CPB’s Federal Appropriation Request & Justification

Public Radio Station and Programming Grants — $99.1 million

“Unrestricted” CSGs — $69.3 million

Like public television stations, eligible public radio stations also receive CSGs from CPB, though for radio, the CSG contains two types of funds: unrestricted and restricted. The unrestricted portion can be used for a variety of purposes, including local content development, community outreach, infrastructure maintenance, and other station needs.

“Restricted” CSGs — $22.8 million

Radio restricted CSGs are required by the Public Broadcasting Act “to be used for acquiring or producing [radio] programming that is to be distributed nationally and is designed to serve the needs of a national audience.” Broadly speaking, public radio stations use the restricted portion of their CSG to acquire programming from national producers such as NPR, Public Radio International, American Public Media, independent producers and other stations that produce national content.

Taken together, in FY2013, the latest year for which we have data, the average public radio station relied on both unrestricted and restricted grants for 10 percent of its annual revenue. However, for some stations, including those serving rural or Native American communities, the CSG provides the bulk of their funding. As with television CSGs, the size of each station's grant depends on factors such as population density of the market served, local need, and the amount of funds that stations can raise on their own.^[3]

Radio Program Fund — $7 million

As on the television side, the Public Broadcasting Act directs CPB to invest a small portion of the appropriation in nationally-distributed radio programming projects. The Radio Program Fund supports the development of new public radio services and series, the production of urgent or timely content, the work of independent radio producers, programming for underserved and unserved audiences, and the development of innovative content forms.

• CPB has supported numerous journalism projects that have introduced new approaches to producing and distributing news, by enhancing the capacity of local stations to contribute to the national news marketplace. CPB launched several Local Journalism Centers (LJCs) by funding editorial collaborations comprised of public radio and television stations focused on a single topic relevant to local, regional and national audiences. The LJCs included groups of stations looking at immigration issues in the Southwest, food and fuel in the Midwest, and the innovation economy in the Northeast. In addition, local stations have been granted CPB funds to address education issues that align with CPB's national American Graduate initiative, which addresses the high school dropout crisis in our country.
• StoryCorps is the groundbreaking public radio project that honors and celebrates American lives through listening. StoryCorps collects interviews from everyday Americans and edits them for national broadcast on public radio. The StoryCorps Military Voices Initiative is a major national project aimed at bridging the gap between the civilian population and the military community by recording, sharing, and preserving the stories of those individuals who serve and protect our county with their lives. All StoryCorps interviews are available online and are also archived at the American Folklife Center of the Library of Congress.
• The Moth Radio Hour features first person stories that speak to the diversity of the human experience. The stories are recorded live at events across the country for national distribution. The weekly program reaches listeners on more than 260 public radio stations and has become a popular fixture in public media. The Moth also collects and curates compelling stories of military service personnel and has produced an hour long special for Veterans Day.
• State of the Re:Union is an innovative, multimedia, multi-platform project that travels the country creating content that highlights the distinctive culture and sensibilities of a community. The program airs on public radio stations across the nation and provides new, unique voices for public media – bringing younger and more diverse perspectives to the airwaves. Combined with its community engagement and social media activities, the project is pioneering an integrated approach to digital storytelling that reflects the diversity of America as it explores the themes, stories, challenges, and cultural components that personify communities across the country.
• New Visions, New Voices brings more diverse voices to public media by featuring notable African American specialists and commentators. The grantee, Next Tier Solutions, produces short-form commentaries and hour-long specials featuring experts, analysts, and commentators from this new diverse group for distribution to stations across the country. The content that is produced is also marketed to national shows in public media to serve as regular contributors or as analysts and commentators on breaking news.
• Native America Calling and National Native News cover a wide spectrum of Native American and Alaska Native issues and ensure that Native voices are heard in our national discourse. The two programs enrich the diversity of American media by educating the public with cultural offerings, questions, and dialogue not found in commercial media programming.
• Undercurrents is a daily music service that provides an eclectic mix of Native, rock, folk, blues, world and reggae music to Native and non-Native listeners. Undercurrents is produced by Native owned RadioCamp LLC and is broadcast on 129 stations that include a growing number of Triple A stations.

System Support (or “Six Percent”) Funds — $26.7 million

The Public Broadcasting Act directs CPB to use six percent of the appropriation for “projects and activities that will enhance public broadcasting,”^[4]. Also known as “System Support,” these funds help to drive leadership among stations, innovation within the system, and collaboration across the system to help ensure effective and efficient programs and services. For example, in 2013, CPB used System Support funds to support its American Graduate initiative, helping stations help their communities to address the national high school dropout crisis. In addition, System Support funds help to offset certain infrastructure costs mentioned in the Public Broadcasting Act such as interconnection and music royalty costs.

While it is not possible to predict all System Support needs in FY2019, the following projects are likely to continue to receive funding:

• Expanding American Graduate: American Graduate brings public media together with key community stakeholders to improve student outcomes and raise academic achievement in support of ending the dropout crisis. Next year, CPB will expand successful models to bring meaningful impact and change to more communities at risk. Through the recently created $20 million American Graduate/PBS KIDS Fund, CPB and PBS will invest in the development of new tools to help parents better prepare their children ages 2 - 8 for educational success, to support teacher development, and that engage middle and high school youth to improve learning. Finally, working with producers, stations, and national content distributors, CPB will fund additional national multiplatform content to highlight new information and solutions as the issue unfolds.
• Music Copyright Fees: The Public Broadcasting Act says System Support funds “shall be available for expenses incurred by the Corporation for…the payment of programming royalties and other fees,” and CPB has traditionally paid all broadcast and internet music licensing fees on behalf of public television and radio as a service to the station community. If stations paid these fees individually, the overall cost would be much greater. However, CPB payment of these fees could change in the future as these costs have continued to rise at a much faster pace than CPB's appropriation.
• TV Interconnection Operating Grants: As directed by statute, CPB provides half of the cost of operating the interconnection system that PBS, regional distributors, local public television stations, and other entities will use to distribute programming material to public television stations nationwide.
• System Efficiency: One of CPB's primary leadership responsibilities is to further the long-term health and sustainability of the public media system and, as such, CPB will continue to pursue projects that are focused on maximizing the resources stations have available for service. These initiatives, with the goal of managing the costs of overhead and operations to provide more resources for the content that audiences care about, include facilitating multi-station “central-cast” systems and cooperative back office operations; encouraging stations to come together through mergers and consolidations where appropriate; developing and implementing sustainable service models for regions served by economically-challenged stations that are the sole public television or radio providers to that community, and improving station fundraising efficiency.