The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (“CPB”) is accepting proposals from public media organizations seeking to reach new audiences with public affairs programming and content services (“Public Affairs Programming”), prioritizing those that have the greatest potential to increase digital audiences and be sustainable beyond the grant term.
Public media stations in the United States have developed a trusted reputation for convening community conversations about issues of civic importance, in part because of their commitment to delivering Public Affairs Programming which provides fact-based information and analysis about local issues, public policy, and governance. These efforts foster civic dialogue among an array of stakeholders, informed by a wide range of perspectives and backgrounds that are reflective of the region. A CPB-commissioned survey (“Survey”) of 175 public radio and television stations, published in June 2022, found that 78% produced interview/roundtable public affairs shows about state government. In 18 states, public media stations provide the only state government-focused public affairs programming for a broadcast audience.
In recent years, public media stations have launched new Public Affairs Programming initiatives to better serve existing audiences and reach new ones. These strategies include partnering with local journalists and newsrooms to provide deeper reporting, experimenting with new formats to enhance audience reach and accessibility, fostering civic dialogue on existing social media platforms, and piloting artificial intelligence technologies to increase government transparency. In the interest of encouraging this experimentation and accelerating its evolution, the goals (“Goals”) of this initiative are to:
1) Catalyze innovative approaches to reach new audiences with locally produced Public Affairs Programming that is widely distributed on broadcast and digital platforms;
2) Strengthen the ability of Public Affairs Programming producers to consistently identify, incorporate, and respond to audience feedback that represents a multiplicity of local perspectives with the goal of increasing audience trust;
3) Improve the long-term financial viability of locally produced Public Affairs Programming;
4) Measure the utility and impact of these innovative approaches; and,
5) Document successes and lessons learned from these efforts to be shared across the public media system.
Eligible applicants for this Request for Proposals (“RFP”) include:
• Public media stations receiving Community Service Grants (“CSG(s)”), in good standing, and;
• Collaborations (“Collaboration”) of CSG Recipients in good standing, with a single leading station.
For this RFP, applicants are welcome to partner with other public media entities, local news organizations and other local community organizations that share strategic goals and meet public media’s standards of trust and transparency (“Partners”).
CPB expects to make three (3) or four (4) two-year grants. For this grant program, CPB funds cannot be applied to indirect costs.