Trump cuts to public media could be ‘devastating’ for KY public radio, KET
President Donald Trump signed an executive order late Thursday directing the federal government to halt funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, a move that could cripple programming at Kentucky Education Television and Kentucky’s 14 public radio stations.
Both PBS and NPR officials have signaled they will challenge Trump’s executive order directing the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the funding arm of the nation’s public broadcasting service, to halt grant funding that provides key resources to KET and Kentucky public radio stations.
“The President’s blatantly unlawful Executive Order, issued in the middle of the night, threatens our ability to serve the American public with educational programming, as we have for the past 50-plus years,” said Paula Kerger, the head of PBS, in a statement released Friday.
“We are currently exploring all options to allow PBS to continue to serve our member stations and all Americans.”
NPR’s Katherine Maher on CBS “Face the Nation” on Sunday echoed Kerger’s concerns.
Maher said the news organization is “looking at whatever options are available to us”. But she added: “I think it’s a little preliminary for us to speak to the specific strategies that we might take.”
The cuts, if enacted, would hurt smaller, local public radio stations the most, Maher has repeatedly warned in multiple interviews.
“The impact of this could really be devastating, particularly in rural communities,” Maher said on Sunday.
On top of the executive order, Trump’s proposed budget also cuts the Corporation of Public Broadcasting in the next two years, further threatening the future of public media in the country.
“This is the most immediate threat to public media in decades,” said Bryan Lane, general manager for WUKY in Lexington.
‘Substantially diminish’ all KET programs
Kentucky Education Television receives 14% of its approximately $30.4 million budget from federal funding, KET officials said.
That federal funding supports nearly all of KET’s local programming including the only statewide nightly news, “Kentucky Edition” and weekly series “Kentucky Tonight,” “Kentucky Life,”“Kentucky Health,”“Comment on Kentucky,” and “The Farmer & The Foodie,” said Todd Piccirilli, senior director of marketing and online content for KET.
That federal funding also helps KET with specialty programs about Kentucky-specific topics including popular programs on aging, the opioid epidemic, early childhood education and local documentaries such as “Big Family: The Story of Bluegrass Music.”
KET online and broadcast services, which are free, are used by 2 million people each week.
“The loss of federal funding would substantially diminish all of KET programs and services,” said Shae Hopkins, executive director of KET, in a social media post on X and on the KET website.
“It would severely compromise your public television network that has been built over decades through the investment and support of viewers like you.”
Hopkins encouraged viewers to call members of Congress about the proposed cuts.
In addition to traditional programming, KET also provides curriculum and support to every public school in the state and is one of the largest nonprofit GED publishers in the country, according to its website.
It’s also a key part of the state’s emergency management network. Its 15 transmission towers also house multiple federal, state and local emergency management communication systems. When cell and other towers go dark due to electrical outages or storm damage, KET’s network allows emergency management to continue to communicate.
Public radio already struggling
Trump’s proposed elimination of federal funding could not have come at a worse time for public radio stations, which have struggled to attract and keep private donors in recent years while costs continue to rise.
At the same time, Kentucky public radio stations have never been more important.
Kentucky public radio stations in central and eastern Kentucky were critical news sources during multiple severe weather events over the past several years, including during flooding in February and April.
Thousands of people lost power and internet connections and were dependent on radio for the latest weather alerts, evacuation orders, where to go for shelter and how to apply for aid.
Moreover, some rural Kentucky communities no longer have commercial radio news stations or daily newspapers. The local public radio station is the only daily local source of news for those counties, local radio providers said.
Lane, the general manager of WUKY in Lexington, said the station receives approximately 15% of its budget from grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. It would try to raise private funding if the federal cuts go through, he said.
But that funding would hamper WUKY’s programming, including popular programs such as “All Things Considered” and “Morning Edition.”
Lane said he is more concerned about stations smaller than WUKY, which receive more federal funding than WUKY does. Lane is friends with general managers of a small Texas public radio station that receives more than two-thirds of its budget from grants from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting.
“We will find ways to overcome it here,” Lane said. “I am worried about smaller radio stations in rural areas where it’s the only source of local news.”
Louisville Public Media, the umbrella organization for WFPL, WUOL, WFPK and the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting, has had two rounds of lay offs since May 2024 after private fundraising fell short of expected goals.
At its peak in 2022, LPM had 60 employees. Due to staffing cuts, it now has 47 employees, according to LPM’s news story about its March lay offs.
Louisville Public Media receives approximately 5% to 7 % of its budget from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, said Gabrielle Jones, a vice president and co-interim CEO of Louisville Public Media.
How much federal funding each public radio station receives is determined by a formula and fluctuates year to year. Smaller public radio stations receive as much as 20 to 50% of its budget from grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Jones said.
If Louisville Public Media did not receive federal funding, the radio group would have to make changes, but what those changes look like is hard to say, Jones said.
Like WUKY, Louisville Public Media would immediately try to raise grant money or tap donors if it lost federal funding, Jones said. But smaller, rural communities have less philanthropic support, she said. Moreover, philanthropy and giving to nonprofits is down across the country, further complicating efforts to offset any federal funding cuts.
“This problem will be different for individual stations,” Jones said. “It will be devastating for some local stations.”
This story was originally published May 6, 2025 at 11:00 AM.
