This story was originally published by MinnPost.
Mark Johnson feels like collateral damage right now.
Listeners won’t find NPR content on KSRQ, the Thief River Falls-based radio station that he manages. Instead, they’ll mostly hear locally produced music programs showcasing polka, classic country, original Minnesota music and more.
“Our station focuses on giving local people that creative outlet to be able to get on the air,” said Johnson, who likes NPR plenty but prefers to air programming that can’t be found elsewhere. “With every show we have, each host does their own thing, and brings in a different slice of the audience.”
Despite a heavily local focus, the northwest Minnesota broadcaster will pay the price for cuts targeted at NPR and PBS by President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress. When Congress rescinded $1.1 billion in funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) last week — a move aimed at severing the national broadcasters from taxpayer support — it also cut KSRQ and other rural, radio and television stations off from valuable federal grants.
“It’s little stations like ours that might not be able to continue on because of those cuts,” Johnson said. “They were aiming at one target and they hit us.”
Why is losing CPB funding such a big deal for community radio stations?
Minnesota public broadcasters receive about $17.2 million in annual funding from CPB — a private, nonprofit corporation authorized by Congress in 1967 to support public broadcasting — which is split nearly down the middle between television and radio stations. Of Minnesota’s 27 CPB grants in 2024, more than half went to Greater Minnesota stations.
About 40% of KSRQ’s budget comes from CPB. A radio community service grant accounts for $141,575 of it.
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In contrast, CPB represents less than 2% of NPR funding, 15% of PBS funding and 6% of MPR funding. NPR and PBS affiliates in Minnesota and other states may receive larger percentages of their revenue from CPB and therefore be at higher risk than the flagships.
Grand Rapids-based KAXE, another independent station set to lose a sizable chunk of its funding from CPB, is looking at a 13% hole in its budget, or $194,000.
Additional support from CPB isn’t factored into that total, said Sarah Bignall, KAXE’s general manager. The corporation was tasked with coordinating emergency alerts and covering licenses for music to be used on air. Both endeavors will be costly for stations.
The rest of KAXE’s funding comes from a mix of state grants, local business and listener support and foundations. These sources will need to be relied on more in the post-CPB world.
“We’re going to have to fill the void somehow,” Bignall said.
Why are public broadcasters important in rural areas?
Whereas KSRQ’s loyal following is primarily tied to music programming, KAXE focuses more on news. Its team reports on local news across a wide, northern Minnesota coverage area, from grocery store layoffs to the closure of a food shelf warehouse to natural disasters.
In June, hurricane-force winds ripped through the Bemidji area, causing major damage to homes and businesses. Bignall said her station fired up a generator to continue broadcasting, giving people without internet or cellular service the latest information on resources over the radio.
The implications of funding cuts on emergency alert systems had law enforcement officials, fire chiefs and other community leaders around the country questioning Congress’ looming decision in a letter published in June. Itasca County’s sheriff, Joe Dasovich, plus Grand Rapids’ superintendent, Matt Grose, were among the signees.
Another letter sent to U.S. Senate leadership drew more signatures from Minnesota officials. It went beyond emergency alerts and into the importance of local news. Many public broadcasters cover city councils and county boards, stream hometown sports teams and generally serve as important local institutions, they noted.
“Public radio is an incredibly valuable asset to our communities,” wrote Terry Snyder, an Itasca County commissioner, in the letter. “Please continue to fund so public radio will continue to thrive.”
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County commissioners in Beltrami County and Crow Wing County signed on to the letter. So, too, did northern Minnesota mayors, Tasha Connelly in Grand Rapids, plus Greg Heyblom in Nashwauk.
In a time when accurate, real-time information is hard to come by in rural areas, KAXE plays a vital community role, Connelly said.
“The fact that so many people turned out to support them speaks volumes about how integral they are to the community’s fabric,” she said.
As much as public broadcasters tried to educate lawmakers on how the cuts would hurt small, independent stations the most, Bignall said, it didn’t sway lawmakers.
“It’s like running into a brick wall,” she said of the effort.
All four of Minnesota’s Republican Congress members voted to cut CPB funding. Among them, U.S. Rep. Pete Stauber, R-8th District, represents the district with the most public broadcasters set to lose grants, including:
- KAXE in Grand Rapids
- KAWE in Bemidji
- KKWE in Callaway (run by the White Earth Land Recovery Project, a Native American nonprofit
- KOJB in Cass Lake (run by the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe)
- WDSE in Duluth
- WTIP in Grand Marais
- KBFT in Nett Lake (run by the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa)
In a press release on his vote, which also rescinded funding for foreign aid programs, Stauber said it was a step toward reining in federal spending.
“Regarding the public broadcasting cuts included in this package, I also do not believe Americans should be forced to fund opinion journalism masquerading as unbiased news coverage,” he said.
MinnPost emailed Stauber’s communication director, Kelsey Emmer, asking for the Congressman’s response to the negative impacts that CPB cuts will have on public broadcasters in his district. Emmer’s response via email touched on how local NPR stations devote only a small percentage of their schedule to local programming, with the rest of it coming from their flagships.
“The Congressman empathizes with the fact that these local stations may be negatively impacted by the poor leadership from their higher ups, but as the Congressman stated in his release, he does not believe the American taxpayer should be on the hook for partisan programming, especially when our nation is currently $36 trillion in debt,” she stated.
To be clear, the stations losing CPB grants in Stauber’s district aren’t NPR stations. Only the two in Duluth and Bemidji are PBS stations. The group consists mainly of independent, community-run outlets that at most pay NPR for programming to complement local content.
What will public broadcasters do now to make up for funding gaps?
Including Stauber’s district, many Minnesota broadcasters losing CPB grant funding are part of the Association of Minnesota Public Educational Radio Stations (AMPERS), which includes 17 stations around the state. An emergency fundraising campaign is already underway to fill in funding gaps, which are estimated to be between $3 million-$3.5 million per year, said Joel Glaser, president and CEO of AMPERS.
“The federal cuts are going to have a much greater impact on smaller community stations, especially those in Greater Minnesota, than the larger public stations throughout Minnesota and throughout the country that operate with multimillion dollar budgets,” he said. “Our stations are working with significantly smaller budgets, and the cuts will have a much bigger impact. For some the federal funding accounts for up to 50% of their operation budget.”
Glaser wasn’t surprised by the cuts. It’s frustrating to see Minnesota public broadcasters be punished for the actions of stations in other parts of the country that use public funds to take political stances, he said.
“That’s an improper use of public funding and that’s a big part of why we face the situation that we are in right now,” he said.
AMPERS is discussing funding opportunities with foundations. Most stations in the association will experience cuts, but the most vulnerable are now fighting for their survival, Glaser said.
Johnson’s station consists of only two full-time staff, one half-time staff, plus volunteers. Survival won’t be easy in Thief River Falls, which has about 10,000 people. There are only so many businesses to tap into for support.
“I’m just going to do whatever I can to try to increase that underwriter base and the listener support base,” Johnson said.
To fall short on funding is to lose valuable programming, he added. Much of the programming is hosted by local people with local focuses. In other words, the kind of content you can’t get anywhere else.
“In my mind the station is never a finished product; we’re always adding to it, building it, always with the idea of how we can do better,” he said. “If we couldn’t continue on, it would feel like we’re leaving something unfinished.”
KAXE set a $100,000 fundraising goal after last week’s Congressional vote. As of early this week, the tally was up to around $75,000, Bignall said, an overwhelming response from listeners.
Bignall suspects the strong support so far is tied to the connection locals develop with their hometown stations. A listener once told her that KAXE was a “lifeline” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“We’re a friendly voice people hear on the radio,” she said.
Supporters will need to keep chipping in to sustain the station’s work. KAXE has 17 staff, including 11 based in Grand Rapids and six based in Bemidji.
“We’ve had tremendous responses from them,” Bignall said of the support so far. “They’re stepping up now, but will we have the same amount of support a year from now? I don’t know.”
The question hanging over public broadcasters going forward will be whether enough sustained backing materializes, Glaser said. As important as the stations are in their communities, they’ll go away if the answer is no.
“It’s a very concerning time to be in public media, especially community media, because we don’t have entire teams that can embark on a fundraising campaign and bring in several million dollars simply by ringing the alarm bells,” he said.
