Montana’s four congressional delegates joined the majority of Republican lawmakers in voting for the rescission package. U.S. Sen. Steve Daines in a video called National Public Radio biased.
“We also pulled funding from NPR, which uses taxpayer dollars to promote woke ideas,” Daines said.
The federal allocation is funneled through the Corporation of Public Broadcasting to NPR, PBS and local stations across the country. Federal dollars make up less than 2% of NPR’s annual revenue. On average, federal dollars account for roughly 10% of local public radio stations’ budgets and 15% of PBS member stations’ budgets.
Republicans have criticized public media funding since the 1960s.
William Marcus spent four decades working for the University of Montana’s Broadcast Media Center, which houses Montana Public Radio and Montana PBS. He says previous administrations failed to cut funding when constituents appealed to their representatives in support of local public media.
“And that’s always tipped the scale in our favor," Marcus says. "This time we just couldn’t overcome the enormous pressure from the president.”
He says local stations will bear the brunt of the funding cuts.
Yellowstone Public Radio General Manager Ken Siebert says the station airs 60 hours of classical music each week in addition to human interest programs and news coverage.
“I don’t see anything about that that isn’t contributing to the betterment of our communities.”
Siebert says YPR won’t have to reduce staff or programming through at least June of 2026, but filling the budget gap will be a massive lift.
Anne Hosler, director of the Broadcast Media Center, says rural consumers will be most impacted if stations can’t find a way to fill that gap.
“A lot of these rural communities – there aren’t other options for folks to get news and information and great music programming," Hosler says. "That’s really where public media thrives and really where we commit to serving all people.”
Federal funding previously made up about 10% of YPR’s and MTPR’s budgets, and 20% of Montana PBS’s budget.
YPR News Director Jackie Coffin contributed reporting to this story. It was edited by MTPR acting News Director Aaron Bolton. No other MTPR or University of Montana staff reviewed it before its publishing.
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The House approved a Trump administration plan to rescind $9 billion in previously allocated funds, including $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
