The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s (CPB) board of directors voted on Jan. 5 to dissolve the organization after 58 years of operation.
“For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americans, regardless of geography, income, or background, had access to trusted news, educational programming and local storytelling,” said Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of CPB said in a press release.
The organization was a key factor in the sustention of the nationwide public media system, through the passing of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 by former President Lyndon B. Johnson.
The act established CPB to fund noncommercial educational radio and television programs with the assurance to be diverse, instructional, educational and free from governmental influence.
They fund NPR, PBS and hundreds of local radio and television stations across the U.S.
The decision to dissolve followed the loss of federal funding by Congress in the Rescissions Act of 2025 that passed on June 12.
The bill revokes the $9.4 billion in funds provided to the Department of State, the U.S. Agency for International Development, independent agencies and CPB.
“What has happened to public media is devastating,” said Ruby Calvert, chair of CPB’s board of directors in the press release. “After nearly six decades of innovative, educational public television and radio service, Congress eliminated all funding for CPB, leaving the Board with no way to continue the organization or support the public media system that depends on it. Yet, even in this moment, I am convinced that public media will survive, and that a new Congress will address public media’s role in our country because it is critical to our children’s education, our history, culture and democracy to do so.”
Harrison and Calvert reflected on ongoing concerns surrounding public media leadership, the impact of recent funding reductions and the political challenges facing the public broadcasting system.
“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,” Harrison said, as quoted in The New York Times.
CPB will be continuing to support the American Archive of Public Broadcasting and their effort to preserve historic content and will be working with the University of Maryland to maintain their personal records, as reported by the Associated Press.