A public media organization in a university town just a few hours northwest of Philadelphia is set to be the first in the United States to go dark after the Trump administration stripped away federal funding for NPR and PBS.
WPSU, Penn State’s NPR and PBS affiliate and the first educational TV station in Pennsylvania, will go dark within the next nine months because of the combined fiscal forces of Trump’s cuts and declining support from the school.
“Never would have imagined it,” said Jeff Hughes, WPSU’s former program director who retired in August after a 35-year career with the station. “The news devastated me, it devastated all the employees.”
WPSU has broadcasted for more than 70 years and serves State College and 24 rural counties in central and northern Pennsylvania. In addition to its programming and educational outreach programs, the station provides emergency broadcasting capabilities across a wide swath of the commonwealth.
At issue is WPSU’s role as a university station, making it dependent on Penn State to keep the lights on. The university provides nearly half WPSU’s annual $7 million budget, with federal support accounting for another 20%. With Republicans eliminating federal funding for public broadcasting and the university cutting costs to focus on its core academic mission, filling the budget hole wasn’t something Penn State was willing to take on, according to the school’s administration.
The school plans to wind down WPSU’s operations and lay off employees by the end of June 2026, though the station could go dark sooner as staffers leave to find employment elsewhere.
David Kleppinger, chair of Penn State’s board of trustees, called the closing “an incredibly difficult decision” but necessary given the perfect storm facing both higher education and public media during the Trump administration.
“This is not going to be an organized shutdown,” Hughes said. “Decades of content, documentary series, things that have real value to society could end up in a dumpster, for all I know.”
How a deal fell through
WHYY President and CEO Bill Marrazzo approached Penn State with a plan to help strengthen WPSU after the school announced it would cut funding to the station by 20%.
Marrazzo said he saw both a business opportunity for WHYY and an opportunity to prevent a sister public media outlet in Pennsylvania from closing.
A plan was developed that would transfer WPSU to WHYY’s ownership and give WHYY five years to develop the fundraising apparatus needed to retain as many employees as it could, which at the time totaled 82 staffers but is now down to about 44 after June layoffs.
As part of the deal, which was studied and negotiated with school officials, Penn State would have provided a $17.6 million subsidy over those five years to give WHYY the runway it needed to build WPSU into a self-sustaining public media company.
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That plan was unanimously voted down by Penn State’s Board of Trustees Finance and Investment Committee last week over concerns about the amount of the subsidy and the lack of employment guarantees for current WPSU employees.
Penn State didn’t make any board members available to explain their decision making. Kleppinger said the board decided the school “should not take on such a significant financial commitment, especially given other pressures facing higher education.”
WPSU won’t be the last station to shutter
Small NPR and PBS stations across the country face the same bleak prospects as WPSU due to Republican cuts to public media.
About 115 rural stations rely on federal funding for more than 30% of their annual budget, from tribal stations in South Dakota to a rural outlet in the center of Kansas. Philanthropic leaders are attempting to raise $100 million for a Public Media Bridge Fund to help support struggling stations, with details on how to apply expected later this month.
That’s a drop in the bucket compared to the $1.1 billion the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was slated to receive from the federal government over the next two years.
WDIY in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, faces $111,000 in federal funding cuts, roughly 15% of the small station’s budget, with funds expected to run dry by the beginning of next year. WQED, the PBS station in Pittsburgh best known as the home of Fred Rogers, was forced to let go of 35% of its staff as it prepares to absorb more costs stemming from the federal cuts.
“To ensure WQED endures not just for 20 years — but 50, and another 70 — we must find new ways to become more relevant to more people,” said Jason Jedlinski, the station’s president and CEO. “The organization may become smaller, in terms of revenue and employees, but our impact and service must expand.”
WQED is one of seven public television stations operating in Pennsylvania. That will decrease to six after WPSU’s closure, along with about a dozen radio stations, a number Hughes predicts will continue to drop.
“It just seems the only way forward is some sort of consolidation.” Hughes said, with large stations like WHYY helping to support smaller, rural stations.
“We still want to maintain local presence,” he said, “but the likelihood of all those stations remaining in Pennsylvania is not very likely.”
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