Earl Blumenauer: “This is vital infrastructure that connects Americans, particularly in rural and small town America, people who otherwise…”

“This is vital infrastructure that connects Americans, particularly in rural and small town America, people who otherwise would not have access. There is always going to be public broadcasting in New York, Washington, D.C., or San Francisco. But it is rural and small town America that is going to pay the price if we lose the support for this infrastructure. In rural Oregon, it costs 11 times as much to extend the signal to remote Burns, Oregon, in eastern Oregon, than to deal in the metropolitan area. So these 1,300 independently owned and operated public broadcasting stations are going to be severely crippled in terms of their ability to meet the needs of rural and small town America. The signal itself depends on the type of subsidy we are talking about here.”