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.

HBO will become the first run home of Big Bird as the pay service announced Thursday it has inked a five-season deal with Sesame Workshop to carry the long-running children's series Sesame Street.

The partnership will give HBO rights to air the next five seasons of the iconic children’s program on its pay service and its multiplex channels, HBO GO, HBO On Demand and HBO NOW, said network officials.

PBS, the longtime home of Sesame Street, will be able to receive new episodes of the series free to its member stations nine months after airing on HBO, according to officials.

Sesame Workshop officials said it will be able to produce almost twice as much new content as in previous seasons through the HBO deal. Sesame Workshop will produce a Sesame Street Muppet spinoff series, as well as develop a new original educational series for children. 

“Our new partnership with HBO represents a true winning public-private partnership model,” said Jeffrey D. Dunn, Sesame Workshop’s CEO in a statement. “It provides Sesame Workshop with the critical funding it needs to be able to continue production of Sesame Street and secure its nonprofit mission of helping kids grow smarter, stronger and kinder; it gives HBO exclusive pay cable and SVOD access to the nation’s most important and historic educational programming; and it allows Sesame Street to continue to air on PBS and reach all children, as it has for the past 45 years.”

Along with new Sesame Street episodes, HBO has also licensed over 150 library episodes of the series, according to the network.

“We are absolutely thrilled to help secure the future of Sesame Street and Sesame Workshop’s mission for the nation’s kids and families,” said Richard Plepler, Chairman and CEO of HBO, and Michael Lombardo, President, HBO Programming. “Home Box Office is committed to bringing the most groundbreaking and creative shows to its audience. Sesame Street is the most important preschool education program in the history of television. We are delighted to be a home for this extraordinary show, helping Sesame Street expand and build its franchise.”

The deal comes as OTT services such as Netflix and Amazon continue to ramp up development and distribution of original, children's-targeted series and specials.