I appreciate Maria Sullivan’s rebuttal to my guest writer column of Jan. 2, 2026, regarding the decision of the Arkansas Television Commission to disaffiliate from PBS. She helps make my case that the decision was not financial; that it was indeed political.
It’s important to note that Mrs. Sullivan is the wife of state Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-Jonesboro) who filed in early 2025 Senate Bill 184, which sought to abolish and transfer the powers and duties of the Arkansas Educational Television Commission to the Department of Education. In addition, Senator Sullivan repeatedly attempted to reduce Arkansas PBS’ spending authority by up to 25 percent, arguing that the agency suffered from “poor leadership” and lacked accountability following a 2022 audit that revealed questionable purchasing practices.
Mrs. Sullivan, who was appointed by Gov. Sarah Sanders to serve on the Arkansas Educational Television Commission–the commission her husband sought to abolish–said, “The decision stems from the loss of $2.5 million in annual federal funding–roughly 20 percent of our $13 million budget–combined with unsustainable $2.5 million PBS dues.”
According to Carlton Wing, the new executive director of AETN, by not paying the $2.5 million dues (disaffiliation), the renamed Arkansas TV (AT) could save around $2.3 million annually. AT has budgeted $600,000 for producing its own programs and $500,000 for purchasing content from American Public Television (APT) and the National Educational Telecommunications Association (NETA).
Although it has been difficult to get timely data on AETN’s fiscal position, this much is clear: Canceling PBS dues does not take into consideration the $4.5 million that comes from private donations and corporations (according to IRS form 990 ending in fiscal year 2023). It is safe to assume that a good portion of the private donations are given because of the excellence of PBS’ program content. Donors will stop contributing when the programs they love are no longer available. Instead of solving a financial problem, the action to disaffiliate will create an even bigger financial problem.
Mrs. Sullivan fails to point out that the Arkansas PBS Foundation has a successful record in its efforts to raise money to support PBS, ensuring the continuation of programming content that is valued by Arkansans. In the most recent available IRS filing, the Foundation received donations of $4.5 million, approximately four times the shortfall of $1.3 million.
Even when one considers other necessary expenditures not related to the direct support of PBS, the net of the donations is more than twice the amount of the cost of paying the dues to PBS to continue providing such programs as “PBS News,” “Washington Week in Review,” “Masterpiece Theatre,” “All Creatures Great and Small,” and exemplary documentaries such as those produced by Ken Burns.
I agree with Mrs. Sullivan that public servants have a duty to be fiscally responsible. I was clear about that in my column of Jan. 2. It is my contention there are enough resources to allow the AETN leadership and the state Legislature to take time to consider other options other than the knee-jerk reaction to disaffiliate.
A brief history: In 1967, Congress approved the Public Broadcasting Act. It established the charter for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, funded by taxpayers to disburse grants to public broadcasters in the United States. Title II of the act establishes the CPB as a nonprofit corporation tasked with aiding in the creation, development, and funding of noncommercial educational television and radio networks and programming, as well as creating programming for noncommercial educational networks to use and broadcast to the public.
While Donald Trump’s Rescissions Act of 2025 rescinded the two-year advance appropriation to the CPB for fiscal years 2026 and 2027, it did not repeal or amend the Public Broadcasting Act. It is the Rescissions Act that has resulted in the $2.5 million loss in federal funding to AETN that needs to be developed using alternate sources such as fundraising.
The history of opposition to public broadcasting goes back more than 50 years. The first significant political opposition occurred in the 1970s when President Richard Nixon viewed public media as a “liberal” establishment hostile to his administration. President Ronald Reagan, House Speaker Newt Gingrich, and President Donald Trump also wanted to eliminate public broadcasting. Trump ultimately was successful, and clawing back $1.1 billion from the CPB resulted in a $2.5 million loss of federal funds to AETN. Opposition has always been political, although money was the excuse used to defund PBS.
Mrs. Sullivan also writes, “Public television originated to fill educational gaps in an era of limited channels.” The more complete and factual explanation is CPB’s mission is to ensure universal access to non-commercial high-quality educational, cultural, and other content and telecommunications services. It is my opinion, informed by 33 years as an arts administrator, that the content from APT and NETA do not meet the bar of high quality intended by the sponsors of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. Substituting APT and NETA for PBS is dumbing Arkansas down.
Finally, Mrs. Sullivan claims the process to disaffiliate was not rushed, and there were opportunities for stakeholders to provide input. The information I have is that the topic of disaffiliation was undisclosed in the agenda of Dec. 11 and was raised under the heading of Directors Report which caught at least some commissioners by surprise. My understanding of Arkansas’ sunshine laws, codified in the Freedom of Information Act, is that state commission meetings must include items on the agenda on which the body “will foreseeably take action.”
General or vague headings may be insufficient if they hide substantive deliberations intended for the meeting. It seems to me that the action taken on Dec. 11 to disaffiliate was in violation of the FOIA, and should be invalidated.
Leon Kaplan of Little Rock is a retired arts administrator and an American Leadership Forum senior fellow.