The Corporation for Public Broadcasting’s recent loss of all federal funding will have consequences beyond NPR and PBS member stations. Community stations, including at least two in Eugene, will also feel the impact.
While much of the debate over recent cuts to current and future funding for CPB have focused on outlets that have affiliations with NPR or PBS, stations that receive Community Service Grants often feature little or no content from those organizations.
Eleven Oregon groups are listed as grant recipients on the Corporation for Public Broadcasting website. Of those, five have no ties to NPR or PBS.
Among the stations with no NPR programming is KRVM, a community station whose license is held by the Eugene 4J School District. It received about 20% of its $800,000 budget from CPB grants last year.
“We are one of the approximately 1,300 (public media) stations in the country that are not affiliated with NPR or PBS or any other network,” said KRVM General Operations Manager Stu Grenfell.
His best estimate is that about 10% of KRVM listeners donate to the station, a number commonly cited around public media.
“What we’re looking at right now, in order to completely replace the CPB money, we would need to increase our member base by about 50%, which is a pretty sizable number of people,” said Grenfell.
Another Eugene-based broadcaster stands to lose about 15% of its $700,000 annual budget, according to its general manager.
KWAX is a classical music station whose license is held by the University of Oregon.
“What these grants enable us to do is to get access for all to the kinds of programming we provide. It’s interviews with local arts organizations. It’s the classical music itself. It’s having local people and live, hosted programs. So that’s the fabric of the community,” said KWAX GM George Evano.
A statement on KWAX’s website said the station could face “reduced ability” to broadcast 24 hours a day and maintain its emergency alert services without its CPB grants.
According to their most recent financial statements, the Oregon stations that are losing the largest percentage of their funding are both stations that originate from tribal lands.
Umatilla Reservation Community Radio in Pendleton received 66% of its 2023 budget from CPB grants that totaled $189,272.
In Central Oregon, Warm Springs Radio received $260,567 in CPB grants in 2023, totaling about 55% of its budget.
Stations that lost the least, proportionally-speaking, were in the Portland metro area. Community station KBOO received roughly 7.4% of its 2024 budget from CPB grants.
All Classical FM received about 2.9% of its 2024 revenue from CPB grants, though the organization’s fundraising efforts were notably higher in 2024 than in 2023 due to a capital campaign.
NPR-affiliates are also affected by the Congressional vote to rescind CPB funds. KLCC's General Manager, Jim Rondeau, said in an email to supporters that the CPB funding represents approximately 10% of the station's annual budget.
