Things looked bleak last summer for KCAW, a tiny public radio station serving the remote community of Sitka, Alaska (population 8,393).
Congress had just slashed $500 million in funding for public media, blowing a $187,500 hole in the station’s budget. Mariana Robertson, the station’s general manager, said she had faced a potential “doomsday” situation that included cutting staff.
Then the donations poured in.
Now, Ms. Robertson is one of many station directors across America who find themselves in unexpected territory: first, expecting the worst, but then buoyed by a flood of emergency funding that has kept their stations stable and surviving. For now.
“It’s a huge success story, and we’re so grateful and thrilled,” Ms. Robertson said. “But the future is unclear.”
When government funding disappeared from public media last year, experts predicted dire consequences for scores of stations. According to one estimate, 78 public radio stations and 37 TV stations were at risk of going dark as a result of the cuts. President Trump recently said NPR and PBS had “closed up.”
But six months after the funding cuts, few public TV or radio stations have closed their doors. Many have scraped together a patchwork of funding from concerned donors, philanthropies or government grants. Others, facing insurmountable budget issues, have resorted to mergers with bigger stations to stay online. NPR and PBS have not gone anywhere.
In fact, the country’s public media system — more than 1,000 radio and TV stations, serving millions of people — remains largely intact, despite the disappearance of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
But there is not a lot of celebrating among public media executives and supporters. Much of the angst about the long-term future remains. They point out that much of the money making up for the loss in federal funding has come from one-off donations and grants — short-term fixes — that may have managed only to defer the true financial pain.
“We’re not out of the woods at all,” said Tim Isgitt, chief executive of Public Media Company, a nonprofit that has stepped in to provide $30 million in emergency funding to rescue public TV and radio stations.
Several stations teetered on the edge of insolvency when they applied for and received funding through the Public Media Bridge Fund, the program administered by Mr. Isgitt’s company. But the fund is not designed to be a long-term solution. Mr. Isgitt said it was designed to give jeopardized stations time to transition to a more sustainable future.
One of those recipients is KWMR, a public radio station based in the coastal hamlet of Point Reyes Station, Calif. Amanda Eichstaedt, the station’s manager and executive director, scrambled to adjust for a 26 percent budget cut this summer, which she feared would result in a staff reduction.
But listeners “really stepped up,” Ms. Eichstaedt said. They started a “25 to stay alive” campaign that aimed to patch together the quarter of the budget that had been snatched by Congress. Ultimately, they pitched in roughly $150,000, making up for the lost government money.
The tsunami of donations to public media stations last year resulted in an increase of roughly $300 million from the year before, with new donors growing by about 84 percent, said Michal Heiplik, president and chief executive of the Contributor Development Partnership, a firm that analyzes public media fund-raising data.
Other changes also helped stabilize stations: NPR and PBS reduced fees for members, some stations tapped cash reserves and others laid off employees to avoid going out of business, Mr. Heiplik said.
“I’m not ready to declare a win, but the increase in community support is very encouraging,” Mr. Heiplik said. “There needs to be a lot more that is done.”
Dozens of Native American tribal stations, considered by many to be among the most vulnerable, received funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. But that funding is projected to last only through the end of this year, said Loris Taylor, the president and chief executive of Native Public Media. After that, 36 of the stations in Ms. Taylor’s network will have to fill an $11 million gap with a mix of fund-raising, emergency grants and other revenue.
“So far, none of the stations are closing their doors,” Ms. Taylor said. “They are continuing to provide service to their communities, but it’s not because the system is suddenly stable. It’s because our stations are drawing on short-term stopgaps.”
Another option for struggling stations is combining with a more well-funded organization. That was the plan announced late last year at WPSU, a PBS and NPR station based at Pennsylvania State University.
The university initially said the station would shut down because of financial challenges exacerbated by government defunding. Ultimately, the university’s board of trustees approved a plan to transfer WPSU’s assets to WHYY, the public media powerhouse in the Philadelphia area behind shows such as “Fresh Air.”
Bill Marrazzo, the chief executive of WHYY, said Congress’s decision to claw back funding was forcing public media leaders to grapple with business model challenges they would have had to reckon with eventually.
“The rescission certainly accelerated the point where that kind of thinking needs to occur,” Mr. Marrazzo said. “But in my mind, as a business matter, it’s inevitable.”
Benjamin Mullin reports for The Times on the major companies behind news and entertainment. Contact him securely on Signal at +1 530-961-3223 or at [email protected].
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