Budget Would Zero Out Noncom Funding Programs Through NTIA, USDA

OMB to try cutting some DTV transition-related telecom facilities funds for noncoms

By John Eggerton -- Broadcasting & Cable, 2/1/2010 3:01:02 PM

The Office of Management and Budget will try again to cut some DTV-transition-related telecom facilities funds for noncommercial broadcasters from the National Telecommunications & Information Administration and USDA budgets, as well as scale back some Voice of American language services

That OMB call came in the just-released 2011 budget. The 2010 budget initially attempted to make the same cuts, but none of them survived the congressional review process--Congress must vote to approve the budget.

The new budget tries to zero out the National Telecommunications & Information Administration's Public Telecommunications Facilities Program (PTFP), which got $20 million last year. PTFP has mostly been used to help public broadcasters make the digital switch, which OMB pointed out last time around was essentially complete and pointed out in this budget was complete. "The digital television transition was completed in 2009, and there is no further need for DOC's program," OMB wrote.

Also like last year, the 2011 budget recommends zeroing out $5 million in USDA grants for public broadcasting, pointing out they, too, were mostly for noncom DTV conversion, which is "largely complete" (no explanation for the qualification of "largely" vs. the more definitive "completed" language in the PTFP portion above) and is funded by CPB anyway. It calls the USDA grants duplicative and unnecessary.
The Association for Public Television Stations begged to differ with the administration's assessments on the NTIA and USDA funding.

"We are concerned that the President's budget does not recommend funding for many vital programs and services that local public television stations provide," said Larry Sidman, president of the Association of Public Television Stations (APTS), in a statement Monday.

"The President's budget request does not include money for the Public Telecommunications Facilities Program, an essential program which funds infrastructure and equipment upgrades and replacements for public broadcasting stations, and the RUS [USDA] Digital Transition Grant Program, a program to ensure that the digital conversion does not leave rural America behind," Sidman said.



On the international side, the budget cuts $32 million from the government international broadcasting service, Voice of America, by eliminating Hindi, Croatian and Greek-language broadcasts and closing a Paris finance office.

Cutting those services came after a survey of freedom and democracy in which all three received a rating of "free."

On the international side, the budget saves another $3 million by eliminating Croatian and Greek-language broadcasts from international broadcasting service, Voice of America. OMB point out that a 2009 Freedom of the World survey found those countries received a rating of "free."