The defunding on PBS and NPR finally happened, something the MRC has been advocating for decades. MRC President David Bozell and Managing Editor Curtis Houck reflect on all the lame liberal arguments and the questionable future for these networks.
Start with the lame old argument about killing Big Bird -- which has been an outdated argument since HBO took over Sesame Street in 2015 (and it's now on Netflix). The Democrats always want to pretend this is about children's television, not the horrible bias shown to adults in the evenings. The CEOs of PBS and NPR ridiculously claim they just haven't seen any evidence of that bias, like they're blind and deaf. They prepared with lawyers on how to testify before Congress, and each decided that sounding stupid and clueless about bias was the smartest strategy.
We keep unloading our studies of their content. Most recently, we noted NPR's Fresh Air has featured long interviews with 36 liberal journalists in the first six months of 2025, and exactly zero conservative journalists. The live prime-time PBS coverage of the 2024 party conventions was the latest Exhibit A of partisanship in an election year. PBS “treated” the RNC to 72% negative and 28% positive commentary. The DNC received a publicist’s reception: 12% negative, 88% positive.
Defunding PBS and NPR forces them to contend in the marketplace, which is a much different world than it was when this all started in 1967, or in 1997. Nielsen’s research on TV use found streaming captured 44.8 percent of viewing time in the United States for May, beating the combined tally of 44.2 percent for cable (24.1 percent) and broadcast (20.1 percent). Many Americans born after 1990 don’t even watch network television or radio. They’re beginning to look antiquated.
During the entire defunding battle, NPR and PBS used their own airwaves and websites and social-media accounts and direct-mail fundraising lists to lobby their supporters to inundate members of Congress to “Protect My Public Media.” They didn’t allow the MRC or any other conservatives to discuss their blatant biases on their own shows. They claim to uphold democracy, but would not allow any debate about how wonderfully essentially they are and how deserving they are of billions in tax dollars.
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