A conservative group yesterday urged the Federal Communications Commission to take licenses away from NPR and PBS stations and let other entities use the spectrum. The request came from the Center for American Rights (CAR), a nonprofit law firm that has played a prominent role in the news-distortion investigations spearheaded by FCC Chairman Brendan Carr.
“In the wake of the wind-down of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the end of federal funding for NPR and PBS, the Center respectfully suggests that the Commission open an inquiry that looks at the future of ‘public’ broadcasting in that new environment,” a Center for American Rights filing said.
The CPB is set to shut down after Congress approved President Trump’s request to rescind its funding. The Center for American Rights said the CPB shutdown should be used as an opportunity to reassign spectrum used by NPR and PBS stations to other entities.
“If PBS and NPR cannot prove a viable long-term business model as national networks—and if their individual affiliates cannot show long-term business models in each market—then this Commission needs to consider whether those channels (i.e., that spectrum) will become available in the near future for other potential licensees or uses,” the group said.
Suggesting that PBS and NPR stations aren’t serving the public interest, the CAR filing said the FCC “should ask whether PBS (and NPR) stations are fulfilling their public-interest obligations as licensees when the public’s elected representatives have just chosen to cut off public funding because of their failure to serve the public well.”
Republicans cut off funding
The Republican-led votes to eliminate CPB funding were criticized by Democrats. “Republicans once again bent the knee to their wannabe King Donald, rubber-stamping his cruel and callous cuts while robbing kids and communities of free, high quality public programming,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said at the time.