Yellowstone Public Radio, Montana Public Radio and Montana PBS indicated that roughly 16% of their funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
By Zeke Lloyd and Nora Mabie MONTANA FREE PRESS
The House gave final approval early Friday to President Donald Trump’s request to rescind about $9 billion for public broadcasting and foreign aid as Republicans intensified their efforts to target institutions and programs they view as bloated.
The GOP-majority chamber passed the bill 216-213. It’s now on the desk of President Donald Trump, who pushed for the legislation as part of his effort to cut back on what he considers wasteful government spending. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., celebrated the bill’s success Friday.
“We need to get back to fiscal sanity and this is an important step,” Johnson said, according to reporting from the Associated Press.
The four Republican members of Montana’s federal delegation voted for the bill. The legislation will mean an estimated $2.6 million cut for public outlets in the state. In June interviews with Montana Free Press, Yellowstone Public Radio, Montana Public Radio and Montana PBS said that roughly 16% of their funding comes from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the passthrough for the federal money.
But broadcasters say tribal radio stations, which primarily serve rural audiences, will be disproportionately affected by the cuts. President and CEO of Native Public Media Loris Taylor said before the final vote that if Congress approved the rescission, 36 of the 57 tribally licensed radio stations nationwide “could go dark.”
These tribal radio stations, Taylor wrote in an email to Montana Free Press this week, serve as lifelines during emergencies and deliver weather warnings, evacuation orders and Amber Alerts for missing Indigenous people. They also disseminate news in areas otherwise considered news deserts.
“For many listeners, tribal radio is the only source of timely, culturally relevant news, including election information, health guidance and daily tribal affairs,” Taylor wrote. “During COVID-19, tribal stations served as first informers on the ground where live updates were premium.”
KGVA, a tribal radio station that serves the Fort Belknap Reservation and surrounding communities in northcentral Montana, is the only tribal station in the state that participates in the Corporation for Public Broadcasting Community Service Grant.
Station Manager Jack Jones about 80% of the station’s budget comes from the CPB.
“If that gets cut, it will affect everything,” he told MTFP this week.
KGVA, Jones said, already operates on a tight budget. He is the only full-time permanent employee. The station, he said, provides important community services, including local event coverage and culturally relevant programming. One program highlights an Aaniiih or Nakoda “word of the day,” and every morning KGVA plays music from Native American drum groups.
“It’s not just preserving the culture,” he said. “It’s sharing the culture with other communities. Our footprint reaches far and wide, and people like to tune in.”
Losing tribal stations like KGVA, Taylor said, could devastate communities.
“For rural tribal communities, radio is not optional,” she wrote. “It is core infrastructure.”
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., said he secured a deal from the White House that some funding administered by the Interior Department would be repurposed to subsidize Native American public radio stations in about a dozen states.
“I’m pleased we secured $9.4 million to make certain the dozens of tribal radio stations receiving CPB community service grants across 11 states can continue operating without interruption,” Rounds wrote in a Thursday press release.
But The New York Times reported July 16 that in an undated letter to Rounds, Taylor wrote that she was unsure his proposed fix would work.
“There is currently no clear path for redirecting these funds to tribal broadcasters without significant legislative and administrative changes,” she wrote, according to the Times.
Montana Free Press asked each member of the state’s federal delegation for comment on the bill’s impact to Montana public media.
Gabby Wiggins, a spokesperson for Sen. Steve Daines, said Daines “supports local public broadcasting and believes that wasteful spending should be reduced to ensure taxpayer dollars are used effectively.”
Rep. Troy Downing and Rep. Ryan Zinke both celebrated the rescission bill on the social media platform X, but did not provide comments to MTFP on how it is likely to impact Montana’s public media.
Sen. Tim Sheehy’s office did not reply to requests for comment.
Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, one of the only Republicans to vote against the bill, said in a speech on the Senate floor Thursday that public media stations are “not just your news — it is your tsunami alert, it is your landslide alert, it is your volcano alert.”
Montana’s major public media organizations have also said they are multipurpose epicenters of public value. In interviews and press releases Friday, the state’s public media groups posited they serve as cultural hubs, educational resources, artistic outlets and emergency information systems, in addition to reporting state and local news and running national programming.
Montana PBS, which reaches 220,000 adults and 30,000 children each week, anticipates a $1.8 million cut starting in October. The figure represents nearly 20% of its annual funding.
“Montana PBS remains committed to our educational and public service mission and we intend to be a resource to our state’s citizens for many years to come,” wrote Montana PBS leadership in a press release Friday.
MTPR receives a Community Service Grant from CPB of $353,000, roughly 11% of its annual operating budget. It employs 10 reporters around the state, and a press release indicated “some of that coverage is only possible because of CPB grants.”
“In the coming weeks, we will begin implementing our plans to address this funding shortfall and encourage Montanans to stay engaged and informed about how you can help keep MTPR strong,” said Anne Hosler, MTPR’s general manager who also serves as the general manager at KUFM TV.
YPR faces $270,000 in direct losses and $80,000 in lost support infrastructure, including the purchase of music licensing rights, the maintenance of satellite systems and reporting from national journalists. Factoring in the increased cost of fundraising, YPR estimates that CPB’s dismantling will cost the station roughly $480,000.
“It’s stressful for us,” Jackie Coffin, YPR’s news director, said in an interview with Montana Free Press on Friday. “I think it would be stressful for any household or business to suddenly be losing about 10% of their budget.”
Despite the potential shortfall, Coffin firmly defended the organization’s mission.
“We provide a vital service to our listeners. We make it possible for people who live in very rural parts of the country — some of the most rural parts — to be informed and updated on world news and events, to connect with people of different cultures through different programming, to learn new information, to voter guides and information,” Coffin said. “And we’re going to keep doing that no matter what Congress votes to do.”
The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.
