About Public Broadcasting Service
PBS and our member stations are America’s largest classroom, the nation’s largest stage for the arts and a trusted window to the world. PBS's educational media helps prepare children for success in school and opens up the world to them in an age-appropriate way.
Focus Areas
EducationChildren's mediaArts & culturePublic mediaJournalism
About Public Broadcasting Service
Public Broadcasting Service gave a five-million-dollar-plus grant to its own PBS Foundation in 2025, underscoring how much of its funding supports the public media system behind its national programming. The foundation’s grantmaking also reached member stations and producers across the country, including Connecticut Public Broadcasting in Hartford, WGBH Educational Foundation in Boston, and KQED-TV in San Francisco. Those awards show a funder that supports both the infrastructure of public television and the organizations that create, distribute, and localize content for audiences in many markets. Its stated work centers on education, children’s media, arts and culture, public media, and journalism. That mix is consistent with PBS’s role as a classroom resource and a national stage for the arts. The grant list also shows support for production and distribution partners such as American Documentary Inc., Independent Television Service Inc., and public stations that serve state and regional audiences. In practice, the foundation appears to back the organizations that keep public media programming, educational media, and related content available across the system.
What Public Broadcasting Service Funds
Education is a clear thread in the grant list. Public Broadcasting Service gave $400,860 to Connecticut Public Broadcasting (wedh) in Hartford and $88,890 to Wjct-tv in Jacksonville, both part of a broader pattern of support for public television stations. The foundation also backs content creation and distribution. It gave $107,419 to Independent Television Service Inc. in San Francisco and $90,300 to American Documentary Inc. in Brooklyn, pointing to support for documentary and public-interest programming. Arts and culture appear through station and production support as well. Awards to Kqed-tv in San Francisco, Twin Cities Public Television in Saint Paul, and Day's Edge Productions in San Diego show that the funder supports organizations involved in both local public media and program production.
How Public Broadcasting Service Gives
Typical grant size is tightly clustered: the 25th percentile, median, and 75th percentile are $10,000, $10,000, and $30,000. The recent-grants list shows a much larger internal award to the PBS Foundation alongside a long tail of operating-style support to stations and production partners, suggesting a mix of system-level and project-level giving. The data also show repeat recipients across years and within the same year, including the PBS Foundation, KQED-TV, University of Utah, and the University of North Carolina center for public TV. Public Broadcasting Service is a regular funder, not an individual-giving or program-related-investment maker. The active program listing includes an invitation for bid and a request for information, and the RFI is marked as accepting unsolicited input.
Financial Snapshot
Annual Giving
$8M
Total Assets
$654.6M
Total Revenue
$558.2M
Total Expenses
$550.7M
Typical Grant Size
Most grants fall between $10K and $30K, with a median of $10K.
25th Percentile
$10K
Median
$10K
75th Percentile
$30K
Geographic Reach
National45 states funded
About 5% of grants go to recipients in CA.
Funding intensity
LowHigh
Headquarters
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