When the federal government cut funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting this summer, one of the Wyoming-run outlets the agency fed lost a third of its money.
Wyoming Public Television CEO Joanna Kail discussed that shortfall Wednesday during a meeting of the state legislative Joint Appropriations Committee in Cheyenne, where she asked state lawmakers to fill a $3 million funding gap Congress created with its rescission of money for the CPB.
One of the services the now-vanished federal money provided in the past was public live-streaming of legislative meetings and proceedings, such as the one where Kail presented Wednesday.
Kail also asked for a $3.6 million, one-time infusion to upgrade Wyoming Public Television’s radio and TV signal tower communications system, which dates back to the Cold War era.
Kail said the federal government has rejected or ignored at least two of Wyoming Public Television’s efforts to secure federal grants for the upgrade — though federal rules require its functionality.
The system is aging and needs the upgrades, she added.
“I will be honest with you all, I have never been comfortable asking the state of Wyoming for more. And I take great pride in the fact that for more than 20 years, Wyoming Public Television has not requested a significant increase of this nature in ongoing state funding,” Kail told lawmakers. “That history of restraint matters deeply to me.”
Kail said she bears humility and respect for the budget pressures state lawmakers face.
“But I also believe the Wyoming way is to speak plainly when the truth is difficult,” she said.
The two exception requests nearly triple the outlet’s request to the state for the upcoming biennium, bringing it from a 2025-26 biennium budget of $3.52 million, to a 2027-28 ask of $10.13 million.
Kail emphasized that the infrastructure upgrade of $3.6 million would be a one-time request and said it wouldn’t grow the outlet with staffing or other long-term gains. She also said Wyoming Public Television would not use the state’s money for that if it’s able to secure federal grants in the future.
Gov. Mark Gordon backed each of Wyoming Public Television’s requests in his own vision for the state budget, released last month.
The Joint Appropriations Committee is considering this and other budget requests, ahead of the legislative budget session that opens Feb. 9.
The Questioning
Some lawmakers met Kail’s request with scrutiny.
The government- and privately-funded outlet offers a mix of both public services — like emergency notification and streaming of legislative meetings — and entertainment and educational programming that some lawmakers perceive as an intrusion into the private market.
“If you have a good product that people are willing to pay for, you’ll be making a living,” said Rep. Ken Pendergraft, R-Sheridan. “Why is what you have so valuable that it must be paid for even if people are unwilling (to listen to it)?”
Kail countered that she too is a proponent of the free market.
She touted her outlet’s Wyoming-centric productions like “Afar and Below: The Story of the Wyoming Trona Miners,” and said Wyoming Public Television contracts with private companies on its productions.
It’s difficult to gauge how many Wyomingites are listening to PBS programming, she said. But she referenced the outlet’s nearly 60 million views on its YouTube page; and its digital, tower, cable and satellite footprint.
From her opening remarks throughout her presentation, Kail sought to distinguish Wyoming Public Television from the national PBS. Her written budget narrative also distances itself from other public outlets, like National Public Radio.
She cast her outlet as a bearer of Wyoming ethos and cultural legacy. She also said national public entities have lost people’s trust.
“Across the country, (the national) PBS lost the trust of many Americans because it stopped listening to them,” said Kail. “Concerns about bias, whether others agreed with them or not, were real to the people who raised them. When people feel dismissed, they withdraw their trust. And that loss of trust ultimately led to the nationwide loss of federal funding for public broadcasting.”
All three of Wyoming’s delegates to the U.S. Congress voted for that cut.
The Wyoming outlet runs programming content from the national PBS. Its written budget pitch to the state characterizes that as a careful balance:
“WPTV follows carriage rules that limit how much programming can be pre-empted, but WPTV retains full editorial control to ensure all decisions reflect Wyoming priorities and needs.”
Surviving
Senate Appropriations Chair Tim Salazar, R-Riverton, asked whether Wyoming Public Television could survive with the one-third funding gouge — and whether it could ease the cut on its own.
“Are you going to double your efforts with regard to donations?” asked Salazar. “Maybe you can talk to the committee about that.”
Kail said the outlet is “very aggressively” working with its nonprofit foundation to raise money. The Hughes Charitable Foundation (whose owner also owns Cowboy State Daily) has just donated $500,000 to the outlet, she added.
Coupling that with other matches in the new Legacy of the West Endowment, Kail said the entity may, “hopefully” reach $1.5 million “for our first internal endowment.”
Looking At Lawmakers
Wyoming Public Television has been streaming legislative meetings and hearings for the public since 2017, Kail noted.
Until now, she added, the federal government has largely paid for that.
“We’ve driven 35,340 miles, livestreamed 1,680 hours of legislative committee meetings and hearings – and invoiced (the state) a total, since 2017 of $84,000.11 of the $400,000 allowable in reimbursements.”
The outlet has absorbed about $95,000 in unreimbursed staff salary time, she added.
The federal money that made that possible is “now permanently gone.”
The Numbers
The Wyoming Legislature in 2008 invested $1.5 million into an inviolate investment account for the outlet as well. Wyoming Public Television eventually matched the investment, and the account was cemented into law in 2015.
The state Treasurer’s Office runs that account. Wyoming Public Television reaps its earnings.
For multiple biennial budget cycles, that account corpus sat at around $3 million.
Wyoming Public Television’s budget request narrative shows it at $3 million.
But that is not correct, lawmakers noted publicly on Wednesday.
Rep. Jeremy Haroldson, R-Wheatland, asked for clarification.
“My apologies,” answered Kail. “We’ve not added the… $5 million into the actual budget we received a few years ago from the legislature. So the number reflected in that budget should be $5 million.”
Lawmakers in 2024 increased the $3 million corpus to $5 million.
“I feel like this error is mine,” Kail told Cowboy State Daily in a later phone interview. “Unfortunately, just as we were putting all the information together… we just simply missed this.”
She told the committee she’d provide an updated table for it.
The $5 million figure represents an investment corpus, not revenue. The revenues from that account have ranged in recent years from $256,680 to $191,482 per biennium, the agency’s current table says.
Rep. Trey Sherwood, D-Laramie, said she wanted to end the meeting “on a high note” about the outlet’s Emmy Awards.
Wyoming Public Television won three Heartland Emmy Awards this year.
Clair McFarland can be reached at clair@cowboystatedaily.com.
