Six board members and listeners of Tri-States Public Radio met via ZOOM on Tuesday to discuss a pending U.S. Senate decision on whether to eliminate funding for public broadcasting.
TSPR General Manager Heather Norman said senators need to be contacted by early next week at the latest.
She said, “The purpose of this meeting is to let you know what’s going on with public media and what you can do to help.”
Norman said Congress created the Public Broadcasting Act in 1967. It established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to distribute grants to local public radio and public television stations. She said CPB pays for all music licensing, satellite interconnections, the broadcasting of emergency warnings, the provision of digital services and training, and program production support. “There would be no replacement for the CPB funds,” Norman said.
The radio manager said TSPR receives a $200,000 community service grant.
She said the Macomb-based network has radio transmitters in Macomb and Warsaw, a radio repeater in Burlington, and uses the Knox College transmitter in Galesburg. Norman said listeners in all the communities served have been asking what’s happening with the federal situation.
The U.S. House of Representatives on June 12 voted in favor of a federal recission to pull back $1.1 billion in public media funding and eliminate $700 million this year and next.. The U.S.
Senate has a July 18 deadline to act on the recission and no action or a majority vote against it will kill the issue. “Contact your senators by July 7,” Norman told the group. She said TSPR can supply scripts, talking points, and other resources.
The TSPR manager said senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth are supporting public media.
She said area symphonies whose concerts are broadcast on Tr-States Public Radio are also contacting the senators.”The more you talk with them, the more they realize what you care about,” Norman said.
She added that U.S.
Representative Eric Sorenson has challenged a related issue, a May 1 executive order from President Donald Trump that prohibits funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. That order is also being challenged in court. Norman said the Federal Communications Commission has launched an inquiry into the activities of NPR and PBS, but that it has no jurisdiction over those organizations.
However, she noted that the FCC does have jurisdiction over individual public radio and television stations.
Should the Senate uphold the federal recission, Norman said Illinois public radio stations might share programming statewide since the cost of national programming could become prohibitive.
