approved the dissolution of the 58-year-old entity, citing the $9 billion rescissions package passed by Congress and later signed into law by Trump in July 2025. The legislation eliminated $1.1 billion in CPB funding over a two-year period, effectively removing the organization’s primary source of revenue.

CPB leadership said the loss of federal funding, combined with ongoing political pressure, left the board with no viable path forward.

“When the Administration and Congress rescinded federal funding, our Board faced a profound responsibility: CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in the statement.

The board concluded that continuing to exist without the resources required to carry out its statutory responsibilities would not serve the public interest. “CPB’s Board determined that without the resources to fulfill its congressionally mandated responsibilities, maintaining the corporation as a nonfunctional entity would not serve the public interest or advance the goals of public media,” the release stated. It further warned that a defunded CPB could become “vulnerable to future political manipulation or misuse, threatening the independence of public media and the trust audiences place in it, and potentially subjecting staff and board members to legal exposure from bad-faith actors.”

Republican lawmakers responded to the announcement with public celebration, marking the end of the organization that for decades funneled federal dollars to public broadcasters. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Republican majority posted on X that “We exposed their woke practices, defunded them, and now they’re gone,” in a message shared online.

Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana also welcomed the dissolution in a separate X post, writing, “The Corporation for Public Broadcasting—which funneled your money to NPR and PBS to call birds, roads, and country music racist—is officially DISSOLVED. Good riddance,” in a statement published Monday. Kennedy’s post included video of remarks he delivered on the Senate floor during July 2025 debate over the rescissions package, in which he cited NPR headlines he argued reflected ideological bias, including “How racism became a marketing tool for country music” and “Donald Trump’s Long Embrace Of Vladimir Putin.”

The CPB was established under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 during former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society era and was designed to support noncommercial educational broadcasting nationwide. Its federal funding has long been controversial, with critics arguing taxpayer dollars should not support public media and supporters maintaining that the funding helped sustain local stations.

The organization had already begun winding down operations following the funding cut. In an August 2025 announcement, CPB said it would scale back as a direct result of the rescissions package. “CPB informed its employees today that the majority of staff positions will conclude with the close of the fiscal year on September 30, 2025. A small transition team will remain through January 2026 to ensure a responsible and orderly closeout of operations,” the nonprofit said in its Aug. 1, 2025 statement.

Monday’s board vote finalized that process, bringing to a close the federal entity that for nearly six decades served as the primary conduit for government support of public broadcasting in the United States.