History Timeline Corporation For Public Broadcasting

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 28, 2025, 7:48 AM

history timeline corporation for public broadcasting

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB; stylized in all lowercase as cpb) is an American non-profit corporation created under the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to promote and help support public broadcasting in the... CPB received annual funding from Congress from 1967. As of 2015, it had distributed more than 70 percent of its funding to more than 1,500 locally owned public radio and television stations,[6] including PBS and NPR stations. In particular, CPB funding was a key part of small and rural public media station budgets.[7] The CPB is set to dissolve[8] after January 2026 following a new law of the U.S. federal government in July 2025 which halted all funding to the CPB.

The CPB's annual budget is composed almost entirely of an annual appropriation from Congress plus interest on those funds. Under the establishing law, no more than 5% of the appropriation may be used for administrative expenses. CPB allocates the funds to content development, community services, and other local station and system needs.[9] For fiscal year 2025[update], its operating budget included US$535 million of federal appropriation and $10 million in interest revenue. Its budgeted expenses were as follows:[10] Public broadcasting in the U.S.

has grown from local and regional roots at schools and universities into a nationally known source of news and entertainment for millions of listeners and viewers. Our timeline of public broadcasting’s history traces its growth from the earliest radio broadcasts to its days as the home of Big Bird, Frontline and Terry Gross. We hit the landmark events, like the signing of the Public Broadcasting Act, and include lesser-known milestones as well — like the airplane circling over Indiana that broadcast educational TV shows to six states. Dive in and discover how public media became what it is today. This is a revised and updated version of the timeline that appeared in our book A History of Public Broadcasting, published in 2000. A new version of the book is forthcoming.

Entries by Karen Everhart, Mike Janssen and Steve Behrens With the Morrill Act, Congress endows state universities with land grants, creating what some observers believe was a philosophical precedent for public broadcasting and its public funding. Guglielmo Marconi sends a wireless signal from his family estate in Italy. CPB was founded by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, with the support of President Lyndon Johnson and most of Congress. In 1969 the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) was formed to facilitate… As indicated in Table 1, CPB has consistently received increasing federal appropriations since 1969.

…Public Broadcasting Act created the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which in 1970 established NPR to provide programming to the nation’s noncommercial and educational radio stations, most of them situated at the low end... By 1971 the Nixon Administration was in conflict with the CPB over controversial programming, perceiving anti-Administration bias in such programs as Washington Week in Review, Bill Moyers, and The Great American Dream Machine. .mw-parser-output .embedvideo.mw-halign-none{display:inline-block} You were just glued to the screen. That song came on the radio. The best NAB Show you ever attended.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting distributes government money to public television and radio stations and to organizations that create programming for them. While nearly all of its funding comes from Congress, it is not a government agency. During the 1960s, during a period of intense scrutiny and criticism of television, a report by the Carnegie Commission outlined measures to improve the quality of television by increasing the quantity of educational programming. The report recommended that funding for public television be increased and that an organization be formed to funnel funding to public broadcasting stations. Initially, this funding was to come from a tax on television sets like that used in Great Britain. Partly because of opposition from television manufacturers, the funding source was changed to Congressional appropriations.

A large number of public radio and television stations already existed. The earliest had been founded by universities around 1917. The first radio station run by a nonprofit community group was started in Berkeley, California, in 1949 by the Pacifica Foundation. The first noncommercial television station began broadcasting in Houston in 1953. In 1962 the federal government began helping to fund educational television through the Educational Television Facilities Act. CPB was founded by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, with the support of President Lyndon Johnson and most of Congress.

The Act set up the CPB as a government-sponsored corporation whose funding came through the Department of Housing, Education, and Welfare through the Office of Education. The CPB was allowed to make its funding requests directly to Congress. Because it was not set up as an independent agency or given long-term financing, the CPB was required to continually approach Congress for funding approvals--an arrangement that has influenced much of its history. Under the terms of the Public Broadcasting Act, the CPB set up a fifteen-member board of directors that was appointed by the president with the consent of the Senate. This board could not have more than eight members from the same political party as the president, and its members were forbidden from engaging in political activity. With the sponsorship of President Johnson, the CPB was highly centralized under its first president, John Macy, and first chairman, Frank Pace, and it enjoyed a great deal of autonomy in decision making.

History Timeline Corporation For Public Broadcasting

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