The Frontline of Southern Oregon Public Broadcasting Service Battle for Funding
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Andrew
For new University of Oregon's Agoura Journalism Center. This is the listeners podcast.
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Andrew
Welcome back to Oregon Speaks Voices from This Moment, a special season of the listeners podcast produced by the graduate students at the University of Oregon. I'm Andrew Deville, the director of the Agoura Journalism Center and a professor at UVA's School of Journalism and Communication. In this season, we're exploring how Oregonians are navigating this moment of transition through stories of uncertainty, mutual aid, resilience and care.Let's listen in.
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Dakota
Hello, my name is Dakota Runyon-Trapp. I'm your host first off, so I'm with my producer, Daniel Bloomfield. Hello. Right now we are facing crisis in the nation. We're public broadcasters, or PBS for short, is at risk of losing funding to the federal budget cuts from the Trump administration. The risk to their funding would impact their programing, which is essential for both news and early childhood education.
00;01;12;26 - 00;01;45;05
Dakota
So again, idea of how PBS is dealing with this. I brought in a guest, Floyd Aragon, a story, Oregon PBS. Now, Floyd, would you introduce yourself to the audience and tell us a bit about some of Oregon PBS?
00;01;45;07 - 00;02;10;10
Floyd
My name is Floyd Aragon. I live in Medford, Oregon. I am currently a producer at Southern Oregon PBS. My job particularly entails producing a show called cinema 42, which highlights the people and places and independent filmmakers from southern Oregon and Northern California. So there on PBS was founded in 1979, I believe. It was a idea of a local businessman, and he and another other business, leaders in the area decided to try to get public television to southern Oregon. Well, what does what do we mean to the community? What what is our worth? What is our, value to this community?
00;02;10;11 - 00;02;45;04
Floyd
What does it mean to us? And that's something I think we need to reestablish. And I think for some communities, we have to establish that. Funny thing. FEMA was actually supposed to give us a grant, and that's held up to improve our infrastructure because, you know, the Cascadia quake, we kind of need these over the air. If the internet goes down or streaming goes down, you know, a lot of people there are only way, way to find communication is, ota over the air and to maintain these repeaters across this large area.
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Floyd
You know, that's also one of our kind of, our contingencies that we have that, you know, we need to be part of this over the air network because of emergency preparedness. I mean, that's that's part of what television does for people to inform the community. But real quick, that FEMA grant is being maintained. That's still up in the air.
00;03;04;10 - 00;03;28;28
Floyd
What's it's I think they gave away the first round earlier this year, and we didn't get it, but we applied for the second round and a lot's happened within the last two weeks, so we don't know what funding is being cut, what funding is going through? Obviously it's backtracked on a couple of, of items of federal funding for, different federal agencies.
00;03;29;00 - 00;03;55;13
Dakota
So, we will see, I guess, how is like the DOGE federal budget cuts affecting Southern Oregon PBS or was there any impact there from DOGE cuts?
00;03;55;17 - 00;04;24;03
Floyd
Nothing immediate, because a lot of our CPB funding, occurs every two years. So we've already got some CPB funding already. It's we get it in a third, of a grant per year. CPB had had very specific, rules on how the how the grant money can be made available to us. And it was by, you know, doing these underwriting where, I think we might have mentioned it before. There's, there's no there's a list of, things that underwriters for public broadcasting can't say, you know, like this Sunday, doing that and showing prices because it was attached to that funding.
00;04;24;06 - 00;04;48;29
Floyd
Now that funding may be going away. So there. Does that mean we can go ahead. And now I don't know, not really. Fund ourselves via, you know, a commercial station way we can get underwriters, we can have people coming in and saying or run commercials and they even call them underwriters anymore. So that's something that we're going to have to kind of look at.
00;04;49;01 - 00;05;14;01
Daniel
So those are your biggest donors. And it seems like their donations are conditional. Are the federal funds, historically conditional as well?.
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Floyd
Yes. In order to be a nonprofit. There are certain things. But now, since it's a media, there are other FCC rules which might be something you might want to look into to, ruling, nonprofit television And low power. We have a couple low power stations, but they're mostly religious, I think here, at least in southern Oregon. I don't know what their rules are for that, but yes, there are stipulations, of how we can fundraise. But since we're not getting any more federal funding, then what does that mean? I mean, our license is a noncommercial license.
00;05;40;10 - 00;06;04;17
Floyd
But in the meantime, like I said, we're going to have to have conversations of what we do in case this doesn't happen. We've got to get on top of this strategy. So people are thinking differently, you know, projects that we might have had in the back burner and thought about, you know, they probably won't happen now, but it's the atmosphere in like right now within the studio apprehension.
00;06;04;19 - 00;06;37;18
Floyd
No one knows what's going to happen, you know, at least giving some awareness. I mean, if anything, this this attention has gotten people to think about PBS and what it means to them, you know? So and like I said, there's there are strategies to combine, you know, JPR and so PBS and if that does happen, you know, maybe 4 or 5 years down the road, you might actually be on the Siu campus, which means, you know, some of us are we'll lose our jobs because there's going to be, overlap on, staffing.
00;06;37;21 - 00;07;00;20
Dakota
Yeah. And just for some context, for Daniel, like, you know, any listeners, shifts in public radio are located on the grounds of Southern Oregon university campus, specifically in their theater building. while PBS is located in downtown Medford.
00;07;00;22 - 00;07;27;01
Floyd
But I also have my, you know, bring strategies to if for combining our, our station with JPR, which is a very strong new station.So you mentioned the state of apprehension, is that as a result of the flood, the zone strategy that the administration is using against you, I guess you can kind of call that, yeah, it's yeah, it's more like the shotgun blast. You know, we're just getting this news, like, okay. And like I said before, PBS has been under threat before in previous I mean, the previous Trump administration said something about that.
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Floyd
And then you look at, you know, Mr. Rogers going in front of Congress in the 70s and, you know, established establishing the the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the continued funding. So I don't know if we're going to have those kind of hearings in front of Congress, like like we did in the 70s. But to everybody that's been in public television for a long time, this threat is real.
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Floyd
And I think a lot of maybe, you know, old timers or people that have been in the industry for a while, especially in the public media side, kind of rested on their laurels a little bit. Like there's no way that they could ever take this away. But it's a fragile balance. You know, there are there are states just like us who depend on that money for operating costs.
00;08;13;23 - 00;08;40;05
Floyd
And for just general, you know, pay, payroll and things like that. But then there's, you know, OPB, KQED, these larger, public television stations are, you know, basically the same thing that we do, but have a much, you know, bigger budget. And, and JPR also has a wider, footprint. They go up to Coos Bay.
00;08;40;08 - 00;09;07;14
Floyd
So there and, and further into Redding. So it's the radio has a bigger footprint, which means they have more listeners, more contributors. But, you know, it's less costly to run a, radio station than it is a television station has sort of in decisions or plans been put in place to help weather through the storm. But like I already said, there's rumors about that.
00;09;07;14 - 00;09;33;19
Unknown
You know, we might have to close a downtown television station and move on to. So, or move on to. So use campus. So and, you know, that's we've been in that location since 1979. It's an old building.
Daniel
So have you have people been coming out? And speaking out in support of your organization?
00;09;33;23 - 00;10;01;01
Floyd
We've gotten emails. I mean, there's nothing been publicly kind of, I guess our editorially, I haven't really seen anything, but our donations are up. And I think that's part of the reaction to Trump's actions. Obviously, people are seeing that this is a valuable resource in the community. And it's something that and to your point, they probably did remember the the Mr. Rogers and things like that.
00;10;01;01 - 00;10;33;27
Daniel
But this also sort of spurs, if you want to know, kind of a change that's happening cycle. Like I said at the top of the interview here. We've got to make ourselves relevant. You know, if we're just a pastor, if people can get it, you know, on their PBS app, on their TV or their smart television, you know, why would it matter if Southern Oregon PBS is around so I like to push our program, and hopefully this will kind of our programing to more hyperlocal, as I like to call it.
00;10;33;27 - 00;11;03;07
Floyd
I think cinema 42 kind of helps that out. That's something I've been working on, and I'm getting, an hour long show to highlight the films and do interviews and that, you know, gives it a reason for the, the, the kids parents to watch PBS, even just local filmmakers and Dakota knows this. I mean, there's a burgeoning kind of community of filmmaking down here because it's we're getting people that were can't afford California or were, you know, displaced by the Palisades Fire.
00;11;03;10 - 00;11;28;23
Floyd
And I'm sure Dakota contributes to it's it's kind of a retirement for a lot of movie business folks, if you will. We need responses. We need answers to people's questions about this. Just not as a fan of PBS and as an employee. You know, you've got to, you know, we have some sort of comeback when people say, well, I'm, I'm sorry, film that.
00;11;28;23 - 00;12;13;25
Dakota
And yeah, it's my understanding you guys have a campaign of $1.60 annual per person is what it costs to help keep PBS up and running. My next question would be what is the most realistic outcome? That's the worst case. And the best case scenario. Worst case scenario would be that. So in Oregon, PBS would shut down and we would just be they use our bones for parts, or we'd probably keep the transmitters and the repeaters and they're just probably just be maybe a hub someplace in an office building that takes all the programing from OPB and sends it right out to, southern Oregon in Northern California.
00;12;13;27 - 00;12;35;29
Floyd
Best case scenario, we get our funding, we get community support. We, we kind of southern Oregon PBS becomes a stronger brand, and we're able to produce more locally driven content. And joining with that. So you like, like you said, Dakota would not be the worst, could be part of a worst case scenario. That would probably be a best case scenario.
00;12;35;29 - 00;13;02;08
Floyd
But it it sort of also diminishes our independence. JPR, I think, has a more R for one is is Jefferson Public Radio. So the state of Jefferson done any kind of research on that. But it's a fiercely independent, I'm going to say like more of a conservative, leaning sort of. I mean, they're in Redding and they're Coos Bay and they're in our broadcast region, Klamath Falls to Brookings and whatnot.
00;13;02;10 - 00;13;30;26
Floyd
Their audience is a lot more diverse, I guess, because we have, you know, super rural. I mean, also, that's a super rural Klamath County and, and eastern Oregon, Meridian farmers. But what a lot of there's a reason why people are in Oregon. You know, it's there's fierce environmentalists, but there's also, you know, we've got the wildfires, keeping our, forests, you know, accessible.
00;13;30;29 - 00;13;56;13
Floyd
So you have, like, conservative environmentalists and then you have super garden guns. But just want to be left alone. So it's ours at least, is kind of more an education. And then our our news comes from a national base. We don't do a lot of local news programing yet. So JPR in that sense has a more informed they're more informational for their area.We have a couple programs that are specific to the area, but no, no news.
00;13;56;13 - 00;14;21;24
Dakota
You just recently the other day had a meeting with your leadership about potential plans and things you guys are going to do. So can you give us sort of a recap of where we left off?
00;14;21;27 - 00;14;45;19
Floyd
So we had a meeting, with our president of the company, CEO Phil Meyer. Kind of laid out what, what's happening in Congress right now? There is a rescission bill going through Congress. It's all been up for a vote twice. I believe it's going to be for a vote next week. And what that does, is it takes the money that's already allotted to Cfpb and takes it away. So we've had a budget.
00;14;45;23 - 00;15;14;21
Floyd
You know obviously fiscal year 2025 with this money and plan to pay for, you know, operations and costs and whatnot. To that end, since since Republicans aren't getting a lot of votes and, there's been already a couple million responses with the, the PBS, Protect My Public media campaign, 50% of preschool children do not go to preschool.
00;15;14;24 - 00;15;44;19
Floyd
So PBS morning, you know, cartoons or whatever. It's part of the, you know, process of rearing an educated child is having access to that stuff over the air. You know, they just pulled up rural broadband internet, incentive. So, you know, if people can't afford the internet, which is, you know, a lot of people, especially in rural areas where it just doesn't reach, over the air transmissions is the only way they get information.
00;15;44;19 - 00;16;12;27
Floyd
And like, we are part of the emergency cell phone act, network and emergency alert systems. What is going to happen now is we're scaling back some, some capital projects that we were working on, some infrastructure stuff. And what's happening to is since, a National Science foundation and national education, National Endowment for the Arts, since they're funding is being cut that automatically rates.
00;16;12;27 - 00;16;38;15
Floyd
I assure you that that article about the PBS is public learning, these these federal programs or this federal money that was going to these arts and education and cultural programing is being, you know, poor. So, you know, this stuff that was supposed to make me finished up in September, maybe they they shot it and they're was looking for a grant to finish, post-production, which I think a lot of grants do.
00;16;38;17 - 00;17;01;23
Floyd
That's on hope we have enough money in reserves to, at our current levels, the way we're spending to go another year. But we also, in order to recoup that money, we'd have to get, doubled two times the amount of subscribers that we have right now. Our patrons, you know, the ones that give, sustain or, you know, $5 a month or something like that.
00;17;01;23 - 00;17;26;17
Floyd
So out of the whole year, you know, it's I figure out amounts, whatever we have to do, you know, to maintain our current levels, we'd have to double that. Barring that. Well, it's we're getting a lot more, the positive thing. We're getting more, large donors, large contributions, because obviously that is being more in the news cycle.
00;17;26;17 - 00;18;04;12
Floyd
So the people that used to give, you know, $2,000 are giving five, $5,000, you're getting ten. And we're seeing that within the last couple months. It's a good thing. But, you know, it's got to be invested, right. It's got to be put into a contingency fund. Yeah. I'm right now reading like the deadline article you sent me. And it goes into like one of the things that I'm like, right in the middle of reading in this article is the Department of Education and their decisions in the Ready to Learn grants, which was authorized in 1992, amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Theory Education Act.
00;18;04;12 - 00;18;27;04
Floyd
And I would make sure, like corporate public broadcasting and PBS would receive grants each five year cycle with with this new cycle expiring on September 30th. And that's like coming up to an end. And because like the Department of Education, like, has been completely weaponized, they don't really set education policy. They're the one that dole out the grants.
00;18;27;04 - 00;19;02;16
Floyd
So therefore there's no organization to give out the grants. The grants are going to be given out and it goes back to that ready to learn program that got cut is I think I have a district here. Right here. PBS kids averages 16 million monthly users and over 350 million monthly streams across digital platforms. But it's, a lot of kids, you know, either the parents are going to sit in front of a tablet, you know, play games or, you know, any distraction PBS actually has.
00;19;02;16 - 00;19;23;12
Floyd
At least it's if it's going to be a distraction, it should be at least educational for you, you know, not a TikTok stream or something like that.
00;19;23;12 - 00;19;47;17
Dakota
So yeah, it's like because it's like one of those things out of PBS, like the first thing that comes to my mind in terms of their shows and broadcasting they have, it's always their education stuff for young children, I think, like, that's the shame. That's like what seemingly is the main target of getting cut is that is all those kids focus education shows like I remember like hearing stories like from back in the 80s of where there was like issues where parents have with cartoons like G.I. Joe and Transformers of House are being pushed to sell toys, not doing enough education. And now we're hearing about shows are a push to educate children that are now being risk of losing funding.
00;19;47;19 - 00;20;10;12
Floyd
There is yeah, it's an it's weird this the the comments that I hear, you know, the comments I've read underneath that, because our president did an interview last Thursday for Kobe is, you know, why do we have to pay for it? What do we know? What what good is that and why? Like, oh my tax dollars going to, you know, left leaning stuff.
00;20;10;12 - 00;20;45;07
Floyd
And it's just left. Empathy leans left. You know it's not you know if if anything we get criticized for being for being too conservative. And it's like you said, there's also just like this weird lack of just understanding or in fear of how tax dollars work and they not and just all the things they will go to go to like,
Dakota
I think like it's kind of absolutely weird for some people to have the sense of, why is my tax dollars going to PBS when there's like a bunch of other more questionable things that probably shouldn't be going to like all the forever wars in the Middle East?
00;20;45;09 - 00;21;11;06
Floyd
Oh, yeah. Well, defense spending is up again. So and it's kind of funny. I think this is all kind of like weeds out. It's like we're not finding any government waste. I mean, what's what's being saved? I haven't heard any numbers on where where this money is going that we're calling back, I guess. Are you guys like, how's the like looking in regards to potential layoff layoffs for like, a lot of this stuff?
00;21;11;06 - 00;21;39;14
Floyd
I'm curious. Well, if we like I said, we could turn into a pass through station, which would eliminate, you know, half of my job and other two others. We kind of have to look at doing things like, more efficiently, I guess. Maybe cut some because we do have some part time people. They've been working here for a while.
00;21;39;17 - 00;22;00;20
Floyd
And Phil wants. I think my boss is going to retire pretty soon. The production manager is going to retire pretty soon. Like, maybe next year. So there's kind of a transitionary type action already kind of happening, and maybe they just will hire somebody else to replace them. Kind of. We've got to make it make us value added.
00;22;00;20 - 00;22;31;01
Floyd
So if we do need to get twice the, subscribers, well then let's kind of look into making more productions, maybe doing more live events. And I would like to do, I mean, I'm going to suggest to do a Patreon model. So, we get behind the scenes of Energy Horizons. We've got, you know, tons of B-roll and stuff like that and bloopers and outtakes and maybe even have a, do a podcast or have a discussion after the US as we are sort of, you know, programs that Keegan's doing are all across Oregon.
00;22;31;01 - 00;22;56;29
Floyd
Our local productions have more media or more content. We've of kind of look at, you know, a station is more of just, you know, we're just beaming out content more. We've got to engage our viewers because it really is. I mean, viewers like you, so there are no local pledge drives is what I'm hearing. Those are all for national net.
00;22;56;29 - 00;23;22;12
Floyd
We I mean, I think we used to do live we have a a couple programs like, the Great Train Journeys or something like that. He comes in and I would like to do more live stuff, but it's safer obviously, to do two recording and it's usually centered around some sort of program that we're I think last pledge was around a nature program, and we had a lot of interesting shows and wild like had tickets.
00;23;22;12 - 00;23;43;23
Floyd
You know, we do work with local companies, but it's, you know, I kind of would like to get back to the telethon, you know, sort of thing in 24 hours, just being goofy. You know, there's plenty of, artists and actors here. I'm sure we could do like, Shakespeare scenes or, have a band or I think that's part of our what?
00;23;43;23 - 00;24;11;06
Floyd
I would like to bring a local initiative in. So, Yeah. So that for that, yeah. I was wondering, you're talking about what programs were being affected as far as post-production I was reading.
Daniel
Are those going to be affecting any of your most popular programing and what are those programs? There's three programs that are affected right now that they just start, that we have three new programs.
00;24;11;06 - 00;24;37;12
Floyd
I think it's Lila and Lupe, work it out, wombats and maybe Carly Collector. These are programs that just debuted this year. And, you know, they've been budgeted for the first season, but and these are really popular programs. I mean, I probably get some Nielsen data on it, but it's they're in limbo. They can't you know, like I said, there's a lot of post-production grants that are being stopped.
00;24;37;12 - 00;24;59;10
Floyd
You know, things are made, but they got to be, you know, edited or, you know, sweetened and of some sort of post-production. So those are the three in that article, I believe, that are being affected. But it's there's got to be more obviously there's they're pulling back grants for and what about your, local programing.
Daniel
What are among the most popular and are those going to continue?
00;24;59;12 - 00;25;28;14
Unknown
Nothing's been affected yet, if anything, like I said, it kind of spurred some actions. And to some people as far as to up their giving. But, you know, our, our local productions that we need are us as we are, all across Oregon and then we do we also are interstitials that work of art southern Oregon responds and the other one online in my programs and before 42.
00;25;28;14 - 00;25;56;13
Flpyd
But I mean, I cost nothing, obviously. So there might be, you know, pull back in production funding for that. And I think the what may result into this is the less grant money that's that usually was available is probably going towards, you know, instead of getting TV, you probably want to give to, you know, a drug treatment program because their funding got cut.
00;25;56;15 - 00;26;21;25
Floyd
You know, they need the money more than, than we do. You can pay put that in your own head. But the result I think giving is changing and the way grants, what happens with grants usually is they'll tell you about what grant you like. If you're interested in this grant, you write your proposal. And then it's another 3 or 4 weeks before they say yes or yes or no, and you don't even know if you're going to get that full amount.
00;26;21;25 - 00;26;41;29
Floyd
You know, you probably could apply for 8000, but they're only going to give you 5000. So since this government money is drying up, a lot of these nonprofits and social services are going to have to go to the private sector, which kind of with those foundations and grants from at least the government, it was delivered on time.
00;26;41;29 - 00;26;58;08
Floyd
There's a date that it had to be done in that you're going to get it with these foundations. They can take all the time they want. You know them all over whatever they want. It's like we're giving you money. We can take all the time and money. So that could have a real impact on public broadcasting, especially for us.
00;26;58;08 - 00;27;26;00
Floyd
If if grants are going towards more needed social services instead of, you know, yes, PBS is essential. And, but we're not saving lives. I guess maybe you are with PSA, but, you know, it's it could lessen the amount of money that's available for everybody.
Dakota
All Right and I guess my last question before we wrap up here is a is there like a vision you sort of see like or at least some sort of light at the end of the tunnel?
00;27;26;02 - 00;27;56;18
Floyd
Well, that's kind of what I've been kind of stating before is that this crisis, if you will, of fundraising and not knowing where our budget is going to come from in the next two years, has actually spurned more the community to, you know, support it or be more aware of public media and to, you know, by public media campaign has gotten millions of of of I don't know what portion of from us.
00;27;56;20 - 00;28;20;06
Floyd
I'm sure I'll get those numbers soon, but it's kind of bringing awareness, at least to what we do and what we can do. And how we serve our community, you know, because you know, what's complacency? Breed breeds contempt in that way. Where, yeah, it's always going to be there. Don't worry about it. You know, you don't really pay attention to it until it's gone.
00;28;20;08 - 00;28;42;08
Floyd
And I think the light in the tunnel is like, hey. And it kind of boosts our ego to and help because, you know, it's sometimes it's thankless. I mean, I'm supposed to be invisible. So if something the only way I get attention or not attention or the only, the only reason the eyes would be on me is because something wrong happened on television, like a black spot or a wrong air.
00;28;42;11 - 00;29;07;22
Floyd
Other than that, I'm just, you know, I'm invisible and that's what I'm supposed to be. So. But to get some, you know, some reaction from the community, I think it's been great as far as the the reaction from our audience. All right. I think we're running out of time. Thank you so much for coming by. And childless Floyd and Oprah.
00;29;07;24 - 00;29;20;12
Dakota
Thank you.
Floyd
No Problem
Daniel
Yeah. Thank you.
This is the Dakota.
Daniel
And this is Daniel
Dakota
from the University of Oregon. Thanks for listening.
00;29;20;15 - 00;29;42;04
Andrew
That's it for this episode of the listeners podcast, Oregon Speaks. Thanks so much for listening and for making space for these voices this season of listeners is produced by graduate students in the Community Voices course at the University of Oregon School of Journalism and Communication. If you appreciated what you heard, we'd love for you to share it with someone in your own community.
00;29;42;06 - 00;30;10;04
Andrew
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00;30;10;06 - 00;30;21;27
Andrew
You can learn more about this program with a link in our show notes. We'll be back soon with another episode. Until then, keep on listening.