Linked is an article from the Austin Chronicle by Richard Whittaker (who is sadly not on the fediverse) that does a good job of chronicling the impact of the US legislature's (and #Trump's) recent public broadcasting cuts --- the Chronicle rightly uses the more appropriate term "rescission" --- to both #Austin and #Texas broadly. Austin #PBS, as well as #NPR television and radio stations #KUT and #KUTX, will all be impacted. KUTX was my favourite radio station when I lived in Austin. Its willingness to eschew the top-40 algorithm and branch out is refreshing; the rescission might impact available licensing arrangements for their music.
Here in #FortWorth #Dallas #dfw, the closest analog to KUTX that I've found is #KNTU, better known as 88.1 Indie. It is entirely (well, mostly) commercial free. I say mostly, because I still consider "sponsored by X, offering service/product Y" to be an advertisement (formally referred to as "underwriting"); albeit a more palatable one than the traditional fare of the medium. KNTU is definitely more pop-heavy (and repeat-heavy) than KUTX, but it also caters/panders heavily to a more #millennial audience (guilty).
All that being said...
>The greatest concern is that this economic assault isn’t the end, but simply the latest attack on editorially independent media. The CPB defunding came after the dismantling of Voice of America Radio, and now the question is, what’s next? If the end game is to destroy public radio and television, how long before broadcast licenses become a target?
The irony of putting editorial independence in the same paragraph as Voice of America is painful and invites a comparison that i suspect most folks working in public broadcasting would not appreciate.
>Even if Republican lawmakers have turned their backs on public media, the hope is that donors, including charitable foundations, will continue to see the value of its uniquely community-minded programming. For example, Austin PBS is already strategizing about filling that $400,000 cut to Ready to Learn’s budget. Patiño said, “Our hypothesis is that, once we go out to the marketplace and say, 'Hey, these are the needs that will go unmet, these are the communities that will no longer receive the educational services that we provide and have for years and years and years,’ we hope that people that fund and support educational services in other nonprofits will support us in some way to fill that gap.”
Cutting out the legislative middlemen between the public and their servants, by pivoting to a direct-donor-centered model, might prove to be a silver lining to this rain cloud (and perhaps an unintended and unwelcome threat to that legislative body's hard and soft power).
https://www.austinchronicle.com/news/2025-08-01/texas-public-media-grapples-with-funding-loss-from-gop-bill/
