Every couple of years, Paula Kerger, the long-serving chief executive of PBS, faces pushback from Congress. It often comes from Republicans who argue that public broadcasters like PBS and NPR are biased and not deserving of taxpayers’ money. Ms. Kerger, 67, has a playbook for how to handle that.
“We would just fight on the merits,” Ms. Kerger said in an interview this week, spelling out the broadcaster’s mission, audience, spending priorities and results. “That’s an argument we know how to do.”
But this year, she said, feels “very different.” In January, the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission ordered an investigation into the public media networks’ sponsor messages. In March, Ms. Kerger faced hostile lawmakers on a House subcommittee led by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called the hearing “Anti-American Airwaves.”
Then, this month, President Trump signed an executive order seeking to end all federal funding for PBS and NPR, which the White House called “woke propaganda.” Soon after, Mr. Trump terminated a grant that PBS used to finance children’s educational programs.
“It feels like a lot of stuff coming at us from lots of different directions,” Ms. Kerger, who has run PBS for nearly 20 years, said from her office in Arlington, Va., with a view of the Washington Monument. The group “furloughed a ton of people last week,” she said.
PBS gets about 15 percent of its budget from federal grants. The rest comes from sources including licensing, sponsorships and dues from its 330 or so member stations.
When the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was founded in 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson had a vision to connect America, particularly rural areas, with educational and cultural programming. But with the country more connected than ever — digitally, that is — is there still a place for PBS when Netflix, YouTube and so many other options exist?
This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.
Does this moment feel like a five-alarm fire for you?
It’s pretty intense. I encourage people that have opinions about this to tell their elected officials. Most of the federal money — it’s 15 percent of our funding overall — actually goes directly to our stations.
I used to be at WNET in New York, and we got about 6 or 7 percent of our money from the federal government. I visit stations in Corpus Christi and half of their budget comes from the federal appropriation. The fight is to make sure that funding comes so that station doesn’t go dark.
Why can’t PBS at the corporate level help plug the gaps?
We’d have to raise a lot of money to do that. We’re not a network. We’re sort of the reverse of a network. All of our stations are locally owned, locally operated, locally governed.
Before the formation of PBS, each individual station was sort of out there on its own trying to make content, and you would never be able to do a “NewsHour” or a “Frontline” or “Sesame Street” or any of the stuff we do without pulling everything together. Half of our resources come from the dues that stations pay us.
We commission and acquire content for them. We manage the infrastructure. We create the apps that they use.
If we were to replace that money, we would have to be out in the marketplace raising a significant amount. People have looked at it in the past. There isn’t really a replacement for government funding, particularly to support the local stations.
But a fight over funding flares up every few years — I remember when Mitt Romney said he wanted to cut your funding despite loving Big Bird. Would it not just be easier to give up the federal money and figure out a different route?
We do a lot of stuff on behalf of the public that the public doesn’t necessarily see. We run the whole backup infrastructure for the emergency alert system because we have broadcast stations everywhere.
If you look around the world, and if you look particularly at democracies — look at the BBC — public media is largely government funded. We’re an anomaly in that we’re largely private funded.
I’m sure you know wealthy donors who you could call.
There are a lot of rich people in this country, but do we really want a media service that’s also controlled by a handful of people?
I think what has made us really strong is that we have this collective investment we’re making as a country. We have lots of small contributions, contributions from some of the bigger foundations and some companies support us. It’s a mix.
I have to admit, there may be moments where I think there has to be an easier path, but I think this is worth fighting for.
When I visit communities and talk to people, their public station is like their national park. They feel about it the same way. These are public goods.
Is there anyone in the White House that you can plead your case to?
Under usual terms, this would be a decision of Congress. Lisa Murkowski just did a press release last week and an interview with an Alaska paper and talked about how critically important PBS is. I’m hopeful that more and more people will step up.
This is unusual because it’s coming from so many different places. That was not the case during the first Trump administration. It was not what I feel like this is: an all-out effort to take us out. The F.C.C., DOGE, I mean it’s just a whole different environment than anything I’ve seen before.
Do you acknowledge any of the criticism that PBS is biased?
No, I don’t. First off, so much of the discussion has been around news. A little less than 10 percent of what we do is actually news. Half of what we do is for kids under the age of 5.
In terms of the news, we work really hard to try to bring multiple viewpoints forward. We take to heart the fact that we serve all of America and that should be our focus.
Do you think any good could come from opening up a conversation about the structure of federal funding to public broadcasters?
I’m hopeful that as difficult as this is, perhaps there will be some good coming out of it.
Sometimes people just take it for granted. It’s like: “They’ll always be there. It’ll work out.” This is a moment when it’s like, “Well, it might not.”
If PBS went away, what would actually be lost?
We look at ourselves as the parents’ partner. Nobody else has that as their business. When I look at YouTube — and we distribute stuff on YouTube — there is a lot of content that is being fed by the algorithm, and it’s not doing what we do. That would be lost.
Will the marketplace come in and try to fill some of the gap? Maybe. But they’re not going to stick with it. We’re just a profoundly different business.
When you think about programming or when you are presented business choices, do you think about the commercial aspects of things?
We do much of what we do because of our mission. We also have to make sure that we’re bringing audiences in. Remember, a lot of stuff on commercial television came from PBS.
The first financial news show came from PBS. Cooking was really Julia Child. Even reality shows, believe it or not, came from PBS, with “American Family” in the early ’70s.
Part of what we do should be seen as an incubator for new stuff and new ideas.
Can artificial intelligence play a role at PBS?
Every five years, we review our editorial standards. We have just finished this round, and a big piece of it was on A.I.
We have done some experiments. It’s not true A.I., because we’ve got scripts written by educators, but the interactivity is all fired by A.I., creating an experience where kids can interact with characters.
I think it’s an extraordinarily powerful tool, particularly for education, and that is one of the things that I’m really looking forward to spending time thinking about — rather than the other stuff we’re working on.
Let’s talk about how you got here. Your family has history in public broadcasting, starting with your grandfather Ed Arnold. Tell me about him.
He was a physics professor and worked on microwave technology during World War II. He was one of these guys that was always puttering around. He had TV sets and tubes and all this stuff everywhere.
He had been a high school teacher and then ended up working for the Defense Department. He knew they had all this surplus of stuff, and he got a transmitter and put up a radio station in 1951. He started WBJC, the public radio station out of Baltimore, a classical station to this day.
Did he tell you why he wanted to start a radio station?
He would tell me these stories, and the one I really remember was about how sound waves travel and the difference between AM and FM. It felt really magical, the way that he would describe it. And how late at night, with the way that the radio waves bounced, you could hear broadcasts from far away, like a window on a much bigger world.
When I first started working in public television, he was still alive, and it was the beginning of HD. I remember talking to him about how it was going to be these amazing images, and it felt full circle because when I was little he was talking to me about how powerful technology could be to tell stories.
Time for the lightning round. What are you trying to learn more about right now?
From a business standpoint, I’m trying to understand more about A.I. On a personal level, I’m in Duolingo studying French.
What’s your streak?
I think today is Day 99.
What’s the first app you check when you wake up?
My Oura ring.
How much sleep do you get, and what hours? I know you know, because you have an Oura ring.
I go to sleep early and get up early. I don’t want to tell you exactly when because that will seem like I’m a baby. Usually if I can get seven hours that’s pretty good.
Do you own any cryptocurrency?
No, and I’m trying really hard to understand it. I sit on a foundation board that has a small crypto investment, and to me that’s so fascinating.
What’s your favorite PBS program?
I cannot name a favorite because would you pick your favorite child? But I think the most important show we do is “Frontline.”
What is your guilty TV pleasure? This doesn’t have to be on PBS.
I loved “Shogun.” Right now, I’m looking for lighter entertainment, so I love “Hacks.” Over the weekend, I binged “The Four Seasons.”
How do you sign off your emails?
All the best.
Jordyn Holman is a business reporter for The Times, covering the retail industry and consumer behavior.
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