What to know about KCBX and Federal Funding
July 18, 2025
Listen to NPR's CEO, Katherine Maher discusses the future of Public Radio.
How you can help
Make a gift of support. We welcome all listeners to become donors — whether it’s your 1st or 50th donation. Be a sustaining donor, increase your monthly donation amount or make a one-time gift — it all makes a difference.
Learn more about Legacy Giving — designating KCBX in your will or making a planned gift is a long-term way to sustain the station.
July 10, 2025
Before July 18, the Senate will consider a proposal to claw back funding for public media – an action called rescission. The House narrowly passed this provision in mid-June. This funding is essential to KCBX, providing direct support through grants, and indirect support through services and infrastructure supported by CPB. Congress has already approved this funding, as recently as March 2025.
Rescission of CPB funds will removal more than $700M in FY 26 and FY 27 funds intended for local station support, causing irreparable harm to individual stations and the whole public media network.
Opinion | After leaving the military, NPR’s public service mission gave us a new opportunity to serve
Take action and call Senators today: ProtectMyPublicMedia.org is a quick and easy way to call lawmakers.
June 12, 2025:
House votes to claw back $1.1 billion from public media
The House of Representatives narrowly approved legislation Thursday to claw back two years of federal funding for public media outlets. President Trump, who has attacked the mainstream media more broadly, has accused NPR and PBS of bias against conservative viewpoints. The measure now goes to the Senate.
June 3, 2025:
Statement from NPR CEO Katherine Maher: Congress Can Save Local Public Media
NPR News Story: Trump asks Congress to wipe out funding for public broadcasting
President Trump took yet another step Tuesday to place NPR and PBS at the center of his broader clash with major cultural institutions, formally asking Congress to take back the $1.1 billion it has set aside for all public broadcasters for the next two years. Read full story
How you can help
Make a gift of support. We welcome all listeners to become donors — whether it’s your 1st or 50th donation. Be a sustaining donor, increase your monthly donation amount or make a one-time gift — it all makes a difference.
Recent Events:
May 27, 2025: NPR, Aspen Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio, KSUT sue over executive order defunding public media
Today NPR, alongside Aspen Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio, and KSUT Public Radio, filed suit to challenge President Trump’s unlawful Executive Order targeting NPR and PBS. They do so to defend our First Amendment rights and the rights of public media stations across the country.
As a nonprofit public media organization, KCBX exists to serve the people of the Central Coast with independent, fact-based journalism, enriching music and cultural content, critical civic information, and deep community engagement. Our mission — and our responsibility — is grounded in the First Amendment, which guarantees freedom of the press and protects our ability to hold power to account without interference. This includes protection against interference in our independent decision-making in purchasing, acquiring, producing and broadcasting programming.
NPR and the co-plaintiffs have released statements that you can find here: NPR, Aspen Public Radio, Colorado Public Radio, and KSUT Public Radio.
We are proud to stand with our colleagues in defending the role of public media in a healthy, functioning democracy.
May 13, 2025: In NPR Extra, Katherine Maher, NPR President and CEO, outlines NPR's editorial enhancements and commitment to serving the American people.
May 12, 2025: NPR reports that court documents outline DOGE staffers attempted to assign a team to review the operations of CPB.
May 2, 2025: The White House’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget request defunds the Corporation for Public Broadcasting – a lifeline for more than 1,500 local public radio and TV stations.
May 1, 2025: President Trump issued an executive order demanding the CPB cease all direct and indirect funding to NPR and PBS.
April 15, 2025: It was reported that the Trump administration drafted a memo to Congress outlining its intent to cut nearly all federal money for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
March 26, 2025: NPR CEO Katherine Maher and PBS CEO Paula Kerger appeared before the House DOGE subcommittee to address accusations of political bias by Republican lawmakers. The hearing was entitled "Anti-American Airwaves: Holding the Heads of NPR and PBS Accountable," and Republican lawmakers questioned whether public broadcasting should receive federal support.
January 30, 2025: FCC Chair Brendan Carr has also announced an investigation into the practice of NPR and PBS stations airing sponsorships. NPR’s Maher affirmed in a statement that NPR’s programming and underwriting complies with all federal regulations.
While these actions signal increasing scrutiny of public media funding, no changes to federal funding have passed through Congress yet.
About KCBX, Public Media and Federal Funding
Public media reaches 99% of the U.S. population and serves millions of Americans every day.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is an independent nonprofit that distributes federal dollars (an average of $1.60 per American annually) to local stations. That money is used to invest in programming and services according to each community’s needs.
Public media stations are partially funded by the CPB. Each station is locally managed and makes programming and service decisions to address unique community needs and interests. At KCBX, these programs and services include the national shows you enjoy, like Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me, as well as 24 locally hosted music shows like The Morning Cup, The Road Home, Broken Spoke and Global Spin.
Federal funds account for 12% KCBX’s annual budget. Additionally, we receive in-kind resources toward satellite interconnections, emergency alert systems and music licensing. If funding is eliminated, KCBX will need to replace $420,000 in annual funding to continue with the same level of programming.
How you can help
Make a gift of support. We welcome all listeners to become donors — whether it’s your 1st or 50th donation. Be a sustaining donor, increase your monthly donation amount or make a one-time gift — it all makes a difference.
More about CPB
CPB is distinct from NPR and PBS. It is not a broadcaster, producer, or distributor but a private, nonprofit corporation authorized by Congress in the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to support other public radio and television entities. Its two primary functions are to serve as a firewall between politics and public broadcasting and to help fund programming, stations, and technology.
Funding for CPB is established two years in advance through the federal annual appropriations process. The advance is intended to insulate funding from political pressures.
CPB’s general appropriation for fiscal year 2025 was $535 million – with the total federal support for public media amounting to about $1.60 per year per person. The CPB is responsible for allocating its funds from the federal budget in any way that fulfills its mission: to ensure universal access, over-the-air and online, to high-quality content and telecommunications services that are commercial-free and free of charge.
Nearly 70% of the total funding is distributed directly to local stations like KCBX so we can decide how best to program for our communities. CPB has had bipartisan support in Congress for more than 50 years.