Almost 400 public radio stations in the United States now know how much federal grant money they will receive related to the pandemic.
The majority of the radio grants are in the $100,000 to $300,000 range, though there are larger ones, like (for example) KVOD(FM) in Centennial, Colo., which will receive $548,000, and WBEZ(FM) in Chicago will get $740,400.
And three biggies will get between $1 million and $1.4 million each; they are WNYC(FM) in New York, KSJN(FM) in St. Paul and KQED(FM) in San Francisco.
This is part of $175 million in emergency stabilization funds for public media provided by Congress in the American Rescue Plan Act.
The money is “fiscal stabilization grants to public telecommunications entities … to maintain programming and services and preserve small and rural stations threatened by declines in non-federal revenues.”
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting has the job of deciding how to distribute it, and CPB announced Thursday that its board had unanimously approved a distribution plan.
Its allocations were decided by an advisory group of public radio and TV representatives. They decided to split the $175 million pool equally between television and radio.
The amount awarded to each station was calculated by adding the sums of two formulas.
Of the $175 million, $100 million was calculated using the CARES Act formula developed earlier to prioritize small, rural and/or minority stations. The rest was calculated according to Community Service Grant formulas, which take into account various factors including service to rural communities, number of transmitters to cover large areas and the amount raised in non-federal support.
These funds are not intended to cover costs of new technology initiatives, though certain urgent replacement of equipment is provided for.
Pat Harrison, president/CEO of CPB, said in an announcement, “The stabilization funding from Congress will support essential public media services and sustain the broad reach and access that keeps public media resources available online, over-the-air and in communities across the country.” Harrison thanked Congress “for their strong, bipartisan support of public media.”
A list of grantees and their amounts is on the CPB website and at the link below.
Paul McLane is editor in chief of Radio World, which he joined in 1996. He directs the editorial content of 26 annual print issues; RW's daily SmartBrief newsletters; webcasts; and a growing library of 100+ ebooks. He has interviewed directors of engineering, FCC chairs, Hall of Fame radio personalities and C-suite leaders about digital radio, connected cars, industry standards and other topics. Prior to RW he was an award-winning broadcast journalist and technology sales/marketing executive.
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