PBS officially begins broadcasting on American television. This launch marked the formal debut of the Public Broadcasting Service. PBS and NPR are private, nonprofit organizations owned by their member stations and in turn distribute programming to them. The member stations are typically non-profit entities like universities, public school districts, community organizations, or state government agencies.
Their funding was historically supported in part by federal money channeled through the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) as dictated by the The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 (PBA) and funded in two year increments by Congress. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) is a private Non Profit Corporation for Public Broadcasting with the mission to ensure universal access to non-commercial, high-quality educational, cultural, and other content and telecommunications services. CPB managed the distribution of the government funds to the public networks, both national such a PBS and NPR and for local public stations or programming. In July 2025, the Rescissions Act of 2025 was passed by the 119th United States Congress an d signed into law by Donald Trump, cutting all federal funding for CPB. In August 2025, CPB announced plans to shut down in January 2026 due to a lack of federal funding.
