The Death of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

After being a flashpoint in the early days of the Trump administration in 2025 when the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) was targeted for defunding, the last days were, but a mere whimper as the nearly 60-year-old government created entity shut off the lights for the last time this week.

After decades of trying to eliminate CPB and its funding of the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR), Republicans in congress finally managed to pass funding cuts that crippled CPB and led to the decision to shut down by its board.

The loss of more than $1 billion in taxpayer-funded money was more than CPB could handle, and they issued a press release announcing the closing.

“For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americans—regardless of geography, income, or background—had access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling,” said Patricia Harrison, CPB’s president and CEO.

Harrison added, the board decided that CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks from the Trump administration.

CPB, which Congress created in 1967, at a time when the media landscape was far different from what it is today, helped support more than 1,500 local radio and television stations nationwide. It was best known for funding the popular children’s program “Sesame Street,” along with many other educational and cultural programs. The Achilles heel of their programming support was for the liberal news programs like “The MacNeil/Lehrer Report” and documentaries that lacked balance.

Since the funding loss both PBS and NPR affiliates have scrambled to raise money from the private sector with mixed success and are learning that they don’t have a fundamental right to exist on the taxpayer dime in an era of YouTube and multiple internet news outlets that have sprung up over the last two plus decades.

While liberals are decrying the loss of their much-beloved government-funded liberal media, it has no place in today’s world and in many corners of the U.S. won’t be missed should stations go dark for lack of funding.