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GBH is pausing new episodes of American Experience, public tv’s signature documentary sequence about American historical past, following Congress’ transfer to zero out federal funding for stations, NPR and PBS.
The transfer comes simply because the U.S. is getting ready for celebrations marking the 250th anniversary of the nation’s beginning.
Susan Goldberg, the president and CEO of GBH, mentioned in an announcement, “Severe cuts in federal funding for public media are requiring the system – including PBS and GBH – to make difficult decisions about programming and staffing at American Experience.”
She mentioned that American Experience will current its thirty seventh season this fall as deliberate, with one of many tasks together with a documentary on the lifetime of Henry Kissinger. She mentioned that subsequent yr, “the series will broadcast and stream a collection of the best and most popular American Experience films and offer vivid digital content for America’s 250th anniversary.”
Goldberg added: “It will also be a year to research and create, and evaluate ways to present content that connects all Americans to a shared history. PBS & GBH believe history is essential to our education mission; we’ll continue to innovate new approaches for American Experience to explore compelling topics, tell stories known and never heard before and grow our audiences.”
She added, “Innovation is paramount in this moment of upheaval. We need to do everything we can to ensure we can be here for generations to come.”
GBH, previously WGBH, additionally lower 13 staff on the sequence, based on a report from the station’s information division.
Last week, Congress permitted Donald Trump‘s request to rescind federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which distributes cash to public stations, PBS and NPR. The $1.1 billion over the subsequent two years already had been allotted by lawmakers in earlier finances votes.
The determination to pause American Experience was met with some pushback amongst filmmakers.
Documentary director Stanley Nelson, whose tasks featured on the sequence embrace Freedom Riders and Jonestown: The Life and Death of People’s Temple, wrote on X, “I was shocked and saddened to learn earlier this week that GBH, a pioneering producer of public media in the U.S., has paused American Experience, the longest-running and most-watched historical documentary series on American television, and laid off its staff and leadership.”
He added that it was “highly distressing that public media would pause the production of such vital programming that serves the core of this mission. I stand in solidarity with American Experience’s dedicated staff and call on public media leadership to prioritize this essential series at such a crucial time in this nation’s history. We all have a responsibility to preserve the ongoing story of the U.S., especially at a time when freedom of expression is so threatened.”
The sequence has received 30 Emmys and 19 Peabody awards.
One of the signature occasions on PBS this fall will probably be Ken Burns’ The American Revolution, a six-part, 12-hour sequence produced individually from American Experience. He has known as the federal funding cuts “short sighted.” He mentioned that about 20% of his budgets come from the CPB and “we’ll have to make it up. I’m confident that with the extra work, it will happen.”
He mentioned: “But it’s those projects at the national level that might get 50 or 60, maybe even 75% of their funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They just won’t be able to be made, and so there will be less representation by all the different kinds of filmmakers. People coming up will have an impossible time getting started.”