In July of 2025, the United States Congress voted to rescind $1.1 billion in previously approved federal funding set aside for public media, leading to the shutdown of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) by the end of September 2025 and dealing a setback to public media all across the country. While for some stations, particularly those in urban areas that rely less on federal funding, this turn of events represents a small but bearable loss of income - not great, not terrible. For others, particularly stations in extremely rural regions such as tribal reservations and places like Alaska, these cuts are an existential threat. HPPR lies in between those two extremes. Federal funding accounted for $550,000, or about 15% of our budget.
In light of these events, HPPR’s founder and executive director Quentin Hope gave a special presentation on Monday, August 25, during the Panhandle Democrats’ monthly meeting, titled “Moving Forward From The Defunding of Public Media”, which sought to illustrate the challenges HPPR faces, and what the station plans to do to not only survive, but continue to grow in our mission.
The first major initiative outlined by Hope was the “Up to Us” bridge funding campaign, with the goal of filling the gap left by the loss of federal funding. “Up to Us” seeks to raise $550,000 to cover the loss of two major federal operating grants, as well as $90,000 in funding for things such as satellite interconnections, music royalties, digital services, and emergency warning systems that the CPB had provided. This special fundraising campaign is set to occur from September through December 2025. “This is sort of the extra push we’re going to need, really kind of the digging deeper campaign” Hope explained. “Now it’s up to us to continue our service without the CPB support”
While the “Up to Us” campaign is intended to provide funding for the services and facilities that currently exist and maintain a baseline of financial stability, the other plans outlined by Hope look to provide a framework for HPPR to continue building and growing in our ability to keep listeners informed. “Over the last year, we’ve really been thinking about how we can expand our regional news and information programming. That really requires kind of a different model in terms of how we would do it, and funding.”
To advance that goal, Hope announced the creation of the “High Plains Civic Media Network,” which would see HPPR’s regional news and information coverage greatly expanded through a new model centered on a region-wide “contributors network” of individuals and organizations. Funding for this new effort will be provided through a national Press Forward grant of $750,000 over a three year period. HPPR was one of 22 organizations overall and one of two public media organizations to receive the grants.
"The idea was to develop a whole new model basically based on very few staff but a very wide contributors network, individuals in different communities around the region, different organizations, contributing content that is happening in their community that may be of interest in the community down the road, individuals that are experts in rural healthcare or the Ogallala Aquifer who can regularly do stories that are of region wide concern,” said Hope. “If anywhere, in terms of a rural, conservative area, if there is a need to build a model for public media that is sustainable and is regionally focused, we are the place to do it. The good news is we have funding that helps us build while we are bridging, and while we can’t use any of this money to cover that gap, the idea is we build a service that reaches a wider audience, and has a larger funding base going forward so we can sustain it.”
In these interesting times, High Plains Public Radio relies more than ever on financial contributions from our listeners and corporate support from our underwriters. Through your support, we will continue to provide the community-focused programming and diverse entertainment programs you have come to know and love. HPPR looks to rise to the challenge that the new funding paradigm has created, and expand the reach of our regionally sourced and focused informational content while keeping you, our listeners, in touch with the world at home on the High Plains.
