An Update From General Manager Kelly Brown
I was in Austin last month with about 900 general managers and public media leaders from across the country, all of us gathered for the PBS Annual Meeting, and all of us carrying some version of the same weight.
PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger said it plainly from the stage: “This past year has been the hardest year any of us has experienced in public media. They took away our funding. CPB (Corporation for Public Broadcasting) closed its doors after nearly 60 years. And stations have been faced with impossible choices.”
There was no sugarcoating. There didn’t need to be. Everyone in that room already knew. But she didn’t stop there.
“We are on the cusp of a great transformation,” she told the room. “What we are building is a public media system that is more connected to communities, more present on the platforms where people actually spend their time and more financially resilient than anything we have had before. That transformation will not come from Washington. It will be powered by individuals.”
She was speaking to leaders of stations small and large, but she also was speaking about you – our viewers and listeners. Last summer’s elimination of federal funding for public media (money that already had been approved by Congress) meant KAMU lost one-third of its operating budget. We were given three months’ notice. Part of what has helped us to fill that gap is the direct support of our audience, so a huge thanks to all of you.
It’s fitting to mention that June 4 is National Protect My Public Media Day, an advocacy day for public media stations across the country. If you are curious how to help, there are a variety of ways listed on our support webpage.
Ken Burns, Free to Watch This Summer
The biggest news out of the meeting was this: Ken Burns’s landmark 12-hour documentary “The American Revolution” just started streaming free on PBS.org and the PBS app through July 12, timed to the nation’s 250th anniversary. When it premiered last November, it broke all PBS streaming records and landed PBS on the Nielsen Top 10 streaming list for the first time in the network’s history: 565 million minutes were viewed in a single week. On a rolling basis through the summer, the first episodes of “The Civil War,” “The War” and “The Vietnam War” are also being released at no cost on the Ken Burns Channel on YouTube, now part of the PBS multi-channel network. For anyone who has never watched a Ken Burns film, this is the summer to start.
What’s Ahead: Fall 2026
The conference also previewed some of what’s coming in the fall:
NOVA will premiere a five-part series called “Evolution,” a sweeping look at life on Earth. NOVA’s digital reach has grown dramatically, with 335 million video views in 2025 alone and its YouTube channel up 70% in a single year.
American Experience is being reimagined under a new documentary unit at a Boston-based station that brings together FRONTLINE, NOVA and American Experience under one roof, led by FRONTLINE’s award-winning executive producer Raney Aronson-Rath. New multi-episode specials are coming to PBS broadcast and streaming.
As part of the ongoing America @ 250 initiative marking the nation’s semiquincentennial, PBS has a full slate of history programming through the end of 2026, including “In Pursuit: Lessons of American Leadership” premiering this fall, and “Craft in America: “North” and “South”” premiering in December. The week of June 27–July 4 will feature a special broadcast celebration timed to the 250th anniversary.
It’s a strong fall. And it is arriving at a moment when public media has never mattered more, or been asked to prove it more urgently.
At KAMU, we are not stepping back from that mission. We are finding a new way to sustain it. That work depends on this community. In the hardest year this station has faced, you showed up. That is something we will never forget.
Thank you for being part of KAMU.
Published: June 1, 2026
Written by: Kelly Brown
