Lakeland PBS faces major programming gaps if executive order stands

NPR and PBS said they will sue the Trump administration over an order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to stop the flow of public funding to the national media outlets. The order states they can no longer receive funding directly or indirectly through local stations that pay for national programming.

Minnesota has 15 public media outlets, and many are still trying to sort through what the executive order means for them. One is Lakeland PBS based in Bemidji.

CEO Jeff Hanks joined Morning Edition Tuesday to talk about the potential threat to his station and how he’s preparing for big changes in its budget.

The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity and length. Click on the audio player above to hear the conversation.

You rely on federal funding for about 35 to 37 percent of your budget. How much of that is used to pay PBS for national programs and how much is used for local programming?

Yeah, that's correct. This fiscal year, 37 percent of our budget relies on that CPB federal funding. And I would say roughly half of that is used for licensing PBS services. The remainder is used for local production and local services.

The order says you can’t use CPB funding to buy national programs, like Antiques Roadshow. If you don’t have the money for national content, could you swing a full local schedule? What would Lakeland PBS look like?

Yeah, that’s just it. That’s the problem. Compared to many stations, we produce a lot of local content, but filling out that 24-hour schedule takes a lot of programming content. It would be a big struggle to fill that out if we were not able to purchase PBS educational programming that suits our needs for our communities up here in north-central Minnesota.

The former head of Twin Cities Public Television, Jim Pagliarini, said he thinks the whole system could collapse, because local fundraising is driven by people and businesses who love the national programs. Do you buy that?

Yes and no. It's kind of a balancing act. You know, there are definitely people who are viewers who rely on the typical PBS national productions, like NATURE, NOVA, Masterpiece, those type of things. But what really sets us apart, what makes us special — along with all the other local PBS stations — is our local productions. We’re really synonymous up here with our Lakeland News broadcast, 27 years on the air covering basically from the Canadian border down to Little Falls. We’re covering stories. And all these small communities otherwise would have gone uncovered for all those years. And we’ve gained the trust of our local communities, local viewership, local foundations, local businesses that help support Lakeland News. So Lakeland News is a huge part of our member support as well.

So you wouldn’t go dark, necessarily, if you didn’t have the PBS national programming?

Well, that would be really, really challenging. It’s kind of a fluid situation. We’re going to play it by ear and see what develops here. But it would be a big challenge not having that access to that schedule to fill out all across all our channels. That would definitely be a problem.

How are you trying to plan?

Yeah, it’s not easy. We have an Oct. 1 fiscal year start, so at least we have a little bit of time. I can tell you that we're working really closely with our board of directors. That’s one thing I get to point out: We’re locally owned community licensees in Bemidji and Brainerd, so we have a board of directors made up of people from many different communities here in our coverage area. So we’re doing contingency planning as best we can, looking toward that FY 26 budget. But, you know, with what develops here, it’s going to be a challenge. We’re going to plan for what we can, control what we can and plan for that schedule the best we can.

Are you planning to do any intensive fundraising here in the community?

Well, certainly, we’ve been doing outreach. Like all public media stations, we do consistent fundraising. We certainly continue to do that. We’ve really heightened the awareness of our situation, and I think our viewers up here in northern Minnesota have really showed up in that regard. So, yes, we’re definitely doing everything we can. But the real problem is for us is we’re truly one of those small-market stations. We serve a lot of small, low-income communities up here in north-central Minnesota. There are a lot less private resources to draw from, less businesses, less people with higher incomes up here in this area.

You know that those CPB grants were meant to provide universal service, and that’s what it does. We have two transmitters and those are expensive to operate for small stations like ours. So that’s the whole reason we’re doing the best we can. We’re working really hard. We do have a lot of great member and business support, but it’s tough in a really rural area like this.

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