As Congress debates whether to continue federal support of public media, a new survey from Pew Research finds three out of four Americans do not support efforts to end funding. The survey finds 43% think Congress should keep federal dollars rolling to NPR and PBS. That compares to 24% who say the time to end funding has come. A third of Americans polled by Pew say they are not sure.
The survey — which was conducted March 10-16 — shows a clear political lean in the attitude toward public media support. Nearly seven in ten (69%) of Democrats say they think the federal government should continue to fund public media, while just 19% of Republicans agree. Instead, 44% of Republicans want to remove federal funding. Pew says Republicans 50 and older are especially likely to support ending federal funding for public broadcasters. But in contrast, just 5% of Democrats want it stopped.
One factor likely driving whether Americans support ending public media funding with federal tax dollars is whether they listen to NPR or watch PBS. Overall, Pew says one in five U.S. adults say they regularly get news from NPR, and 21% say they regularly watch PBS.
But political differences also emerge in consumption patterns. Pew says Democrats are much more likely than Republicans to consume public media.
The survey finds a third (32%) of Democrats say they regularly get news from NPR. That compares to 9% of Republicans. And nearly a third (31%) of Democrats regularly get news from PBS. That’s nearly three-times the 11% of Republicans who turn to PBS for news.
The survey also reveals that Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to trust NPR and PBS as sources of news by wide margins. While 47% of Democrats trust NPR as a news source, just 12% of Republicans agreed. In fact, one in four (26%) Republicans say they distrust NPR.
The numbers aren’t much better for PBS. Six in ten (59%) Democrats say they trust PBS as a source of news. That is more than double the 23% of Republicans who say that.
Pew says the survey data about public media funding is part of a forthcoming study of Americans’ views toward dozens of media brands.
It comes as Congress considers several proposals to end federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The budget deal reached earlier this month to fund the federal government through Sept. 30 included $535 million for CPB in the fiscal year 2027 — upholding a two-year advance appropriation for public media. It includes $121.5 million for public radio stations. But Republicans have introduced several bills that would eliminate such funding.
During a House hearing Wednesday, NPR President/CEO Katherine Maher said that federal dollars can make up as much as half of the operating budget of rural stations.
“Those are stations that I’ve seen that have small staffs that do extraordinary work, and those are the stations that I worry would not survive. This would be an existential moment for them, and that’s why I think this is so important,” Maher said. She said even big-market stations, which get about 5% of their funding from the government, would be hurt. Maher said the loss would be “incredibly damaging” to the public radio system.
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