SC public media will lose federal funding starting this fall. Here’s how much
Public radio and TV in South Carolina anticipated receiving at least $3 million from the Corporation of Public Broadcasting this fall.
But the CPB, a nearly 60-year-old nonprofit that gave grants to stations nationwide, announced it would shutter in a news release Friday. The announcement comes after Congress authorized a federal rescissions package, which stripped $1.1 billion from public media nationwide.
In fiscal year 2024, South Carolina’s 20 grant-eligible public radio and TV stations received $3.2 million in grants from CPB. Now that CPB is dissolving, local public media will miss out on the grant money.
CPB grants made up about 7% of South Carolina ETV’s total revenue in fiscal year 2024, according to chief public information officer Landon Masters. SCETV operates 19 out of 20 the grant-eligible public radio and TV stations. WSSB, in Orangeburg, is run out of the South Carolina State University.
“We remain steadfast in our mission, continuing to deliver local content created by South Carolinians for South Carolinians, supporting educational programming and classroom resources and providing essential emergency communications and government transparency services to our state,” said Adrienne Fairwell, CEO of SCETV, in a statement after Congress defunded the program July 18.
Last month, Congress pulled all funding from CPB for fiscal years 2026 and 2027. A U.S. Senate appropriations committee also declined to include funding for CPB in its fiscal year 2026 budget recommendation, leaving the organization $1.1 billion short over the next two years.
South Carolina’s congressional delegation, excluding Democratic Rep. Jim Clyburn, voted in favor of the recissions package. Republican lawmakers argued that U.S. public media had a partisan bias. In a post on X, Rep. Nancy Mace called funding for NPR and PBS “unnecessary woke nonsense,” and Rep. Sheri Biggs called the money “taxpayer-funded bias in public media.”
Clyburn slammed the cuts on social media, saying that Republicans were going after Big Bird, a character on PBS’s classic television show Sesame Street.
“Where are people going to get free, reliable and often lifesaving information if stations like WSSB [Orangeburg public radio station] must cut back significantly on their staff and programing?” Clyburn asked in a video on X.
The CPB received federal funding, which it dispersed to local radio and TV stations through grants. The largest grant in South Carolina from fiscal year 2024, $2.7 million from the Television Community Service grant, went to SCETV. The network also picked up over $64,000 from smaller grants, and one of its radio stations, WLTR in Columbia, received $314,000.
In fiscal years 2026 and 2027, SCETV was expecting $3.2 million, according to Masters. Programming on SCETV’s radio and TV stations will not change, Masters said in an email to The State.
“We will also continue to produce local content that reflects and uplifts our communities as well as news for South Carolinians by South Carolinians,” Masters said in an email.
Other money for South Carolina went to Orangeburg’s WSSB station, which received over $183,000 from a Radio Community Service Grant. WSSB, which broadcasts jazz music, is set to over half of its funding, Clyburn said in the social media video. A phone call and email to WSSB to answer questions about the funding cuts were not immediately returned.
The Columbia-based National Educational Telecommunications Association also received over $219,000. CPB is a sponsor of the nonprofit’s annual conference, said Tonya Weber, the director of marketing and communications at NETA, in an email to The State. The over $200,000 grant was for NETA’s 2024 conference, which will be remote in 2025.
This story was originally published August 5, 2025 at 5:30 AM with the headline "SC public media will lose federal funding starting this fall. Here’s how much."