Trump ‘not an existential threat’ to US public service broadcasting

US public service broadcasting will not be threatened by the return of Donald Trump as president because of the budgetary autonomy local TV stations command and the even split of viewership among Republicans and Democrats, a conference has heard.

Speaking at the World Congress of Science and Factual Producers in Marrakesh yesterday (9 December), Chris Schmidt, co-exec producer of the science-focused Nova strand, for public media outfit WGBH, said the public system – which comprises many local TV stations – is “not as centralised” as big commercial networks and have substantial autonomy over their budgets.

While local stations pay a fee to PBS to license its programming and government-funded PBS also partly funds the stations to produce strands like science-focused Nova, the local channels “have to raise the rest of that money”.

“So, the money that comes from Congress into the public media system is not a large amount compared to the total in the entire system,” Schmidt said, suggesting that if Trump decided to try and turn off government funding, it would not necessarily mean big stations like WGBH (aka GBH) or WNET would not necessarily be under threat. He did warn however, funding cuts “could be existentially threatening to smaller stations”.

Additionally, Schmidt said PBS programming is evenly divided in terms of Republican and Democrat viewership, meaning there would be as much complaint from Trump-supporting constituents if he tried to disrupt public media funding.

“The strands are so broadly popular, my opinion is that if you’re a member of Congress and somebody is saying we want to cut this $500m to [public media funding and advocacy body] the Corporation of Public Broadcasting – it’s chump change,” he said.

“They’ll be receiving many letters. It’s pretty likely nobody would want to pick that fight, it’s just not worth it.”

Earlier in the session, Schmidt and fellow WGBH exec producer Julia Cort unpacked their commissioning priorities for the PBS science strand Nova.

The strand’s most successful shows are “driven by a singular question or a mystery” said Cort who highlighted Blink Productions’ Artic Sinkholes as an example. “We’re interested in the process, following the scientists and telling the story through their perspective.”

Schmidt added: “We want really strong stories that celebrate and shine a light on the process of science and how we know what we know. We’re telling stories about the acquisition of new knowledge.”