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Trump bill cuts $330,000 at Blue Ridge Public Radio

Jeff Hunter and other staff at WHQR public radio in Wilmington work on a pledge drive on July 23, 2025, to shore up resources after the elimination of federal funding for public media. [JANE WINIK SARTWEL/Carolina Public Press]

By JANE WINIK SARTWELL, Carolina Public Press, Published: July 24, 2025

Your local radio news briefing, your children’s after-school PBS programming, emergency weather alerts during hurricanes, your tunes during the commute home — all of this could disappear under federal budget cuts to public media heading to North Carolina.

That’s thanks to a $1.1 billion cut to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting signed by President Donald Trump last week. NPR and PBS member stations in North Carolina and across the nation will no longer receive any federal funding or support.

Across the state, local radio and TV stations are scrambling to develop contingency plans as they grapple with potential programming cuts and layoffs.

Starting in 2026, PBS North Carolina will be short $4 million annually. WTVI, Charlotte’s PBS station, will lose $1.2 million annually, or 25% of its budget.

For NPR member stations, the situation isn’t much better. WUNC out of Chapel Hill and WFAE out of Charlotte will each lose approximately $800,000 from their annual budgets. WFAE has already laid off six employees. The station says it is working to avoid additional reductions in staff, but it’s too early to say definitively. 

Some Republicans in Washington say NPR and PBS are too left-leaning to be deserving of federal funding. President Trump characterizes the cuts as “ending taxpayer subsidization of biased media.”

But North Carolina’s public broadcasting stations provide far more than national NPR and PBS programming. Many serve as their communities’ primary source of local news, weather updates, emergency alerts and public service announcements. They offer advertising platforms for local businesses, classical music programming and educational content for schools.

After Tropical Storm Helene devastated Western North Carolina, the only source of information amid the blackouts in many areas was radio. The service local stations provided was essential. 

The federal cuts will force stations nationwide to eliminate many of these local services. Stations are turning to individual donors, which make up the lion’s share of their budgets already, to increase their contributions. But some stations may be too crippled to continue at all.

“This will be a survival year,” Kevin Crane, station manager at WHQR in Wilmington, told Carolina Public Press. WHQR will lose $174,000 in annual federal funding. 

“I want to make sure people understand that this is not about saving money,” Crane said. “This is about journalism, and the fact that some people don’t like it.”

Both WNCW out of Spindale and WBJD out of Atlantic Beach will lose 10 percent of their budgets. Blue Ridge Public Radio out of Asheville will lose $330,000 annually. WDAV out of Davidson stands to lose $250,000.

But the cuts alone don’t tell the full story. 

More than cuts to public media

Music rights, satellite systems and emergency alert distribution: costs for all these services would be added to stations’ balance sheets. Some stations won’t be able to bear them.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or CPB, negotiated and paid for all the music played by its member stations. Without this service, stations will have to bear those costs themselves. Many, such as WFDD out of Winston-Salem, cannot. 

“In just a few short months we may lose the music rights that allow us to play any music on the radio,” Tom Dollenmayer, general manager of WFDD, told CPP. “Simply put, without music licensing no music will be able to be broadcast on-air or online after Dec. 31, 2025.”

CPB also paid for the satellite distribution service that all local member stations use to share content and download programming from NPR. That centralized service is going away as well, and local stations are left to wonder how they will pay to keep it afloat.

Many stations are concerned about their continued ability to receive and broadcast emergency alerts. Major controversies have sprung up in recent months about the inadequacy of existing emergency alert systems, including in the Texas floods, and this cut will further handicap that infrastructure.

CPB received funding from FEMA to support the emergency alert system and the emergency readiness of all of the public media stations in the country. Now, both those agencies have lost substantial funding.

If smaller stations can no longer support themselves, they will not be able to broadcast emergency alerts that come over the airways. For bigger stations, it’s a question of if and when equipment will fail or require upgrades. Maintaining that emergency infrastructure will require national and local oversight, according to Ju-Don Marshall, president of WFAE.

Station managers across the state share those concerns about vulnerability of the emergency alert system.

“Right now, we have a strong structure and strong support,” Paul Hunton, president of WUNC, told CPP. “But the minute that emergency alert systems need upgrades, stations aren’t going to be able to pay for them, which really puts our listeners at risk and puts our communities at risk.”

According to Hunton, stations are exploring collaborative approaches to replace services that CPB once provided centrally. Together, they might be able to negotiate costs for music royalty rights and satellite distribution services, and not lose them altogether. Whether this kind of collaboration will occur remains to be seen. It could be a safety net for smaller stations.

Growing news deserts

These cuts will be felt most sorely in rural areas, where stations have smaller and less wealthy donor bases, according to Ele Ellis, president of Blue Ridge Public Radio. 

“In some rural areas, public radio is the only place people can get news, the only place they can get weather, the only place they can get the city council meeting,” Ellis said. 

“Those stations are the ones that have very few staff and can’t get by if they have to fire even just two people. That just makes more news deserts in America. It’ll be hard in Asheville, for sure, but it’s going to be even harder in other places.”

When Helene struck, stations like Blue Ridge Public Radio and WNCW in Spindale were wholly dedicated to distributing information on how to get help and give help to survivors. Because of widespread power and internet outages, radio was often the only source of information in some areas in those early days.

WBJD, also called Public Radio East, broadcasts in what is both a news desert and a hurricane-prone region. To maintain services, they will need to raise an additional $12,000 per month. 

In some areas, local radio stations are the only source of local news not owned by major corporations. But even in larger cities like Charlotte, there will be loss of local reporting and accountability journalism, according to Marshall of WFAE.

That local focus is what distinguishes public radio from corporate-owned media, according to station managers.

“We are people who live in your community — we’re your neighbors, we’re your friends, we’re your family,” said Hunton of WUNC. 

“In an era where we’re seeing a lot of media organizations being bought up by national conglomerates, the one thing that public media provides is truly local information, news and journalism from the people who live among you and who know what’s going on in the community. It’s local jobs. It’s your local economy. It’s information that’s useful for your daily life.”

But it isn’t just radio. 

The $4 million hit PBS North Carolina is taking will cripple the station’s ability to fulfill their mission.

“These dollars are essential to the work we do every day — from providing trusted educational programming for children and families, to maintaining critical emergency communication infrastructure across the state, to sharing stories that reflect the voices and experiences of North Carolinians,” Allyson Meade, spokesperson for PBS NC, told CPP.

Most stations are gearing up for pledge drives and emergency fundraisers in the coming weeks and months, racing against a New Year’s deadline when music licensing expires and satellite services shut down.

Still, station managers, especially those with large listening bases, remain confident their communities will come through and are cautiously optimistic about their future. 

There is also some hope that Congress may provide some kind of exit-ramp funding. 

“There’s always the potential to make the case that what we do, the emergency services and all of the large national infrastructure that local stations provide, is enough to ask Congress for additional funding or future funding,” Hunton said.

The clock, however, is ticking.

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Jane Winik Sartwell is a staff reporter for Carolina Public Press, who focuses on coverage of health and business. Jane has a bachelor's degree in photography from Bard College and master's degree in journalism from Columbia University. She is based in Wilmington. Email Jane at jsartwell@carolinapublicpress.org to contact her.