*The President's FY 2009 budget submission also includes a 50% cut to CPB funds already appropriated for FY 2009 and FY 2010.
**CPB may fund this program using money from its general appropriation (thereby reducing money available for station Community Service Grants).
Click on program title in chart for further explanation of requests
Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Request: $483 million for FY 2011
Local stations receive annual federal funding for general operations through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)’s Community Service Grant (CSG), which provides funding for programming and operations. Although this is a fraction of a station’s overall revenues, it represents an important source of funding for general operations and maintaining infrastructure. CPB is advance-funded by two years. Supporting CPB regular account funding for FY 2009 will ensure that local stations can continue to provide vital services to their communities.
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CPB Digital Funding
Request: $40 million for FY 2009
Public Television stations have raised over $1 billion to pay for the federally-mandated conversion to digital broadcast technology. Although about two-thirds of that funding has derived from non-federal sources, the federal contribution has been instrumental in attracting state and private funding. Beginning in FY 2000, Congress has approved annual appropriations through CPB to assist stations in funding the enormous costs associated with building a new digital infrastructure. Providing CPB digital funding this year will ensure that stations can continue to build out their infrastructure, and the many new services it brings. Furthermore, CPB digital funding will be the foundation of the American Archives, a new initiatve to preserve decades of historical content and create additioanl programming for the digital age.
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Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP) Request: $30 million for FY 2009 With stable funding from the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP), Public Television has built and maintained an infrastructure that delivers services to nearly every U.S. household. In the new digital landscape, PTFP plays an essential role in delivering a new generation of expanded programming and other services tailored to meet local needs.
The basic mandate to construct a digital transmission capability and begin transmitting a digital signal has been met by the vast majority of local stations. In order to deliver the promise of digital, however, the focus must now shift to delivering digital services and local programming tailored to meet community needs. And developing content, in turn, requires digital production equipment, from cameras to editing equipment. PTFP, although historically focused more on transmission-related equipment, is one of the few sources of federal funding for local production equipment. Stations need PTFP to assist in acquiring digital production equipment so that they can begin to produce local programming and services, with particular focus on educational services.
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Department of Agriculture Rural Utilities Service
Request: $10 million for FY 2009
Recognizing the special challenges that Public Television stations faced in delivering a digital signal to rural and underserved areas, Congress in 2003 created a fund within the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to distribute digital transition grants. The program, officially called the Public Television Station Digital Transition Grant Program within the Rural Utilities Service (RUS), assists local stations serving rural populations in purchasing digital transmission equipment — including translators and other equipment that were not covered by other federal digital grants. As the Department of Agriculture noted in the Federal Register:
“Since rural communities depend on public television stations for services ranging from educational course content in their schools to local news, weather and agricultural reports, any disruption of public television broadcasting would be detrimental.”
Grants distributed by USDA thus far have supported projects like translator conversions, studio-to-transmitter links, power upgrades and tower construction. However, despite the variety of projects covered, in each of the three years that Congress has funded the program, grant applications have far exceeded the amount of grant monies available. For this reason, we urge Congress to provide additional funding in FY 2006 to bring the promise of digital to the nation’s rural and underserved communities.
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Educational Technology Education is at the heart of Public Television’s mission. Two federal programs, Ready To Learn and Ready To Teach, both included in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act, use the reach of Public Television to prepare both early learners and teachers for educational success.
Ready To Learn
Request: $32 million for FY 2009
Ready To Learn’s central mission has been to equip young children to enter school prepared to become successful learners and achievers, encompassing all aspects of their cognitive development. The next generation of services—in accordance with guidelines from the Department of Education—will focus exclusively on building reading achievement for children aged 2-8 from low-income families.
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Ready To Teach
Request: $17 million for FY 2009
Central to Public Television’s educational mission is helping educators help themselves. Ready To Teach funds the development of digital educational services aimed at enhancing teacher performance so that teachers can raise student achievement. The Department of Education has recently awarded several multi-year grants to develop innovative digital curricula. In addition, the program continues to fund PBS TeacherLine, an online professional development program that improves teacher quality, particularly in the core areas of reading and math. These programs have one goal in mind: to measurably improve student performance by improving K-12 teacher quality.
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New Public Television Education Initiative
The 110th Congress will include work on the renewal of several federal education authorization bills, including No Child Left Behind, the Higher Education Act, Head Start, and the Workforce Investment Act. APTS, working with PBS, has developed a comprehensive legislative agenda for Public Television to expand its educational services to America. Ready To Compete represents the leveraging of the true potential of digital technology to enhance education, improve student achievement, improve teacher quality, enhance America’s competitiveness, grow a skilled workforce for the 21st century and provide learning through early childhood into retirement.
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Public Television and Homeland Security Under a joint partnership between APTS, Digital Public Television stations, and the Department of Homeland Security, Public Television will serve as the backbone of a new, digital Emergency Alert System. Under the WARN Act enacted in 2006, Public Television stations also form the backbone infrastructure of the Commercial Mobile Service Alert System. APTS also supports assistance to state and local authorities to access and utilize the DEAS to create and send emergency messages during local and regional emergencies.
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Satellite Carriage of Public Television Signal
The Direct Broadcast Satellite industry’s failure to carry Public Television’s local digital signal is a “gaping hole” in Public Television’s ability to serve its members. American citizens deserve local public television for local information, public affairs, and emergency alerts, and APTS has successfully negotiated carriage agreements with cable MSOs and Verizon. Satellite must-carry is an issue in telecommunications reform legislation. APTS’ independent negotiations, while successful in the past with the cable industry, have yielded no concrete, positive results. Public Television therefore must seek a legislative or regulatory remedy, and urges Congress to support efforts to give its constituents access to local public television stations.
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Updated: May 2008
