The real mission: Denying PBS to Arkansas |
A first reading of Carlton Wing's "Still on mission" on Voices April 2 appears positive. Subsequent, more careful readings, looking for intentions and results, led to a re-evaluation. For the most part the essay was a disjointed sequence of platitudes with the occasional not quite accurate fact thrown in. The following represents an alternative view of "Still on mission."
Some background: In his second term, Donald Trump expressed his dislike of PBS and NPR. An executive order in May 2025 and congressional legislation in July clawed back federal funding for 2026 and 2027. All 350 PBS stations faced financial difficulties, but elected to remain in the PBS network.
Arkansas PBS commissioners initially voted to remain with the PBS network. It appears our governor, pandering to Trump, decided to intervene and selected Wing to orchestrate an obscured "mission": disaffiliation. Using supposed financial difficulties, he quickly railroaded a vote at the December quarterly meeting to leave the PBS network. There was no agenda, no pre-announcement, no effort to seek alternative sources. This was a complete surprise to the 25,000 member-donors and institutional organizations that contribute 30 percent of the combined budget of Arkansas PBS and its foundation. National PBS was notified after the fact. Arkansas PBS was the sole network of stations to leave.
Predictably, the members who had increased their contributions after the loss of federal funding were not happy. Membership immediately began declining, as well as donations.
Calculating the result of leaving PBS is heavily dependent on estimates that are rough, but still indicative. Staying with PBS would provide donations of $5.5 million. Subtracting development and administrative expenses of $1.8 million would leave $3.7 million, allowing $2.1 million for the now lowered national fee plus a $1.6 million surplus. Leaving PBS caused an expected drop in contributions to $2.5 million. Subtracting expenses of $1.8 million would leave $700,000. Subtracting the budgeted $500,000 for new content would leave $200,000.
Keep in mind Wing planned to save about $2 million in PBS fees that would have allowed access to programs worth over $200 million while replacing much of the 57 percent of current national PBS programming with local content for $500,000 ... likely worth $500,000.
To sum up: Wing has managed to reduce the donation surplus from $1.6 million to $200,000 while reducing the quality of programming enormously. Trump, the governor, and a few book-banners may be happy over leaving PBS, but there are hundreds of thousands of Arkansans who won't be. Things look bad, but a stopgap solution has emerged.
The discontent with Arkansas TV resulted in public venting and withholding financial support to the extent that the commissioners voted at the March quarterly meeting to put a hold on the decision to leave the national network. This would provide time to come up with a plan. The result, simplified, is to allow donors to contribute conditionally to make up the difference needed to pay the upcoming annual fee. If the fee were not met or for any reason the Arkansas station did not re-affiliate, then contributors could ask for their money back. The problem is that, given Arkansas TV's top leadership's apparent ambiguity, donor trust is understandably wobbly. This needs to be addressed and can be.
The second development is that a Washington, D.C. district judge has ruled that the manner in which PBS and NPR were defunded is unconstitutional. How this plays out is not clear. There could be a fight and delays with the current Republican House. However, if the Democrats take over the House in 2026, a reinstatement of funding could proceed in 2027.
The simplest solution is to agree for Arkansas to return to the PBS fold. This would reduce doubt and encourage Arkansans to support Arkansas PBS to the extent needed. This requires that Sarah Sanders and Wing do the right thing. The question: Who do they wish to serve, a creature who is becoming increasingly dysfunctional and will go down in infamy in the not too distant future, or the people of Arkansas?
Rod Neal of Little Rock is a retired UALR management professor with a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Duke, an M.S. in management science from Johns Hopkins, and a Ph.D. in organizational theory and system design from Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern.