The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (1967–2026): An Obituary
On November 7th, 1967, then-president Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Public Broadcasting Act, which established the Corporation of Public Broadcasting (CPB), set to fund a new network known as the National Education Television network (NET), and later, the Public Broadcasting System (PBS). The job of the CPB was simple- to raise money for PBS and other affiliated networks in order to give the American public high quality, non-commercial educational pieces of media. Stable, prestigious, and beloved by almost all, it seemed as if nothing wrong could happen to this system.
Until it did.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting died on January 6th, 2026, after a unanimous vote was held deciding on whether to dissolve the company or not. Ultimately, it was decided that the company would not be able to sustain the sufficient funds needed to maintain itself, and the CPB was dissolved later that day.
This news isn’t new; in fact, the CPB officially announced its shut down in August of 2025- five months prior to the actual dissolving of the company. The decision came after the House and the Senate both voted to defund the company, which funded both the National Public Radio (NPR) and PBS, due to NPR’s and PBS’s supposed ‘indoctrination’ of both American kids and adults alike through tactics such as, but not limited to:
- creating inclusive pieces of media for children including characters with different family structures and races, and teaching children about important topics such as racial justice and human rights
- educating the American public on neutral grounds by explaining things on both sides of the aisle, while also not being afraid to call out bullshit when it does happen
- facilitating a work environment in which diversity is pioneered but not kept above talent
It is important to note that PBS has done all of the above ever since it first premiered on American televisions in 1970. Shows such as Sesame Street, The Puzzle Place, and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood profited off of promoting basic human rights. Sesame Street featured characters who were disabled, of different races, and had different family structures, and no one complained then (or at least, not as much as they do now). Big Bird himself is an allegory for the average American child, learning about the world around them and discovering the beauty of diversity.
In fact, the Trump administration, in their efforts to send PBS to the fires of hell, has also been spreading blatant lies about the programming on the channel. Madi Biedermann on the Department of Education claimed that the Ready to Learn grants on the channel were funding “racial justice educational programming,” even though the last major racial justice programming on the channel (the PBS Kids Talks About shorts or the Sesame Street Asian hate special) both released in 2021, when Trump wasn’t even in office. Shows such as Lyla in the Loop and Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood have had episodes focusing on justice and equality, but again, these episodes were produced way before Trump came into play.
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This is not the first time that America has had a vendetta against basic education, but it is the first time it has been majorly accomplished to such an extent. Without these funds, PBS, NPR, and PBS Kids will no longer be able to produce shows at the level of quality they are now. As far as we know, the upcoming literacy preschool show Phoebe and Jay is the last original full-length show PBS Kids has on their radar right now. The future, to be honest, is grim, and Paula Kerger has already come out to say that new content in the future may be limited to only shorts and media that requires less effort and funds to make in general, since they simply don’t have the money nor energy to compensate for failure.
Say what you will about the quality of the work they put out now, but you cannot in good faith say that PBS has done more harm than they have good over recent years. Families of all different kinds spent plenty of time watching the free-to-watch channel; kids like me grew up on the shows on PBS Kids. From the escapades of characters such as Sid the Science Kid and Bill Nye, teaching us how to love science, to Cyberchase, which turned math into a fun game instead of a chore, and even Between the Lions and Reading Rainbow, which inspired a generation of children to love reading, something we so desperately need again. Even modern-day PBS Kids shows such as Work it Out Wombats, Donkey Hodie, and Carl the Collector, showcase important skills such as computational thinking, executive functioning, and social-emotional development in relation to autism, ADHD, and other neurodivergence.
Nothing about these shows is woke. These shows don’t come after your kids to try and indoctrinate them. These shows are meant to teach kids ages 2–8 how to be human and how to live in a world where it seems like the basis of humanity is dying faster and faster: kindness.
What do you do with the mad that you feel? Mister Roger sang his iconic song to a room full of congressmen in 1969. His job? To sway them in order to get the money needed to fund his new show. If the programming you find on PBS for whatever reason makes you mad, you don’t just defund the whole operation down. Instead, you try to find the motivations behind them instead of assuming you already know them. You grow to find that maybe your way of thinking isn’t just the only ‘right’ one, and that different perspectives coming together can lead to a beautiful creation.
You don’t just defund the CPB. You help it flourish.
And although the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is no longer with us, there are still ways that we as a society can support it. We can donate to our local PBS stations, which are in more danger than ever in their fight to survive the Trump administration’s bloodbath against them. You can contact your senators and urge them to reconsider their actions against the future of public media, and if you can’t do any of those, you can do what I’m doing right now and raise awareness on the importance of supporting NPR and PBS. Without these two, I wouldn’t be who I am today, and I’m sure you wouldn’t as well.
So, rest in peace, CPB. And, most importantly, thank you.
Thank you for turning PBS and NPR into what they are today.
Thank you for educating generations upon generations, teaching us to love learning and to explore the world around us.
Thank you for reminding us all about the importance of kindness, belonging, and empathy.
Thank you for being you.
