DC talk of funding threats to public TV and radio triggers fears for Charlotte stations

Amid calls from Republicans in Congress to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting which funds National Public Radio the Public Broadcasting Service, Charlotte public media leaders said supporting their work is more important than ever.

On Wednesday, Republican members of a Delivering on Government Efficiency subcommittee hearing called “Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the heads of NPR and PBS Accountable” grilled NPR and PBS leaders about their content.

U.S. Rep. Majorie Taylor Green, the committee’s chair, claimed the outlets were using taxpayer dollars to “suppress the truth, suppress diverse viewpoints and produce some of the most outlandish, ludicrous content,” the Poynter Institute reported.

“We will be calling for the complete and total defund and dismantling of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting,” Taylor said.

NPR and PBS stations are partially funded by The Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The non-profit, founded by Congress in 1967, was created to be a steward over the government’s investment in public media.

In North Carolina, the organization supports 12 TV and radio stations including WFAE, WDAV and WTVI in the Charlotte area.

Ju-Don Marshall, CEO of public radio station WFAE, told The Charlotte Observer Thursday she is concerned about efforts to defund the CPB because it acts as the backbone to the public media system.

While federal funding makes up about 10% of WFAE’s budget, she said that money makes a difference. WFAE’s budget is more than $7 million according to it’s most recent publicly available nonprofit tax return.

“We’d have to look at either being able to quickly replace those dollars or thinking about ways in which we could curtail some of the work that we do in order to cover that gap,” Marshall said. “ That’s not a position we want to be in. And that’s not a position we believe this community wants us to be in.”

Catherine Butler, a spokesperson for Central Piedmont Community College which holds the license for WTVI, Charlotte’s PBS station, said they are closely monitoring the status of federal funding for public television and radio. The station serves more than 1.3 million people across 13 counties.

Some 25% of the station’s funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. These funds, in combination with donations from the community, help the station provide education content for the region.

The station also serves 100,000 families through its PBS kids education content and 13,000 educators through its PBS Learning Media content each month.

Marshall said the way in which public media was described during Wednesday’s hearing was the opposite of what she’s seen in the many newsrooms she’s worked in.

“We don’t wake up and walk into a newsroom and think, ‘How can we suppress the truth today?’ “ she said. “We do the exact opposite. We look at what issues are of concern in our communities today. What are people talking about? What do people want to know?”

A vital resource

Marshall emphasized the importance of public media’s presence, especially in times of crisis.

When the deadly Hurricane Helene ravaged Western North Carolina and knocked out cell service for days last fall many people got vital information from Blue Ridge Public Radio, an Asheville NPR affiliate, she said.

Public radio also has massive reach to communities that are in news deserts. For WFAE, its station reached 32 counties across North and South Carolina.

“When you look at the media landscape and the reach that newspapers used to have, for example, they’re not in all of the places that they used to be,” Marshall said. “You can still find public media. You can still turn on your radio and hear WFAE in our community. And I think that’s important.”

This story was originally published March 28, 2025 at 6:00 AM.