PBS cuts 15% of jobs in wake of federal funding cut [View all]

Source: NPR

Updated September 5, 2025 12:23 AM ET


PBS's chief executive told public television officials Thursday that it was cutting about 15% of its jobs due to the move by Republicans in Congress to eliminate all federal funding for public broadcasting starting on Oct. 1.

Thirty-four PBS staffers were notified Thursday that their positions were being cut. Taken with the loss of a longstanding federal grant for an educational initiative earlier this summer, and the elimination of about three dozen other vacant positions, PBS will have lost more than 100 jobs in all.

PBS Chief Executive Paula Kerger said the system is taking a 21% hit in revenues. "Over the last weeks, we have been working through how best to manage the impact of loss of federal funding," Kerger wrote in a memo to station managers shared with NPR News. "Just like every single public media organization in the country, we are being forced to make hard choices."

That result of the federal cuts from the Congressional rescission — or clawback — of planned expenditures of $1.1 billion over two years on public media and the decision of the Trump administration to kill a major grant from the U.S. Education Department.

Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/04/nx-s1-5529431/pbs-cuts-15-of-jobs-in-wake-of-federal-funding-cut