RIPBS has $100 million while asking for donations and fighting federal cuts

Monday January 6, 2025

The GoLocalProv News Team and Josh Fenton

Rhode Island PBS, the media company with few viewers and more than $100 million in assets, is seeking more donations and trying to fight budget cuts imposed by the new Republican Congress.

In an email to donors on January 2, 2025, RIPBS requested financial support and issued a warning about federal cuts.

“Rhode Island PBS seeks to pursue new opportunities to serve you in 2025. Yet the entire public media system faces a big question: Will circumstances diminish or even end our federal funding? During these uncertain times, your additional support is important. Give what’s right for you now,” wrote Jodi M. Mesolella, director of membership and special projects at RIPBS.

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When asked about RIPBS’ funding, CEO Pam Johnston said most of the station’s funds come from donors and sponsors.

“While all funding is necessary and essential, the lion’s share of our operational funding comes from generous members and donors, as well as local sponsors and foundations. We expect this to continue,” Johnston said in an email to GoLocal.

GoLocal had requested an interview with Johnston, which she agreed to and then canceled. GoLocal had sought to understand why RIPBS needed additional federal funding when the station has assets of more than $100 million,

Johnston’s compensation is $300,000 a year, more than 66 percent more than that of his predecessor, David Piccerelli.

Additionally, she said she received “health benefits and after one year of service there was a 403 B matching percentage, which is standard for all employees.” There is also the possibility of additional performance-related pay, which has not yet been established. finalized.”

However, sponsorships and donations represent only a tiny fraction of RIPBS’s assets.

In 2017, RIPBS saw a windfall from FCC spectrum auctions

RIPBS is built on enormous wealth. In. In 2017, the station won the proverbial frequency lottery.

The station, then often in financial difficulty, received $94.4 million to move its signal from its current position on the television spectrum to a lower level. It was part of an incentive auction held by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) that attempted to move all television signals lower on the spectrum to free up space for wireless networks.

Before the auction money windfall, RIPBS reported assets of just $1.4 million, according to its Form 990 tax return.

In its latest 990 filed for fiscal year 2023, RIPBS reported net assets of more than $104.5 million.

These funds come from auctions and resulting investment gains. RIPBS has approximately $20 million invested in private equity and more than $12 million invested in “Central America and the Caribbean,” according to its tax filing.

The annual budget, which in 2017 was about $4.2 million, has ballooned to more than $10 million a year, a 138% increase in spending in six years.

But even though the financial situation has improved, there is no indication that the audience has increased.

RIPBS is rarely detected in television audiences in the Providence metro market, according to two media executives with knowledge of it and requested anonymity.

GOP and DOGE aim to cut public broadcasting subsidies

For decades, Republicans have called for cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Some said it was a biased media organization, and other critics said it was not something the government should get into.

In the 1990s, one of Newt Gingrich’s first acts as Speaker of the House was to call for the elimination of federal funding of the CPB and the privatization of public broadcasting. Neither attempt was successful, although it kept the hot-button issue in the spotlight for years.

Now, President-elect Donald Trump and his Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE) are seeking to cut spending on public broadcasting.

Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, the co-chairs of DOGE, wrote in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal in November that the “$535 million a year” spent on the nonprofit organization overseeing the broadcast networks PBS and NPR were an example of “unauthorized” activities. spending and money used in ways “that Congress never intended.”

The CPB was created and authorized by Congress.

Consolidation of public broadcasting in RI

In 2023, RIPBS and Public’s Radio “merged”. The reality was that the radio station was functionally consumed by the television channel.

Johnston arrived at RIPBS in 2024 after four years at GBH in Boston. The end of his tenure in Boston was turbulent, as that media company made significant layoffs.

“GBH laid off 31 employees Wednesday and said it would immediately stop production of three television programs, a move that employees said surprised them,” Boston.com reported. “The job cuts at GBH come a month after Boston’s other public radio station, WBUR, saw two dozen employees opt for buyout and two employees were laid off, as the media organization public sector is also trying to mitigate the decline in its revenues.”

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