PBS North Carolina could lose about a quarter of its staff as a result of Congress' decision to eliminate funding for public broadcasting, but its leader says he doesn't expect to cancel locally produced shows.
PBS North Carolina is offering buyouts to most of its 140-member staff, which is based in the Triangle and serves the entire state. It's a response to the loss of $4.8 million per year from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, or 15% of the station's overall budget.
CEO David Crabtree says there's been an uptick in donations, but additional fundraising from viewers and supporters won't be enough to offset the loss of federal funding.
"A Band-Aid approach won't work for us," he told WUNC. "We have to make a fundamental change in our business model and in our overall production model, and we have to adapt to the times."
Crabtree says layoffs are possible depending on how many staffers take a severance package. He said there's no specific number of positions yet that will have to be cut, but "it could be in the neighborhood of 25 to 27%."
However, he says the plan does not include cutting local programs like "North Carolina Weekend" or "State Lines."
"As far as what a viewer will see on air, my commitment is solidly this: You will not see one ounce of difference in the quality of the programming," he said. "The commitment is that the level of professionalism, the level of journalistic integrity and enterprise will not change.
"PBS is not going away, PBS North Carolina is not going away," he said. "These clouds will lift at some point, and we will be stronger in the end."
Cuts also won't affect the public safety components of PBS NC's operations, Crabtree said. The 13 towers that beam out its broadcasts from Waynesville to Wilmington also host a communications network for first responders, and the engineering team that maintains those facilities aren't included in the buyouts and staffing reductions.
Crabtree says he's hopeful funding from the state legislature won't be cut. The state Senate's original budget proposal called for a $4 million cut to PBS NC, but that wasn't included in the House plan, and no final budget compromise has been reached.
"The General Assembly has been very generous to us over the years, and I feel in my conversations with state lawmakers now that we will be OK," he said.
Given the uncertainty, PBS NC could delay its plans to move out of its longtime headquarters at Research Triangle Park. Last year, the Raleigh City Council approved a $1 million grant to help the station move its studios to downtown Raleigh.
"We are still looking at either downtown (Raleigh) or possibly here in American Tobacco (in Durham) for a potential move," Crabtree said. "But I would say we haven't hit the stop button, but we've hit a pause button."
PBS NC, which started as UNC-TV, is celebrating its 70th birthday this year, and Crabtree notes that for its first 12 years on the air, it didn't receive any federal funding.
"It's a fundamental change, but if within a three-to-five year, or four-to-seven year period, we could become self-sustaining, then we don't have to worry about CPB or a state appropriation," he said. "Now, some people hear that on my staff and they cringe, but that's a goal that we have."
PBS NC and WUNC Radio are both public media broadcasters, but the two are fully separate from each other. While WUNC Radio is an affiliated entity of UNC-Chapel Hill, the station receives no state or university funding. WUNC has been impacted by the defunding of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which makes up about 5% of the station’s budget. WUNC has not cut any staff positions in response to the funding loss.
