On the Chopping Block: State Budget Battles and the Future of Public Media


Since 2008, budget battles at the state level have eroded funding for public broadcasters around the country. Free Press and SaveTheNews.org have completed the first inventory of state funding cuts and examined the impact these cuts have had on local stations.

Download the full report: On the Chopping Block: State Budget Battles and the Future of Public Media.

Since 2008, state support for public broadcasting has declined at an alarming rate. More than $85 million in state funding has been cut from public broadcasters’ budgets since 2008.

However, that is only part of the story. If we use the 2008 appropriations as a baseline, we see that the cumulative loss in state funding over the past four years in these 24 states amounts to approximately $202 million. In other words, if the appropriations had remained level with those from 2008, more than $200 million in additional funding would have been allocated in these 24 states during this four-year period.

In this year’s round of state budget negotiations alone, state governments have slashed nearly $30 million from public media budgets.



In many states, the cuts are......