Arkansas public television hopes to regain donors lost after attempt to cut PBS ties

Arkansas’ public television station hopes to regain lost donors and shore up new sources of financial support following the backlash over an attempt to cut ties with PBS, the interim CEO of the Arkansas TV Foundation said Thursday.

More than 3,700 donors withdrew their support last winter after the Arkansas TV Commission began taking steps to disaffiliate from PBS. The commission reversed course in June after donors rallied to raise more than $2 million to cover PBS dues for the fiscal year that started July 1.  

CEO Carlton Wing and chief financial officer James Downs told the station’s governing board that they expect to be able to fully afford PBS dues for the next two fiscal years.

Wing, a former Republican lawmaker, said Arkansas TV has become “one of the great stories in public media across the country” after having “a very, very uncertain future” less than a year ago.

Arkansas was the first state to attempt dropping PBS after federal funding cuts led the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to close, forcing public television networks nationwide to find new ways to pay for PBS shows.

Arkansas TV gained half as many new donors between July 1, 2025 and June 30, 2026 compared to the previous year, said the foundation’s interim head, Pamela Owen, who succeeded retiring CEO Marge Betley in August.

The percentage of repeat donors from the 2025 to 2026 fiscal years dropped from 87% to 78%, Owen said.

In addition to the $2.1 million covering PBS programs through June 30, 2027, the foundation secured commitments of more than $1.5 million each toward the cost of PBS dues in fiscal years 2028 and 2029. Owen reminded Wing, Downs and the commission that these pledges won’t cover the full price of dues for both years.

The foundation also expects to have to keep up with “significant increases” to Arkansas TV’s operating expenses, Owen said.

“This will likely significantly draw down our buffer that we’ve built over the years in the foundation,” she said.

Commissioners and network leaders said they appreciated the $500,000 in state funds that the Legislature and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders directed to Arkansas TV in June to help with operating expenses. The funds specifically helped the network maintain its emergency alert broadcast towers, commission chair Gary Newton said.

Emails show viewer backlash over PBS program’s removal from Arkansas TV

Commissioner Cynthia Nance presented a resolution expressing gratitude to former Arkansas first ladies Barbara Pryor and Gay White for leading the effort to crowdfund PBS dues. Nance is the only current commissioner who opposed last year’s move to leave PBS. The commission approved the resolution with no dissent.

White and Pryor said in June that they were frustrated with Arkansas TV’s decision to remove “Washington Week with The Atlantic” from its schedule and move “PBS NewsHour” from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. on weeknights as of July 1.

Viewers told the network they believed the move was ideologically driven, echoing complaints heard earlier this year when Arkansas TV was poised to drop PBS entirely.

In a July email to Newton, the former first ladies asked for the programming changes to be reversed and said the move undermined the public trust that fueled the successful crowdfunding campaign. Newton said the programming changes were unrelated to the network’s aborted effort to leave PBS.

The privately-raised funds for PBS shows should have “freed more than $1 million annually within Arkansas TV’s budget to strengthen local programming and future initiatives,” White and Pryor said in the email provided to the Advocate by their fundraising effort, Friends of Arkansas PBS.

Wing has said since taking the reins of Arkansas TV a year ago that the network should prioritize Arkansas-focused programming. New, locally-made shows that have premiered this year focus on topics ranging from Arkansas history and politics to health and nature. The public affairs show “Arkansas Week” has also expanded from 30 minutes to one hour.

The programming changes went into effect July 1, and since then dozens of Arkansans have continued to express their displeasure and cancel their donations to the network, according to emails the Advocate obtained via a public records request.

Some viewers, including those who still donate, said they have no interest in the shows airing in place of “Washington Week” and “PBS NewsHour.”

“The current 6:00 [p.m.] lineup is tediously unimpressive, much of which is not locally produced at all,” one viewer wrote to the network Wednesday. “It smacks of censorship. It IS censorship.”