The last time I interviewed PBS CEO Paula Kerger was 2019: Donald Trump was President, and Republicans were trying to defund public media — as they had been trying to do for decades.

That didn’t happen then, but this year it did, and now Kerger is trying to fill a $1 billion funding hole.

So far, she says, PBS and its member stations have held up ok — no one has had to shut down, yet.

But while Kerger holds out hope she can convince Congress to start funding public TV again, it’s worth talking about why federally funded public media was created in 1967 — and whether it still makes sense to continue that setup in 2025. And if federal funding is permanently off the table, what will PBS do — and not do -- in the future?

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