Kerger: Viewers Helped save PBS Funding

Despite efforts to strip government funding for public broadcasting, PBS chief Paula Kerger said the federal budget deal retains most of the money that President Barack Obama had set aside for public television and radio stations.

The deal allocates nearly $430 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a 0.2% cut from what the president had proposed. PBS is also due to receive $6 million to help public TV stations make the transition to digital services, less than it had hoped for, and another amount for an education initiative with the funding to be determined by the Department of Education, she said. If passed by Congress and signed into law, this would make for another year where there was much talk about defunding public broadcasting, but no action. Kerger, president and CEO of the Public Broadcasting Service, said the response of viewers and listeners was key. The advocacy group Association of Public Television Stations coordinated a lobbying effort that had a half-million people send emails to congressional offices and more to make phone calls on behalf of public broadcasting. "That changed everything," Kerger said. "As eloquent as we hope we can be to articulate the case for public broadcasting, at the end of the day it's really the American people that count."