• by Erik Sass  @eriksass1, November 11, 2010

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is facing the budget axe wielded by the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, a bipartisan committee created by President Obama to help curb runaway deficits. The proposed budget reduction would cut $500 million in federal funding to the CPB, which in turn disburses funds to PBS, NPR, and local public broadcast stations nationwide, through 2015.

The proposed cuts run contrary to CPB's stated funding goals. CPB's current annual appropriation from Congress came to $420 million in 2010, up 5% from $400 million in 2009. The advance appropriation for 2011 is $430 million, and in February, the CPB requested a congressional appropriation of $527 million in 2012 and $604 million in 2013, justifying the increases as an investment to help public media "make the transition to a truly digital enterprise."

NPR responded to the proposal to cut CPB funding with this statement: "In a time of media decline, especially in local, international and investigative reporting, public radio's role in fostering an informed society has never been as critical as it is today. The public radio audience is one of the few in media that has consistently grown -- doubling in the last decade alone."

NPR says public radio stations attract a weekly audience of 37 million listeners, or roughly 15.5% of a national weekly radio audience of 239 million, as measured by Arbitron.

While there's no direct proof that the proposed CPB budget cuts are linked to NPR's firing of Juan Williams in October, the controversy surrounding his termination damaged NPR's image in the eyes of the American public. It led to calls to terminate or reduce government funding for both NPR and the CPB.

At the same time, the White House and Congress both face tremendous public pressure to reduce projected deficits over the next couple of years, and the commission made a number of proposals for cuts in other areas, including a federal salary freeze to save a total $42.3 by 2015, cutting the federal workforce by 10%, and slashing the White House and congressional operating budgets over the next five years.