House Republicans are once again trying to zero out funding for noncommercial media.

Public media groups such as PBS and NPR have long drawn the ire of some Republicans, who claim they are liberal outlets often carrying water for Democrats. Other members of the GOP — including at least one prominent Republican who knows a lot about noncommercial media — funding, support the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a nonprofit news and entertainment outlet crucial to early education.

But the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Education Subcommittee on Friday (July 14) voted to zero out funding for CPB starting in 2026. Public media are forward-funded in an effort to avoid the sort of political football game that, despite that effort, its funding became at the hands of angry Republicans.

That group included former President Donald Trump, who tried to zero out funding in 2017. 

The reduction is part of $64 billion in cuts the bill makes across numerous programs. At the markup Friday (July 14), subcommittee ranking member Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) likened those cuts to attempting to “end public education in America,” both in the media and elsewhere, and branded the bill the “Every Child Left Behind” Act.

CPB is currently slated to get $535 million in 2026, all of which would go away if the funding bill reported out of subcommittee actually made it into law. It would be one of 60 programs slated for elimination in the bill, which Republicans say is all about returning to fiscal responsibility.

Subcommittee chairman Robert Aderholt (R-Ala.) said the cuts were about reining in “reckless D.C. Beltway spending.” He said the bill’s cuts were only a "first step." He also said the bill maintained funding for “high value” programs, which definitely sent a clear message to public media about how much they were valued by Republicans on the subcommittee.

Those media outlets got the message.

“This is a dark day for America’s Public Television Stations, and we are only one of the casualties of a severe cutback that would also affect other important national institutions,” APTS president Patrick Butler said. 

Previous Republican efforts to zero out noncom funding have failed and Butler is hoping for a similar result. “We remain hopeful that the strong bipartisan support for public media, both in Congress and among the American people, will ultimately result in full funding for CPB, system interconnection and infrastructure and Ready To Learn as the appropriations process moves forward,” he said.

The bill also zeros out funding for CPB's Ready To Learn preschool educational effort and $60 million in funding for technical infrastructure.

CPB is headed by Republican Pat Harrison, the longest-serving president in its history and former co-chair of the Republican National Committee. She has said Republican-backed cuts would “devastate and ultimately destroy public media’s role in early childhood education, public safety, connecting citizens to our history and promoting civil discussions for Americans in rural and urban communities alike.”

“Americans in rural and urban communities who depend upon public media content and services are very disappointed by the House Labor-H subcommittee’s move to eliminate CPB’s two-year advance funding," Harrison said following the vote. "The elimination of this nearly 50-year funding structure would destroy the firewall that protects public media’s independence, and significantly weaken the public-private partnership that enables stations to raise needed funds.

“Public media has always enjoyed strong bipartisan support, affirming its essential role in strengthening our nation’s civil society," she said. "The federal appropriation ensures universal access to free, high-quality, innovative, and diverse content that educates and enriches the public dialogue.”

The issue of noncommercial funding became a flashpoint in the 2012 presidential campaign, when Republican candidate Mitt Romney suggested during a debate that he liked Big Bird, just not well enough to keep funding the popular Sesame Street character. (Just three years later, in 2015, first-run episodes of the groundbreaking children’s show shifted to the private sector via a deal with HBO; episodes now run on streaming service Max before they play on public stations.) 

Then, under the winner of that election, Democrat Barack Obama, the co-chairs of the President's National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform back in 2010 recommended zeroing out funding for CPB as one way to help save $200 billion. Obama wound up not acting on those and other recommendations that drew flak from various quarters, including Democratic fans of Big Bird.

Noncommercial TV station and network representatives said they are working hard to move to the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast transmission standard and its opportunities for enhanced emergency alerts, interactive educational programming and more, but that it is a challenging change and they can't predict when a nationwide rollout will be accomplished.

America's Public Television Stations, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and PBS made those points in comments to the Federal Communications Commission, which has sought input on the status of the rollout of the new standard.

The noncoms said they are not seeking waivers of the requirement that they continue to simulcast an ATSC 1.0 signal, suggesting that would not be in their viewers' interest. If the stations stopped broadcasting in 1.0, viewers would need a new TV or converter since the ATSC 3.0 standard is not backward compatible.

Also: NAB Says ATSC 3.0 Will Reinvent TV

They pointed out that noncoms have been pioneers in new technology, including in satellite-delivered programing, and that while they "embrace" the new technology, the logistics of the rollout out were not exactly "hugging them back," particularly given their limited budgets.

"The unique considerations faced by noncommercial educational licensees under the ATSC 3.0 regulatory framework and various marketplace factors make it infeasible to predict a precise timeframe for a nationwide public TV (PTV) transition to ATSC 3.0," they told the commission.

And while they pointed out noncom ATSC 3.0 rollouts have increased by 300% in the past year, that is only from three stations to a dozen, with a couple more rollouts in the works, including WNET New York and KPTS Wichita, Kansas.

They said that while those stations are now broadcasting in ATSC 3.0 -- and have found partners to help them simulcast -- "other PTV stations have not yet had the opportunity to participate in a 'group' launch...or have not yet found feasible partners to meet ATSC 3.0 local simulcasting rules." Nine PTV stations are participants in commercial “group” launches via Pearl TV and/or Bitpath.

They also said the FCC was already well aware that stations serving rural areas and satellite stations serving state lines rather than defined DMAs "cannot readily meet the FCC’s simulcast requirements (and are not presently intending to apply for simulcast waivers until sufficient numbers of households have ATSC 3.0-capable receivers or funding becomes available to distribute low-cost receivers." PTV prides itself on its universal service mission and providing programing to the underserved communities that could lose out in any flash cut to ATSC 3.0.

While the noncoms said they have made significant strides forward in deployment, much of that is toward a long-term rollout and exploration of public services use cases in the near term, including advanced accessibility and curriculum-driven education.

The FCC in June sought public and stakeholder input on how TV stations’ transition to the ATSC 3.0 NextGen TV standard is going.

Among other things, the FCC wants to gauge broadcasters’ progress toward “voluntary, market-driven” deployment of the technology.

ATSC 3.0 allows broadcasters to deliver ultra-HD TV, immersive audio, emergency alerts that could wake up “sleeping” devices, more localized content, targeted advertising, datacasting and more. ■

When public broadcaster WNET Group announced its plan early in February to “transition” to NextGen TV in the New York City area, it marked public TV’s biggest splash into the ATSC 3.0 world -- a sector that has been until now dominated by high-volume promises from commercial broadcasters.

“This is a priority project for [our] organization,” said Bob Feinberg, WNET Group’s VP, business development and chief legal officer. He said that there is no timetable yet, but vowed that the group will use “the necessary resources to work as quickly as possible.”

“As far as I know we’re the first out the gate to commit to ATSC 3.0 in the New York City DMA [Designated Market Area] -- the single largest television market in the country,” Feinberg told Next TV. “So, this is a big step, not only for public television, but for the television industry in general.” 

The WNET plan includes three stations. The WNET Group's Long Island-based WLIW21 will serve as the host station for ATSC 3.0 broadcasts for the three major PBS member stations in the New York metropolitan area: THIRTEEN, WLIW21 and the state-wide NJ PBS, which collectively reach about 7.45 million households

WLIW21 will carry high-definition programming from both WLIW21 and THIRTEEN, along with several standard-definition commercial sub-channels and the THIRTEEN PBS Kids service. 

Feinberg described WNET’s NextGen TV agenda will include delivery of 4K Ultra High Definition and High Dynamic Range signals, interactivity, advanced emergency messaging, more closed captioning and audio languages.

The New York public TV NextGen TV venture comes amid a flurry of actions in other markets, although so far other large market public stations have been slow to unveil  their plans. Public broadcasting stations have historically moved quickly into advanced TV ventures, including high definition and datacasting during the past three decades. Commercial stations are launching ATSC 3.0 delivery in about 50 cities.

Also: Nexstar: Broadcasters Could Make as Much as $15 Billion a Year From ATSC 3.0 by 2030

Awaiting Possible Commercial Collaboration

WNET is “working with a number of other public television entities … on the NextGen transition,” Feinberg said. He pointed out that The WNET Group has collaborated with the groups for many years and is a founding member of Public Media Venture Group, the AWARN Alliance, and Centralcast.  

As for cooperation with New York City area commercial TV stations that are also developing NextGen TV projects, Feinberg said, “We have had some conversations with commercial stations and industry organizations,” but so far, no specific collaboration has emerged. He said that The WNET Group is “open to keeping those conversations going” but offered no details. 

Media veteran Skip Pizzi has been retained as media consultant and project manager for WNET’s NextGen TV transition.

“We hope it will serve as a model for public TV – and for U.S. TV stations in general —on how the ATSC 3.0 standard’s many attributes can benefit the industry and its audiences,” Pizzi said.

Public TV Stations Elsewhere Working with Commercial Channels on 3.0

Among public television’s tools for rolling out NextGen TV in more markets are alliances with commercial TV stations -- so far implemented in about a dozen markets.

Lonna Thompson, who serves multiple executive roles at America’s Public Television Stations (APTS), said that public TV stations in 11 markets are currently involved with commercial NextGen TV projects in these communities: Baltimore; Houston; Kansas City; Orlando; Phoenix; Portland, Oregon; Raleigh-Durham; and Washington, D.C. In addition, public TV stations are taking part in duopoly transitions involving New Mexico PBS and Greenville, North Carolina, PTV plus an experimental authorization with the Michigan State University television facility.

Thompson, who is APTS’s executive VP, chief operating officer and general counsel, explains that her group has served a matchmaker role in connecting public TV stations with commercial NextGen TV projects.

“Sometimes a station calls us to say, ‘We’re ready to look at NextGen…,’” and in other cases BitPath and Pearl “have called us” to say they are entering a new market and want APTS’s help “to involve a public TV station there,” Thompson says. 

Thompson acknowledges that, “These market transitions [such as 3.0] aren’t easy because you have to give everyone a part of the [action].” In the case of public TV stations, “they use their spectrum fully,” she adds, citing that many stations transmit two high definition signals plus diginets. 

In D.C., Thompson points to the role of WHUT-TV, a public station licensed to the historically black Howard University. The transition to NextGen TV involved the station’s tech overhaul, which has included new equipment for 3.0 transmission. The upgrade has given the National Association of Broadcasters and other lobbying groups a visible testbed to show off NextGen TV to policymakers. 

Thompson calls the WHUT venture a “great example of commercial stations’ commitment to Next Generation TV with the inclusion of public TV.” She points out that the NAB stepped into the project on several levels. Beyond the public affairs value of having a local broadcaster air NextGen TV to show off to legislators and regulators, NAB upped its ante by funding a “learning lab” that brought Howard University students into the transition.  

Thompson says that public TV stations have plunged into NextGen TV for two major reasons. First, it is “mission related” because its datacasting and multiple channel features support the education and public safety objectives of stations. In addition, NextGen TV offers “revenue producing opportunities.” She points out that recent FCC rule changes, especially the March 2021 “broadcast internet rules” opened the doors for public stations to deliver services that generate new sources of income from their broadcast spectrum. 

“It’s healthy for our stations to look at revenue from NextGen TV,” Thompson says. “It complements federal and state funding plus the contributions that stations receive from local corporate and individual donors.”

Focus on Mission-Driven Applications

Among those pushing the public TV move into NextGen TV is the Public Media Venture Group, a six-year-old consortium of 32 public TV organizations that collectively operate 115 stations. PMVG’s focus is on “mission-driven” services such as education and health, but the group is also exploring enterprise and data ventures as new turf for public stations. 

“We’re helping them transition to the 3.0 platform, including advice on potential use cases,” PMVG CEO Marc Hand, a veteran public media executive, told Next TV. In particular, the group seeks “to make sure public stations have the resources they need” for NextGen TV services, including access to outside sources of capital, he added. Members of PMVG range from major producing channels such as WETA-TV (D.C.), Virginia Public Broadcasting and state-wide licensees in Kentucky and Alabama to small public channels, such as WCTE-TV in Cookesville, Tennessee.  

“It’s in everybody’s interest; there are more incentives for public stations who recognized the mission-driven use cases,” Hand added. He cited the incentives of NextGen TV for public stations, starting with the increased capacity, which “allow five times more content” to be transmitted. He points to the extensive streams of over-the-air content -- education, local services, public safety and more -- that are available to public media.  

On the datacasting side, Hand said that PMVG is "working on market transition with BitPath," the data project backed by Sinclair Broadcasting Group and Nexstar Media Group. He envisions opportunities for public media to "work with commercial stations on tech developments" and technology suppliers so that public stations can develop services "paralleling the path of commercial entities."

“We’d like to get up and running this year,” Hand said, citing the WNET plan plus activities by stations in Houston, Kansas City, Portland and others as an indicator of more aggressive public TV involvement in ATSC 3.0.

New Options Identified in N.C. PBS Evaluation

Further encouragement for the public broadcasters’ NextGen TV ventures came in a White Paper published early this month. Fred Engel, chief technology officer of PBS North Carolina, cited the value in “developing interactive elements [for] our local programming,” pointing to an upcoming field trial of custom-built ATSC 3.0-enabled receivers made by a local small-business electronics firm and funded by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant.  

“This is a use case that can be easily replicated for many wide-area, secure, emergency notification applications, applications which could sit on a local, trusted public broadcaster’s ATSC 3.0 transmission signal,” Engel said. 

He also acknowledged that, “smart TVs connected to the internet could bring a far richer viewing experience by bringing in and overlaying information related to the subject of the program.”

In the paper, Engel described many “public-facing applications that could be easily adapted to ATSC 3.0 that would require the design of simple devices to implement,” such as reading services for the visually impaired, weather or health and safety information features. 

Engel pointed out that PBS North Carolina is the largest wireless network in the state, with 12 full-power UHF transmission facilities, translators and a Distributed Transmission System (DTS) that covers nearly the entire state. 

“With that signal footprint and ATSC 3.0’s enhanced capabilities, the opportunities for applications that could empower a public broadcaster to better serve those in their viewing areas are endless,” Engel said. He cited North Carolina’s “visionary Public Safety Communications Officials” who came to PBS North Carolina seeking ways that 3.0 “could solve … the archaic way emergency notifications are sent to first responders.”

Engel, who sits on the ATSC Board of Directors, acknowledged that “experimentation will be needed for non-internet connected TVs to see what kind of engagements can be created through the station-specific broadcast application.” He emphasized that, “ATSC 3.0’s advanced video coding allows for a significant increase in data-carrying capacity to enable additional services.” ■

The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan COVID-19 relief bill that passed the Senate Saturday night (March 6) also had some rescue funding for public broadcasting.

The bill included $175 million in emergency assistance to public TV and radio stations.

Also Read: GOP Bill Would Apply C-Band Proceeds to Digital Divide

Patrick Butler, president of America's Public Television Stations, said the money was welcome and definitely needed given the pandemic-related strain on resources.

“We’ve conveyed COVID-related information to millions of viewers from Governors, State health and education officials, and other authorities through our role as the 'C-SPAN' of many State governments and in our capacity as the trusted voice of community leadership across the country," he said. "And we’ve provided countless public safety communications to keep our citizens informed of health and safety alerts and other critical matters."

He said that was being done mostly with unbudgeted funds while collectively stations were losing "hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue from State governments and private sources due to the severe economic downturn."

He said the money would help public broadcasters provide remote learning to students without internet access, both over-the-air and via datacasting.

"We are grateful for the broad bipartisan support for this emergency funding for public media among both Republicans and Democrats in the Senate," he said.

 A new Federal Communications Commission took over on Jan. 20 and is already being pressed to resolve an issue that has been percolating for several years: How to give broadcasters the best chance of leveraging the new ATSC 3.0 broadcast transmission technology while making sure MVPDs are not disadvantaged in the process.

Those on both sides of the issue have been pressing their case with FCC staffers over the past few weeks.

In 2017, when the FCC first voted to advance the new broadcast standard, commissioner Jessica Rosenworcel, who became acting chair on Jan. 20, said: “[W]e had better make sure that the high-definition signals we are now accustomed to when we watch a football game or our favorite film are not downgraded to standard definition in order to ensure broadcasters experimenting with ATSC 3.0 can simulcast two signals — one of which we can’t even see.”

ALSO READ: Noncom TVs Back NextGen TV Multicast Flexibility

Her bottom line: “The next transition should leave no viewer worse off, and leave all of us better off.” 

That consumer/viewer focus is expected to carry over, regardless who is named chair of the new commission.

Driving the push for resolution of the issue is a broadcaster petition, backed by both commercial and noncommercial (public) broadcasters.

The National Association of Broadcasters, in a petition for declaratory rulemaking filed in November, asked the FCC to declare that various multi-station arrangements for hosting and originating multicast streams in ATSC 1.0 and 3.0 are OK. The NAB has not asked the FCC to extend carriage rights to multicast streams, which are not subject to mandatory cable carriage. But the petition does say the FCC should exempt the new arrangements from broadcast-ownership rules, something to which pay TV distributors object.

Noncommercial broadcasters weighed in supporting the NAB petition, saying “clarifications” over the ATSC 3.0 rollout are needed, or the uncertainty would “hamper full [public TV] participation in Next Generation broadcasting and could prevent [public TV] stations from achieving all the public-interest benefits of ATSC 3.0.” Broadcasters refer to ATSC 3.0 as NextGen TV.

America’s Public Television Stations and the Public Broadcasting System told the FCC that public stations should not have to choose between continuing to broadcast their existing multicast streams and participating in the key new deployments of NextGen TV broadcasting.

While broadcasters are pressing the FCC to make a decision so they have more certainty about how they can roll out ATSC 3.0, MVPDs are arguing for a slower roll so the FCC can vet issues they argue remain unclear. 

ALSO READ: CEO Chris Ripley Likes Sinclair’s Gamble on Local Content

“If the commission chooses to move forward [with the NAB proposal], the commission should instead issue a Notice of Inquiry rather than a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking,” the American Television Alliance, a distributor group, told the FCC in comments on the petition. “This would give NAB a chance to better articulate its proposal.”

Gray Television, which is in the Pearl TV consortium of NextGen TV backers, said there needs to be regulatory parity between broadcasters continuing to broadcast in ATSC 1.0 and those moving to 3.0. Gray powered up its first ATSC 3.0 station in January.

“ATSC 3.0 host stations could be at a disadvantage if they do not transition all of their legacy ATSC 1.0 streams to the new standard,” Gray told the FCC. 

The solution, it said, is the NAB’s clarification that “whatever programming an ATSC 3.0 station transmits through its ATSC 1.0 partner(s) — even if not simulcast — is covered by the ATSC 3.0 station’s license.”

Rather than provide clarification and clarity, ATVA said the NAB petition muddies the waters. “[W]e are not sure that we fully grasp the parameters of NAB’s proposed rulemaking,” ATVA told the FCC. “We remain uncertain as to exactly what sort of arrangements and combinations NAB is asking the FCC to bless and cannot identify the public interest justification behind any such arrangements and combinations.”

Skirting Ownership Rules

ATVA does appear to grasp one possible outcome — broadcaster control of multiple stations in a market despite local ownership rules. The consortium said NAB’s proposal would appear to give a single station the ability to control “many multiples of its assigned 6 MHz bandwidth … regardless of local ownership limitations,” up to and including controlling “the spectrum and programming of as many other stations in the market as it would like, creating Big Four duopolies, triopolies, and even quadropolies”  without having to seek FCC approval, it said.

ATVA said that would mean consolidated retransmission negotiations and higher fees that would ultimately be passed on to consumers.

ATVA has pushed to close what it sees as existing loopholes in the local ownership rules, and is certainly not looking for the FCC to create any ATSC 3.0-related new ones.

Granting NAB’s petition would disincentivize broadcast services in favor of ancillary ones “by allowing a station the benefit of both additional 1.0 spectrum for programming and the ability to use most of its 3.0 spectrum for other services,” ATVA also argued. 

The NAB is telling the commission that broadcasters will continue to place the “highest priority” on preserving over-the-air delivery of stations’ primary channels “to the maximum extent possible.”

But broadcasters also stress the need to “highlight” new features of ATSC 3.0, including interactivity and data delivery — so-called broadcast internet. Doing both will require stations to be creative, a creativity they argue their petition will further.  

A House subcommittee has recommended $515 million for public broadcasting for fiscal year 2023, according to the America's Public Television Stations (APTS), an increase of $50 million.

The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies has also recommended $20 million for the interconnection facilities that allow the local stations to carry national programming.

No word yet on whether the Ready to Learn Department of Education early learning grant program will be funded.

Noncommercial broadcasting is forward funded to try and insulate it from politics, though its appropriation has been a political football for years as Republicans accused it of being too liberal and tried to cut funding.

But Republicans and Democrats now appear to be on the same page about fully funding the service, even as President Donald Trump has tried to defund it in each succeeding budget.

The money actually goes to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the independent agency set up by Congress in the 1960s to hand out the approximately 15% of noncom budgets that comes from federal dollars. The rest is from corporate sponsors and contributions from viewers and listeners.

“America’s Public Television Stations are most grateful that the House Appropriations subcommittee has recommended an appropriation of $515 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for Fiscal Year 2023,” said Patrick Butler, president and CEO of America’s Public Television Stations.

Last June, amid the President's cries for de-funding CPB, legislators on both sides agreed to full funding-plus as well. 

PBS, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and America's Public Television Stations, which have been doing their FCC commenting collectively as "PTV," have told the FCC it should reject some MVPDs' suggestion that public TV stations pay the costs for operators to receive the new ATSC 3.0 signals.

That came in reply comments filed with the FCC, due this week, on its proposal to let broadcasters roll out the new IP-based transmission standard on a voluntary basis. FCC chair Ajit Pai has said he wants to have a final order allowing that rollout ready for a commission vote by year's end.

Related: Sinclair Takes Aim at MVPDs Over ATSC 3.0

In the filing, PTV pointed out that some MVPDs asked the FCC in their comments to require stations to cover both the costs of getting the signal to the MVPD and the costs MVPDs "may incur" in receiving and transmitting the signal.

PTV called that an attempt to punish stations for voluntary deployment of next-generation television.

"[T]the Commission should reject requests to shift that cost to public television stations," the noncoms said. "The fact that a PTV station may make its ATSC 1.0 signal available via an arrangement with a transmission partner is no basis for changing this well-established division of responsibilities."

The FCC has proposed allowing stations to take a Jack Spratt approach to the transition, with one station delivering both its own and an in-market partner's signal in ATSC 3.0, while the other station broadcasts both its own ATSC 1.0 signal (the current standard) and its partner's.

PTV, which was one of the original petitioners that asked for the ATSC 3.0 rollout, is squarely behind that approach and, for regulatory purposes, treating the originator as the regulatory entity. That way, noncoms could share with commercial stations, since the noncom would be credited as the originator, rather than the commercial partner that was delivering the noncom signals.