Vermont Public Radio is participating in a significant national project to reinforce the importance of federal funding for public media. The 170 Million Americans for Public Broadcasting campaign brings together public radio and public television stations in a national, grassroots effort to rally support from the 170 million Americans who listen to, watch, or use public media every month.
Without federal funding, public broadcasting stations, particularly those in rural areas, would be unable to continue to provide local communities with the unparalleled news and information, and educational programming that we provide today.
I’m proud that Vermont Public Radio has signed on as a partner in this important effort. I hope you will join this growing network of members, listeners, viewers, and others who value a strong public media as a source of non-partisan news, local cultural and music programming, and non-commercial educational programs.
The heart of the project is a website – 170MillionAmericans.org – that gives supporters of public media a way to register their support and provides ideas for how to turn that support into meaningful action. I encourage you to check out the site and lend your name to this effort and call on others to do the same. You can also show your support by “liking” the project’s Facebook page, which currently has close to 9,000 fans.
We’ve joined this campaign because we take the current threat to public media very seriously. Federal funding amounts to nearly 10% of our annual revenue, more than $600,000. Losing this source of general operating support would be a major blow to VPR and would significantly impact our service to listeners.
I’ll continue to update you on the progress of this project and our participation in the coming months. In the meantime, please don’t hesitate to contact me with questions or suggestions.
This article, and the others like it, is missing some important information. What orograms will we lose without Federal Support, and why? I see that VPR gets about 10 percent from the Federal Gov't; this means that the latest pledge drive, which I believe brought in about $550,00, would have to be increased to about$605,000. This does not seem to be an insurmountable amount, but I realize that some dollars must go to developing the material that you provide. i have to point out that, with the current mood in Congress, it is quite likely that NPR will lose its current Federal Support. You should have your contingency plans in place, and if we, your listeners, knew more about which programs are most likely to be lost, we would have more information as to just what is at stake. We need more information.
ReplyDeleteThank You
Peter Engels