On August 1, 2025, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, otherwise known as the CPB, sent out a press release in which they informed the world that after 60 years of supporting publicly funded, creative and educational programming, they would be completely shutting down on October 1, 2025. That’s two months.
All public funding promised by Congress for the next two fiscal years through the CPB will also stop on October 1, 2025.
How this abrupt halt in funding will affect approximately 160 public television stations and hundreds of public radio stations both large and small around the country will vary greatly, but with events happening faster than folks can talk about it, there is a good deal of confusion and potentially a good number of misinformed people who would like to know what is exactly going on.
This conversation between The North 1033 Station Manager Jeff Carmack and General Manager of the Duluth Superior Area Educational Television Corporation Patty Mester is a beginning to a larger community discussion about the future of public media.