As public media threats drag on, a fundraising boom points to deeper uncertainty

If there s any silver lining for community media under pressure from the Trump administration it s that audiences seem to be showing up with outsized backing Minnesota Populace Radio blew past a million goal for its spring member drive in mid-May raising a little over million That s three times more than last year s spring fundraising event It s a big deal mentioned MPR President Duchesne Drew It s a big moment I think for our organization our area our country Anecdotally smaller stations are also seeing more endorsement KAXE in northern Minnesota raised more this year than last year during its April fundraising event The station also received particular larger gifts after our pledge drive reported KAXE CEO Sarah Bignall The surprise donations were hundred- or thousand-dollar gifts from people who stated Hey we know that times are tough here for you guys and we backing your work she reported But that fundraising success in turn highlights the scale of the threat that citizens media faces and how citizens media isn t a monolith but a complex ecosystem being targeted on multiple fronts Maybe the best known front is the Corporation for Populace Broadcasting the independent nonprofit created and funded by Congress to advocacy residents media The CPB is the main avenue for establishment funding to hundreds of public radio and television stations The CPB also funds National Citizens Radio NPR and the Constituents Broadcasting System PBS President Donald Trump accuses both of being RADICAL LEFT MONSTERS and aims to defund the organizations If Trump gets his wish Congress will cancel all CPB funding already allocated for fiscal years and and potentially stop funding the CPB entirely The cuts are closer than selected might think for the federal governing body fiscal year definitely starts Oct For MPR that could mean an immediate loss of million in annual funding from the CPB Even a wildly effective spring charity fundraiser can t cover that hole which amounts to roughly of MPR s projected revenue for fiscal year In MPR brought in roughly million CHECK million It s meaningful to be able to close it right but it s still a huge gap between what we could raise from our members and what we d lose from federal funding Drew mentioned Whether it s a one and done or whether it s changing their monthly or annual donations to the degree members are able to and interested in helping us achieve greater impact across Minnesota we ll be able to do more of that work with more of their advocacy Meanwhile KAXE could lose in CPB funding or nearly of its budget The unfortunate thing is that you can t use less electricity on our tower and transmitter sites and a lot of those built-in costs are just kind of fixed and so it d be the people that we d have to look at cutting Bignall mentioned That s a best circumstance scenario for Greater Minnesota where several stations can be reliant on CPB for upwards of of their annual funding Without that sponsorship those stations would likely shut down Where lawsuits come in Another kind of funding is also under threat Part of each CPB grant almost for radio stations is mandated to be spent on national initiatives from producers like NPR and PBS American Residents Media Group MPR s parent organization also benefits from that mandate It produces national shows like Marketplace and distributes audio work from publishers like the New York Times to other stations If CPB cuts and other financial factors lead stations to buy less national services APMG could lose more than million annually in licensing and distribution alone Drew noted NPR and PBS were in the crosshairs of Trump s May executive order addressing in part that national spending mandate The executive order described the CPB to stop direct funding to NPR and PBS and to make sure local stations don t indirectly patronage them by spending CPB funds on their activities NPR and PBS both filed lawsuits against the executive order Notably Lakeland PBS the community television station serving north and central Minnesota joined the PBS lawsuit Lakeland PBS declined to speak with MinnPost But its court filing explains just how significant paying for national activities is to local stations Lakeland PBS relies heavily on PBS s roster of quality programs of offerings on Lakeland-Prime Lakeland PBS s main channel comes from PBS and of services on Lakeland-PBS Kids Lakeland PBS s educational channel comes from PBS it declared As a development the executive order s ban on indirect PBS funding is an existential threat According to the filing Lakeland PBS receives about million of its million budget from the CPB with almost half the grant going to pay national PBS member dues and access offerings That s not funding Lakeland PBS can make up on its own The station s sponsorship revenue is down more than over the last decade Foundation grants meanwhile are increasingly intricate to obtain lawyers wrote But not everyone is on board with the CPB s mandate Joel Glaser CEO of the Association of Minnesota Inhabitants Educational Radio Stations AMPERS has long disliked the mandate AMPERS works with group radio stations in Greater Minnesota including KAXE My responsibility is to ensure the survival of my stations and I need them to be getting as much money as they can receive Glaser stated To Glaser the mandate complicates the work of local stations If they have to buy and run national initiatives much of which is from NPR or PBS then accusations of liberal bias more easily filter down to the local stations Glaser is advocating for CPB to lift the mandate which he also sees as a way to disarm lawmakers who want to defund general media I think that may indeed appease various who are on the fence that are saying this money is going to liberal activities and instead hey the money is really going to the local communities he announced Not having a mandate can also free stations up to spend less on other quality programs There s plenty of content out there that s a fraction of the price Glaser reported Not just OK initiatives but good initiatives Caution on the air As stations weigh how to respond to expected federal cuts there s a fine line between ringing the alarm and crying wolf After all federal funding of masses media has been under threat several times over the past sparse decades but each time Congress has continued funding the CPB There s a broad recognition that this time is different But that doesn t necessarily make messaging to audiences any easier MPR and Twin Cities PBS TPT were relatively explicit about CPB cuts when fundraising one TPT fundraising email had the subject line You know what s at stake TPT declined to speak to MinnPost I think our audience wants to know how we re definitely doing Drew noted of MPR s messaging They d be upset if we had key restructuring without their having a sense of the challenges we were facing Duchesne Drew Credit Courtesy of MPR Bignall doesn t think that kind of approach would work for KAXE s more conservative audience We live in a very purple county and the tone in which MPR and TPT have gone about it would have been very off putting to a good portion of our listeners she declared It s also harder to pitch audiences when there s been a lot of threats at this point in time but nothing has flushed its way out Another consideration for stations The Federal Communications Commission and the Internal Revenue Arrangement are now part of the multi-pronged campaign against constituents media Trump has threatened to use both agencies against organizations that draw his ire Populace radio and television stations as nonprofits could have their status revoked by the IRS or broadcast licenses cancelled by the FCC I m not willing to threat our FCC license Bignall explained Part of that says that we can t be advocating for political causes she mentioned And while you might look at CPB funding and First Amendment rights as nonpartisan in this day and age it s a political topic Cloudy with a chance of meatballs For the moment inhabitants media is strapping in with no clear answers Even if one federal funding threat is addressed say if the NPR and PBS lawsuits successfully block the executive order Congress can still cancel CPB funding and the FCC might continue to target stations Other federal funding like a U S Department of Training grant to PBS for kids programs has already been cut That led TPT to furlough specific staff And any lawsuits could potentially drag on for months or even years effectively freezing funding along the way For Drew the main focus at MPR is on expanding Greater Minnesota coverage and continuing to evolve as device and audiences change We ve got a bunch of other financial asks out both to individuals as well as to institutions that will in the end affect what we re able to do and what we can t do or can t do in the same means he disclosed APMG MPR s parent organization is already seeing specific belt tightening though the moves aren t necessarily tied to likely federal cuts Marketplace restructured and laid off seven people which Drew commented was about helping the show reach digital audiences more effectively It wasn t absolutely an exercise to remove costs he announced As for the sustainability of MPR s current messaging around CPB cuts and whether members will endorsement MPR to the same extent as this latest spring charity event Drew isn t sure Time will tell he revealed We re not screaming The sky is falling and we re not pretending that it s no big deal either Glaser meanwhile is telling AMPERS stations to be ready to operate without CPB funding for up to four years If that happens several stations will shut down but he thinks the majority will make it He s optimistic that if the CPB is dismantled or its funds revoked Congress may bring it back in a scarce years There are also state funding sources to worry about Minnesota funds citizens media initiatives including through the Legacy Amendment But this year with a projected budget deficit state lawmakers reduced that funding MPR s allocation was cut from million to million for the next two years Meanwhile AMPERS saw a roughly cut per station More cuts could come next year depending on how lawmakers are feeling about the state budget forecast And the foreseen loss of CPB funding could snowball for smaller stations into the complete loss of state assistance Minnesota statute requires residents media stations to have two full-time staff or the equivalent in part-time staff to be eligible for state funding A number of our stations are right there Glaser declared If they lose the CPB funding potentially a or cut could easily become a or cut Pioneer radio in Thief River Falls is one of those stations It has two-and-a-half employees and supporters with of its budget supported by a CPB grant Fifteen years ago CPB funding helped the station transition to a digital multicast signal digitize its popular polka records and launch a polka music channel for listeners The station is a stalwart in an area of Minnesota where local news and activities is otherwise dying KAXE Northern Neighborhood Radio s headquarters is located near downtown Grand Rapids an Itasca County town of Credit MinnPost photo by Gregg Aamot Mark Johnson Pioneer s general manager has been hesitant to talk about the menace of CPB cuts with his audience I craved to be really careful about not ringing that alarm bell until it s necessary he noted Still it s clear that without CPB funding the future of the station would be in question But now with the news that Trump will soon ask Congress to cancel CPB funding Johnson thinks it s time to speak up It s stressful of module but it s times like this when you find out how pivotal your work is to people he stated When people know that this is serious and that it will indeed impact this station I think that they will step up and help out The post As constituents media threats drag on a 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