Since 2008, budget battles at the state level have eroded funding for public broadcasters around the country. Free Press and SaveTheNews.org have completed the first inventory of state funding cuts and examined the impact these cuts have had on local stations.

Download the full report: On the Chopping Block: State Budget Battles and the Future of Public Media.

However, that is only part of the story. If we use the 2008 appropriations as a baseline, we see that the cumulative loss in state funding over the past four years in these 24 states amounts to approximately $202 million. In other words, if the appropriations had remained level with those from 2008, more than $200 million in additional funding would have been allocated in these 24 states during this four-year period.

In this year’s round of state budget negotiations alone, state governments have slashed nearly $30 million from public media budgets.

Some states have even implemented aggressive phase-out plans that could mean the loss of tens of millions of additional dollars in the next few years.

In many states, the cuts are severe:

• Florida, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Pennsylvania have cut their entire state appropriations for public broadcasting.
• Since 2008, Alabama, Indiana, Kansas, South Carolina and Virginia have experienced cuts in state support of nearly 50 percent or greater.
• Over the same four-year period, stations in Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Ohio and Oklahoma have seen their state appropriations reduced by more than 25 percent.
• Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Maine and South Carolina have faced threats of multi-year phase-outs of all state funding.

Public broadcasting in its many forms is essential information infrastructure. For many communities, public radio and TV connect them to vital news, information and services. But dwindling state funding means that public media in America is already doing more with less.

According to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, more than 95 percent of public TV stations and 77 percent of public radio stations receive some kind of support directly from a state government or indirectly from a state-funded college or university. So these cuts could have a profound impact on our public media system's ability to produce critical local content, reach every corner of America, and invest in innovation in new digital platforms.

Read the full report to find out how these cuts are already impacting local communities.