Funding
E. Funding
To accomplish the transformation needed to enable public media to help fulfill the information needs of communities in a democracy, funding should be redirected and increased. Here are recommendations for increasing the funding for public media:
1. Public media must demonstrate the desire to change in order to encourage investment from government, foundations and corporations.
“We need to be willing to recognize the need to change,” said CPB chairman Wilson. “To get others to support us, we need to get our own house in order.”
There is universal agreement that funding sources—whether government, philanthropic or corporate—will not provide more money to support the status quo. Many recognize that some of the funds now going to public media could be redirected for greater efficiency and less duplication. Some believe public media missed an opportunity to bring new ideas to the table when the FCC’s national broadband plan was under discussion.
There is also the hope that the crisis in journalism coupled with public media’s avowed desire to move into the digital space will inspire funding sources to make big investments.
Public media leaders need to be prepared and united in making that case.
2. Increase congressional support through special appropriation and restore reauthorization.
Public broadcasting’s federal funding is appropriated by Congress and distributed by CPB. Until the last decade, Congress reauthorized public broadcasting for three years in advance to give broadcasters the opportunity to plan for their programming and equipment needs. For the past 10 years, Congress has been unable to agree on reauthorization (and in the past the appropriation often turned out to be less than the authorization), and has appropriated an annual amount that has remained flat for several years.
The Public Broadcasting Act specifies with exactitude how federal funds are to be divided among public media entities, with 70 percent going to community service grants given directly to stations and a 3/1 split between television and radio (see Figure 5). Any effort to reposition public media for the future requires a substantial overhaul of the priorities laid out in the act. “The statutory funding allocation creates an over-investment in broadcast infrastructure, and under-investment in content and an anachronistic bundling of network functions,” said Ellen Goodman and Anne H. Chen.46 Public media leaders and Congress should work together to amend the act so that it provides more flexibility and embraces a wider range of technology and broader concept of public service.
Given today’s financial situation, federal budget pressures and political realities, it is unlikely that the overall appropriation will increase. However, in the past, Congress has approved a special appropriation for one-time expenditures, such as the mandatory conversion to digital television transmission. Public broadcasters should ask for a special appropriation to begin offering content more broadly on digital platforms as part of the national broadband plan. They should also attempt to restore the reauthorization process, since expenditures for broadband will continue over a number of years.
This may seem like a tall order in the face of calls from Republican members of Congress to end federal funding for public broadcasting in the wake of NPR’s firing of analyst Juan Williams. Such calls are nothing new, however, dating to the first debates on the Public Broadcasting Act. During the Reagan administration and again in 1994 when Republicans won control of the House and Senate, there were moves to curtail and even zero out funding. Those efforts were eventually modified or defeated. The net effect, according to public broadcasters, was a boost in fundraising from foundations and individuals.
By emphasizing to Congress that support is going to strengthen local stations, public broadcasters may be able to avoid getting caught in partisan attitudes about national programming.
Some have suggested other sources for federal revenue, such as a tax on commercial broadcasters for spectrum use, a tax on advertising or a tax on the sale of digital devices. Any of these would place a burden on one sector for a service meant to be utilized by all. Just as funds for the National Endowments for the Arts and the Humanities come from general tax revenues, it is fairest for public media to be funded by general revenues.
There have also been proposals to create a fund for public interest journalism from fees collected by the FCC, comparable to the national endowments. Such a fund would be duplicative of processes developed by CPB and would siphon off some revenue to create a new bureaucracy. Any new federal funds from the FCC or elsewhere should go to a reconstituted CPB/CPM.
3. Redirect resources to support the public media mission. Make it easier for stations to consolidate and merge.
In its filing with the FCC’s Future of Media inquiry, CPB, PBS and NPR said, “We recognize further efficiencies are possible and are eager to make improvements. Additional economies of scale can be achieved in back-office functions, unnecessary duplication of services can be reduced, and infrastructure can be rationalized. This will free some resources for investment in new outlets and technologies and in enhanced service. The challenge is to identify and create incentives to achieve these additional efficiencies while not reducing Public Media’s local service, diversity of content offerings, and presence in communities throughout the country.”47
Some in public media go further, saying there are too many organizations with too much overhead in the system. Public media should pursue these strategies and be prepared to detail the potential savings to Congress and the FCC.
Efficiency can be achieved through station acquisition, merger and operating agreements. Acquisition of a station license requires financing and has been successful in only a few cases. Public Radio Capital has helped in acquisitions and could use much more substantial backing. The FCC should clarify the status of public service operating agreements to make it easier for one organization to run several outlets. Mergers depend on the willingness of two or more parties, but the places where it has worked can serve as models.
Public television could realize new income if the FCC were to allow stations to lease excess digital capacity, as proposed in the CPB-PBS-NPR filing. Public radio could also make use of excess digital capacity with the FCC’s clearance.
4. Seek foundation partners to jump-start the process. Engage community foundations to support fulfillment of community information needs.
The Carnegie Corporation and Ford Foundation were invaluable to the launch of public broadcasting. The Knight Foundation is playing a key role in today’s discussions of the information needs of communities, which include the role of public media. Major philanthropic organizations, which have a stake in preserving the fabric of American democracy, can help transform public broadcasting into public media.
Local and regional foundations have a stake as well in supporting public media close to home. It may take a refocusing along the lines of Cleveland’s ideastream to engage that support.
Some feel the dollars are too small, but others, including APM’s Bill Kling, believe this is an untapped source that needs to be approached with big ideas. “According to our internal analysis,” Kling said, “if the top 25 markets all raised (funds) at the same rate as the top performer, they’d raise $410 million a year more—or enough to pay for 160 reporters in each of those cities.” That amount would be more than the entire annual federal appropriation to CPB.
5. Keep digital content free.
In commercial media circles the debate is raging about where and how to put content behind a pay wall. The reasoning is that, by giving away content for free, legacy news organizations are courting disaster.
No matter what decisions legacy media make regarding paid content, for now public media leaders are promising to keep public content free and accessible to all. This is the premise behind the Public Media Platform: content produced on behalf of the public belongs to the public. That conclusion is in keeping with the history and mission of this country’s public media.
Still, public media should also be able to experiment with aftermarket sale or license of content they create in order to create new revenue streams. Revenue that sustains public media is also in the public interest.
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