Federal Government Defunds Public Media

Congress Claws Back $1.1 Billion in Funds to NPR, PBS, and Local Community Public Radio and TV Stations. How Will the Cuts Impact Santa Barbara County?

By Christina McDermott Fri Jul 18, 2025 | 04:51pm

This article was underwritten in part by the Mickey Flacks Journalism Fund for Social Justice, a proud, innovative supporter of local news. To make a contribution go to sbcan.org/journalism_fund.

This week, House and Senate Republicans voted to defund public media. The vote came as part of a rescission package put forward by President Donald Trump, which also claws back more than $7 billion in foreign aid funding. These funds, which Congress has already allocated, will be rescinded.

For community radio and PBS stations across the country, tough decisions are ahead. Public broadcasting provides local news, entertainment, education programming, and emergency alert systems. They can play an important role in rural areas, especially those without alternative news sources or, in some cases, reliable internet.

How will the cuts impact Santa Barbara County?

When it comes to radio broadcasting, both KCLU to the south and KCBX to the north cover Santa Barbara County. Together, the two stations serve areas from Thousand Oaks to Salinas. Both stations said they do not plan to cut staff or programming for now.

KCBX’s management staff. Chris McBride, Assistant General Manager (left), Frank Lanzone, General Manager (center) and Marisa Waddell, Program Director (right). | Courtesy KCBX

“Federal funding is gone, but our commitment to you is not,” said Mary Olson, general manager at KCLU.

All told, Olson said that the station will see a loss of $300,000. Along with programming from NPR, KCLU provides local news on the tri counties, including live updates in emergencies, like fires.

Olson said the station operates on a lean budget with only six full-time staff members. She said it plans to move forward with the community and encourages people to support KCLU.

KCBX Manager Frank Lanzone said it will also keep its staff and programming, as they also keep a conservative budget. The station, which is designated as a rural station by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, will lose out on $240,000 of direct funding and another $200,000 on funding for music rights — a gap station staff are now working to fill. KCBX also provides local news, entertainment, and an emergency alert system, for its coverage area.

But, Lanzone said, the plans to expand the station’s small newsroom, which he said is understaffed, are on hold.

PBS will also lose funding; about two-thirds of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s funding allocation was for television. That will include PBS SoCal, which covers Santa Barbara.

After the Senate voted for the rescission package, PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger released a statement.

“These cuts will significantly impact all of our stations, but will be especially devastating to smaller stations and those serving large rural areas. Many of our stations which provide access to free unique local programming and emergency alerts will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead,” she said.

General Manager Lanzone of KCBX said the news of the cuts is raw.

“For me, I was very young when Congress passed the broadcasting act. My boss at the time was actually in the room when President Johnson signed that piece of legislation,” he said.

Since its inception in 1967, some Republican lawmakers have called for cutting funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the company in charge of allocating funds to NPR and public community radio stations, as well as PBS. Historically, however, the push did not find wide scale support in either political party.

Surveys indicate public media is still popular. Research from March of this year from the Pew Research Center said that 43 percent of people surveyed said taxpayer dollars should support public media, compared to 24 percent that say it should not.

President Trump has criticized public media as biased, and members of the conservative groups have said they operate as a mouthpiece for liberal ideas — claims strongly denied by public media organizations. Part of Project 2025 — the policy plan published by the conservative think tank the Heritage Foundation, which has links to the Trump cabinet — outlines the goal to stop funding for public media.

Of the money the Corporation for Public Broadcasting distributes, 70 percent goes to local stations, rather than national shows or administrative costs.