In May, President Donald Trump signed an executive order demanding the end of federal funding for NPR and PBS. In June, Congress passed a bill to rescind funds already allocated to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That bill is now in the hands of the Senate.
The CPB distributes federal funds to public television and radio. That includes NPR, the central hub for 1,000 public radio stations in the U.S. KNPR is one of them. This station also pays NPR to broadcast NPR’s programs.
Republicans see NPR coverage as anti-Republican and have tried for decades to end CPB funding. In public surveys, though, NPR is regularly voted as one of the most unbiased news services in the country.
So, what’s the future of NPR and Nevada Public Radio? We asked Favian Perez, CEO and president of Nevada Public Radio, about some possible outcomes. And a note about this interview: Perez did not receive questions ahead of time; he was treated like any other source we interview for KNPR's State of Nevada.
How much funding does NVPR get from the CPB?
Perez: It's 8% for us, but it's crucial. It's integral. It's absolutely necessary for what we do here. … If 8% comes by way of the CPB, 92% is the rest of the local support, right? So, membership drives, our corporate partners, grants and some state funding. All of that is what makes up the remaining portion. (The State of Nevada has typically provided 3-4 percent of the budget).
What’s the station’s annual budget?
It’s a little bit over $5 million. That covers programming, our classical station, Desert Companion and all the things people don’t typically think about: transmission towers, Elko, Ely, Tonopah coverage. Carson City, Reno coverage. It’s the engineering, backup batteries, diesel generators.
If CPB funding is cut, what would the station do to keep the lights on, the doors open?
I think we need to activate a broader base of funders, more members. We've talked about the possibility of an additional membership drive, which I think is something that a lot of folks are probably not looking forward to. But our membership drives are how we're able to keep everything going. It's member supported. We don't have an individual or a corporate partner that keeps, you know, the organization you know financially sound. But because of that, we're also editorially independent, so we're looking at the possibility of an additional membership drive.
We've also been talking to our major donors and funders and local philanthropists to see how much of that they might be able to take up.
KNPR is a non-profit, but it does have underwriting. This is support that is mentioned on the radio but vastly different than ads you hear on for-profit radio. But it’s restricted because of federal funding. If the funding disappeared, could the station seek areas, such as dispensary ads, that it didn’t before?
Even if the CPB funds were taken away, we would still remain a non-commercial broadcaster? So we would not change that designation, which means that we would still be doing the underwriting in the same way, because the FCC, sort of the separate entity is, is looking at us and sort of expecting that we're not going to be doing commercial ads.
Right now, our position that so long as dispensaries or marijuana are not legal at the federal level, we will stay away from that in terms of underwriting or sponsorships.
Jay, a listener from Las Vegas, asked if we could ask program providers to charge us less for their content.
So a lot of stations are operating, a lot of stations … are operating below full tilt, capacity. They're not fully staffed. So … we’d be having conversations that would also include lowering costs and cutting costs, but it's the last thing that the system needs right now, and that's why I think we are so strongly fighting against the elimination of the CPP funding.
Staff at the station is almost half of what it was in 2019 before the pandemic. Without the CPB funding, would the station cut more people to make the budget?
So we're at a little bit over 30 (employees). We cannot cut our way out of a budget deficit because that would really go against the mission of Nevada Public Radio, which is to localize NPR content and to reflect the local community here with news, arts, culture coverage.
What do you say to people who believe that NPR and Nevada Public Radio is left-leaning?
Our job is to answer the questions and to provide a space where discussions are being had, constructive disagreements are taking place, and individuals can make their own decision … All of our ratings information shows that our listenership is pretty much split down the middle, in terms of conservative and liberal … but in this hyper-polarized space where the (Trump) Administration is calling public media anti-American, sometimes that discussion ends with a sort of constructive disagreement … But what we do here is objective journalism that is not meant to be making any conclusive statements.
Guests: Favian Perez, President and CEO, Nevada Public Radio
