At Emotional Final Meeting, CPB Leaders Say Public Media ‘Is Never Going Away.’

Public media “is never going away.” That was the message Corporation for Public Broadcasting leaders returned to again and again Thursday, as the CPB convened what was likely its final board meeting — a gathering marked by emotion, reflection, and repeated pauses as speakers struggled through tears.

“Yes, we are closing down,” CPB President/CEO Patricia Harrison said. “But we are not disengaging individually — public media is never going away, so get ready whoever thinks it is not.”

The CPB board voted to dissolve the 58-year-old organization after federal funding was withdrawn. Board Chair Ruby Calvert said continuing to operate as a defunded entity would have opened up the public media system to “unacceptable and unprecedented risk” to its independence, credibility, and to the stations in the communities who rely on it. Dissolution, she said, was the most responsible way to “safeguard public media from potential misuse and an erosion of trust.”

Even as CPB winds down, the board used its final meeting to outline the organization’s last major investments in the system it was created to protect. That includes earmarking more than $12 million in remaining interconnection funds directly to eligible public media stations. Calvert described the move as a deliberate shift of trust to the local level. “By directing these remaining funds to individual stations, we are placing trust where it belongs — closest to communities,” she said.

The board also authorized what Calvert called “two final mission-driven investments for future content.” One supports continued production of the PBS children’s series “Carl the Collector.” The other is a grant to the non-partisan, not-for-profit initiative More Perfect, which Calvert said will support two years of research and outreach “to envision and hopefully outline the future of public media.”

Throughout the meeting, speakers emphasized CPB’s dissolution does not mark the end of public media’s role as a civic institution. “Public media is and will remain a deeply essential civic infrastructure for our nation,” Calvert said, adding that “stations, elected leaders and the general public must take up the mantle to ensure that public media persists.”

The winddown was set in motion when Congress voted last July to rescind $1.1 billion in previously approved funding — fulfilling a Project 2025 objective. In the months since, most of CPB’s staff exited at the end of September and the organization has been racing to distribute its remaining grant money to broadcasters. On the local level, many stations have been laying off staff and cutting expenses as they face a hole in their budgets. Last week, the House rejected an attempt to place $100 million for public media back into the budget to help stations in rural areas.

Reflecting on the past year, Vice Chair Liz Sembler called it CPB’s very own “annus horribilis,” or horrible year, citing threats, attacks, and legal challenges — including a rare public battle with NPR. Still, Sembler said she chooses to focus on “examples of courage, heroism, dedication, dogged determination and just plain old-fashioned goodness” she has witnessed.

Much of the praise for guiding CPB through its turbulent end went to Harrison, who framed CPB’s final actions as necessary to protect public media’s independence She also acknowledged the sadness of the moment but rejected the idea that CPB’s story ends here. “I don’t view this as an end, and that’s why I’m not sad,” she said. “We are going to prevail.”