Senate votes to defund NPR and PBS. Here’s how WHYY and other Pa. stations will be impacted.

With Republicans cutting off federal funding for NPR and PBS, one public media executive in Pennsylvania predicts local stations in rural areas will end up becoming “collateral damage” to President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“We got sucked into a fight we’re not a part of,” said Terry O’Reilly, the president and CEO of Pittsburgh Community Broadcasting, which operates NPR affiliate WESA. O’Reilly thinks the cuts have little to do with balancing the federal budget and are simply “retribution” for NPR’s honest reporting on the Trump administration.

“Public media is one one-hundredth of 1% of the federal budget,” O’Reilly said. “It’s a rounding error.”

Senators voted early Thursday morning to cut all federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, despite having just passed a budget bill that allocated $535 million to the government-funded organization.

The proposal, known as a rescission request, takes back funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting allocated over two years, totaling $1.1 billion. The organization says more than 70% of that goes directly to National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting System stations across the country, including WHYY in Philadelphia.

With the Republican-controlled House also expected to pass the proposal, the money flowing from the federal government to local stations would dry up in October.

WHYY is in a position to weather the cuts, according to president and CEO Bill Marrazzo. About 7% of WHYY’s budget comes from government funding, and cuts would affect the organization’s ability to grow and innovate but would not immediately threaten its future.

“We believe strongly in our mission and the 70 years of impact we have had in our region and plan to continue serving our audiences for years to come,” WHYY said in a statement.

The same goes for WESA in Pittsburgh, where federal funds account for 9% of its operating budget. About two-thirds of the company’s $8 million budget goes to jobs, so if WESA wants to avoid cutbacks, O’Reilly said, it would need to make up about $700,000 in annual funding.

“Public media will survive this,” O’Reilly said. “We’re working on this one day at a time.”

Elsewhere across Pennsylvania and Delaware, the situation is a bit more dire.

WPSU, which reaches State College and 24 rural counties in central and northern Pennsylvania, gets about 20% of its annual budget from the federal government, about $1.4 million annually. That could lead to cuts in education programs and even diminish its emergency broadcasting capabilities, according to Isabel Reinert, WPSU’s executive director and general manager.

On top of the federal cuts, WPSU is dealing with a 20% cut in funding from Pennsylvania State University, about $800,000.

“Federal funding is essential,” Reinert said, warning the cuts “could threaten the future of stations like ours.”

In Northeastern Pennsylvania, WVIA is also bracing for the cuts, with federal funding representing about 20% of the station’s annual budget. But unlike most stations, WVIA has a sizable endowment, thanks to a FCC broadcast spectrum auction in 2017, which might help prevent devastating cuts in the short term.

WQED, the PBS station in Pittsburgh best known as the home of Fred Rogers, the creator of the beloved Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, is also bracing for cuts. The station gets 11% of its funding from the federal government, and cutbacks would likely affect educational programming and emergency alert systems.

It was Rogers who persuaded senators in 1969 not to cut funding for public television, arguing his show and those like it offered children a thoughtful alternative to what was being produced by commercial networks.

“This is what I give. I give an expression of care every day to each child, to help him realize that he is unique,” Rogers testified before a Senate subcommittee. “I feel that if we in public television can only make it clear that feelings are mentionable and manageable, we will have done a great service for mental health.”

Across the border in central Delaware, federal funds provide roughly 15% of WDDE’s budget. The cuts would come as the relatively new public media company, which launched in 2012, is attempting to expand north into New Castle County.

“It will be tough,” said Tom Interrante, WDDE’s general manager. “But we’ll survive.”

Public media stations across Pennsylvania had been urging their supporters to call the offices of U.S. Sens. John Fetterman, a Democrat, and Dave McCormick, a Republican, in an attempt to pressure them to vote no on the proposal.

Fetterman joined Democrats in voting against the propsal Thursday morning, telling The Inquirer the cuts undermine “the very values of family and education” Republicans claim to champion.

“Mr. Rogers, a Pittsburgh icon, taught us kindness and empathy. My wife, Gisele, learned English watching PBS, where Big Bird and Elmo have educated generations of American kids,” Fetterman said in a statement. “As a father, it’s personal, and I can’t understand why we’re even considering taking away this programming for families across the nation.”

McCormick’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but he voted with Republicans to eliminate the funding. Just two Republicans — Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska — voted not to defund NPR and PBS.

Because of changes to the proposal, which also includes cutbacks on foreign aid, the House would also have to vote again for the cuts to take effect. That vote would need to happen by Friday.

Long a target of Republicans, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is a publicly funded nonprofit created by Congress in 1967 to support public broadcasting across the country.

Nearly all of the corporation’s funding comes from the federal government, with about 70% sent directly to 330 local PBS outlets and 246 NPR stations.

Trump issued an executive order in May directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to “cease Federal funding for NPR and PBS.”

Ironically, smaller stations in rural parts of the country represented by Republicans would be hit hardest. Public media companies in Alaska, West Virginia, South Dakota, Indiana, and Montana have all warned they may be forced to shutter if the cuts proceed.

“It wouldn’t surprise me if somewhere between 50 and 100 stations have to shut down before the end of the year,” WESA’s O’Reilly said. “And the sad thing is, it’s the places that need it most that are going to bear the brunt of this. … The stations that will weather this best are in large cities that are largely Democratic strongholds.”