Earl Blumenauer: “more than 87 million Americans tune into public television each week and 30 million listen to public radio. And they…”

“more than 87 million Americans tune into public television each week and 30 million listen to public radio. And they depend on this Congress to provide some of the economic resources so that in every community across the country people can listen to those thousand public radio and television stations for programs that inform and inspire. For help with reading, job training, for the latest digital services, for local news and information, for dozens of other reasons. These stations around the country determine their own program schedules. They often produce their own programming. We, in Oregon, are immensely proud of Oregon Public Broadcasting for its award winning programming. They respond to community needs and leverage local support that is so important. While the Corporation for Public Broadcasting distributes its annual appropriations from Congress in accordance to a statutory formula for which almost 72 percent of the funds go directly to local public radio and television stations, the Federal appropriations while it only accounts for 15 percent of the entire costs, it leverages critical investments from State and local governments, from universities, businesses and foundations, and most important, from millions of viewers and listeners of public television and radio. They add their dollars to this core vital Federal support, writing checks to allow the public broadcasting to continue.…”