A Bleak Budget Outlook for Public Broadcasters

From 2008 to 2009, nonfederal support of public television stations declined an estimated $260 million, said Mark Erstling, a senior vice president at the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which administers federal money. For 2010, the public radio and television stations that the corporation surveyed were expecting to lose 14 percent of their overall revenue, he said.

In less than four weeks, NJN, the public radio and television network owned by New Jersey, will run out of state money to operate. Without a last-minute intervention, its outlets will go off the air on Dec. 31, and NJN’s 130 employees have already received layoff notices. With plenty of competing options being floated to reinvent NJN, no one really expects it to go dark in the long term. Last week, Gov. Chris Christie told The Star-Ledger in Newark that he expected to delay the cuts in order to give interested parties time to come up with a plan. NJN had been receiving about $11 million a year in state subsidies, including $4 million as part of its $18 million operating budget. But the brinkmanship underscores a difficult reality for public broadcasters. Even as they nervously wait to see whether Republicans carry through on threats to cut their federal financing, many are already grappling with deep cuts at the state level. The cuts have already taken their toll in Pennsylvania, where last year the elimination of nearly 90 percent of the state’s $8 million for public stations led to layoffs and the disappearance of local programs like WPSU-TV’s “Scholastic Scrimmage” quiz show for high school students. Other states, including Utah, South Carolina and Idaho, have already reduced public broadcasting subsidies, and public money may be cut in Mississippi and Virginia, too. Two years ago, New York’s public broadcasters faced a 50 percent reduction that was changed to 20 percent, and they had no cuts last year. The state-level cuts are part of a broader tough economic environment for stations, which also raise money from individual donors, foundations and corporate underwriting.