William Brangham:
Congress sends money to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, which disburses the funds throughout the public media system. For 2025, Congress appropriated $535 million to CPB. That’s less than 1/100th of a percent out of the total federal budget. It costs, per American, a little over $1.50 a year.
While some Republicans argued that funding might have made sense once upon a time, the advent of the Internet makes public media irrelevant.
