America's Public Television Stations Tuesday (April 30) was celebrating a House Appropriations Committee's recommendation of a funding boost for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which APTS points out is the first proposed funding increase in a decade.
CPB is the independent agency created by Congress to distribute federal funding to public media, which constitutes about 15% of noncom budgets.
The House is now in Democratic hands, but the support for funding was bipartisan, said APTS. That was not a big surprise as Republican leaders in the last Congress opposed President Donald Trump's efforts to de-fund noncommercial media and proposed full funding, but now the proposal is to boost the funding by $50 to $495 million.
Related: Full Noncom Funding Gets Bipartisan Support
“America’s Public Television Stations are delighted that the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education and Related Agencies has recommended an appropriation of $495 million for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) for Fiscal Year 2022,” said APTS President Patrick Butler.
The committee is also recommending full funding of $20 million for interconnection and infrastructure, another funding pot that has been in jeopardy in the past.
It is unclear of the status of funding for the Ready to Learn grant program through the Department of Education. It provides early learning education for low-income children.
