Patricia Harrison Accepts Governors Award For Corporation for Public Broadcasting: “Do American People Feel Public Media Is A Value To Them?”

Corporation for Public Broadcasting President and CEO Patricia Harrison received a standing ovation Sunday before accepting the 2025 Governors Award at Sunday’s Creative Arts Emmys.

The honor comes as the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is shutting down its operations after the loss of federal funding. It marks the end of almost six decades as the entity that distributed grants to public media, PBS and NPR.

The CPB has noted that the majority of its funding, about 70%, goes to local stations, not the national outlets. Advocates also have pointed to polling showing high levels of public trust in public media.

“Public media is so different in this country, unlike the BBC or other systems in different countries,” Harrison told reporters after receiving the honor. “Stations raise, on an average, six times more than the federal investment. The small stations, the remote stations, that amount of money that they get from the federal government is all the difference in the world to them so they can connect with their audiences. When you eliminate CPB and that funding mechanism, it’s sort of like Jenga. You pull that little piece of wood out, things start shaking, and then things start going apart.”

“It doesn’t have to be that way, because general managers of these stations, these local stations, are very entrepreneurial,” continued Harrison, who is the longest-serving president and CEO of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “They raise money. The stations are contributing a lot of money, but they’re not going to be able to sustain it. So the question is, do the American people feel that public media is a value to them or their families, and if so, are they communicating that to people who make those decisions?”

Dr Henry Louis Gates introduced the Governors Award, which honors an individual, company or organization that has made a profound, transformational and long-lasting contribution to the arts and/or science of television. Established in 1967 by the Public Broadcasting Act, CPB is a private, nonprofit corporation authorized by Congress to serve as the steward of the federal investment in public broadcasting and support more than 1,500 locally owned and operated public radio and television stations across the United States.

“The Corporation for Public Broadcasting was created for the federal government to wield the power of television for the enrichment of all Americans, regardless of income, locale, race color or creed,” Gates said. “This is not the final throes. Even an act of Congress cannot erase the indelible legacy of the charter of CPB.”

He also mentioned how Fred Rogers of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood was the embodiment of CPB. “Where have you gone when we needed you the most?”

The CPB informed employees in August that the majority of staff positions will end on Sept. 30, with a small transition team in place through January, 2026. The CPB has around 100 employees.

The GOP rescinded $1.1 billion in federal funding that was already allocated to the CPB for the next two fiscal years. President Donald Trump had called on lawmakers to roll back funding for CPB, calling the programming of PBS and NPR biased, part of his broader attacks on traditional media.