The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced on Jan. 5 that its board voted to dissolve the nearly 60-year-old organization, attributing the decision to a lack of federal funding and “sustained political attacks.”
Such factors “made it impossible for CPB to continue operating as the Public Broadcasting Act intended," according to a news release announcing the vote.
The 1967 legislation established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting as a nonprofit and non-governmental organization tasked in part with developing “programs of high quality, diversity, creativity, excellence and innovation” with a “strict adherence to objectivity and balance in all programs or series of programs of a controversial nature.”
Over the decades, the programs that aired on PBS with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting included children's programming like Sesame Street, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood and Arthur; cooking shows by luminaries such as Julia Child; documentaries from FRONTLINE; science programs like NOVA; and Masterpiece dramas. Federal funding also supported a public alert system to warn viewers and public radio listeners of impending dangers.
President Donald Trump called for the federal government to stop funding National Public Radio and PBS, which received operating money from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Trump claimed “neither entity presents a fair, accurate or unbiased portrayal of current events to taxpaying citizens.”
