Unusual public radio station in Appalachia worries about federal funding, a third of its total

On Monday we reported proposed cuts to funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting had been omitted from the deal on this year's federal budget, but the future of CPB funding and rural radio in future years remains unclear. The uncertainty worries WMMT, the radio station for Appalshop in Whitesburg, Ky., and listeners in Eastern Kentucky, southwestern Virginia and southern West Virginia. "If that station were to be shut down for lack of funding, it would really, really hurt this town," Whitesburg Mayor James Wiley Craft told Kit Seelye of The New York Times.

WMMT, an unusual public station in that it is not affiliated with NPR or a university, received $86,000, one-third of its budget, from the CPB last year. As we've noted more than once, rural radio stations that depend on federal funding to operate may be in danger of going off the air if their funding is cut. More than 20 rural stations, some of which are one Indian reservations, rely on CPB for over half of their revenue, Seelye writes. "This is the worst threat we've ever had because the economic climate is so bad for everything else," said Jim Webb, left, who hosts WMMT's "Appalachian Attitude." (NYT photo by Scott McIntyre)

While WMMT doesn't broadcast NPR programming and thus is not forced to defend NPR against claims of liberal bias, Craft said the station has at times been portrayed as anti-coal. "Some of the people who are there are associated with other groups" that oppose mountaintop removal, he said, "but those people at the state are intelligent enough to know which side of the bread is buttered. This area depends on coal 100 percent." (Read more)

UPDATE, April 16: Times columnist Tim Egan writes about a rural public station in eastern Idaho that does run NPR programming and is managed by a conservative who finds it largely balanced. For the piece on Pocatello's KISU-FM, click here.