WHYY warns of a ‘challenging’ road if federal cuts to public media come to fruition

Philadelphia’s NPR and PBS affiliate is sounding the alarm on the uncertain future of federal funding for public media as Republicans in Washington continue to push toward their long-held goal of scrapping funding for such outlets.

WHYY president and CEO Bill Marrazzo wrote in a message asking for donations Wednesday that while the home of Fresh Air with Terry Gross & Tonya Mosley is on “solid financial footing,” thanks to support from listeners and viewers, federal funding cuts would present challenges in sustaining and growing the public media station’s work.

Earlier this month the White House was reportedly expected to send a “rescission package” to Congress that would propose more than $9 billion in cuts, including to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which oversees National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service. But now, the administration may delay that request, PBS reported Tuesday.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the package.

Public media comes at an annual cost of $535 million to taxpayers, or approximately $1.60 per taxpayer. Marrazzo said in his message Wednesday that federal investment in public media is small, but plays a crucial role in supporting stations, especially those in small or rural communities.

“Without it, many stations may struggle to continue serving their audiences,” Marrazzo said.

WHYY is the Philadelphia region’s leading public media company, serving 2.9 million households in the Philadelphia area, South Jersey, and Delaware and is one of the top 10 markets in the country, according to a March 2024 report from the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage.

About 7% of WHYY’s budget comes from government funding ($3,756,000 in fiscal 2024).

Marrazzo said in an interview earlier this month that if the Trump administration requests a rescission of its funding, WHYY is prepared to be more assertive on its solicitation of donations from the community.

“I feel good about that in this tristate area, it will help us continue to thrive, it doesn’t solve the problem in those mid-sized areas,” Marrazzo said about donor support.

It’s a somewhat familiar dance, though, as public media funding has faced threats from Washington in years prior.

Billionaire Elon Musk, Trump’s adviser and leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with slashing government spending, had signaled late last year a desire to target public media funding, leaving NPR and PBS bracing for the potential cuts in the wake of Trump’s victory in the 2024 election. Musk, who has often said that his platform, X, should be used as a news source has frequently expressed his disdain for certain media outlets, writing in an X post in December that “Legacy media must die.”

Quashing public media is a goal that Republicans have been yearning to achieve in order to reject what they believe to be a liberal bias at these stations.

U.S. Rep. Scott Perry (R., Pa.) reintroduced his “No Propaganda Act” this year which advocates for the federal defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

CPB distributes more than 70% of its funding to more than 1,500 locally owned stations, according to its website.

A spokesperson for Perry declined to comment on current threats to public media funding, but in a news release for the bill, Perry wrote in part “CPB must be defunded to end the stream of Taxpayer funds to biased, anti-American public radio and television stations.”

Trump has also set his sights on public media in the past. In 2020, he recommended cutting CPB funding to $0 by 2023. And in his second administration, Trump-appointed Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr opened an investigation into NPR and PBS, which Marrazzo said is limited to television operations regarding on-air for-profit corporate sponsorship.

“While a unique one and a very serious one, it’s not uncommon for us year over year over year to be dealing with one intervention over another,” Marrazzo said of the uncertainty with funding.

Staff writer Zoe Greenberg contributed to this article.