As part of our process of assembling stories for our 30th Anniversary Publication, FJC contacted a number of longtime partners to ask how critical stages of their organization’s life cycle were affected by FJC’s support. We were blown away by the detailed, specificity of their responses!
For reasons of space, we condensed their testimonials in our publication, and we present them in full here.
FJC’s partnership with public broadcasting began in 2009, with a loan to North Texas Public Broadcasting (KERA), and has since made a significant impact through three channels.
The loan to KERA helped acquire a Dallas, TX signal to broadcast a Music Discovery radio service for a younger audience. KXT 91.7 has been voted the top radio station in Dallas, and now has one of the largest audiences in public broadcasting, with over 200,000 weekly listeners.
In Pittsburgh, FJC helped preserve WDUQ 90.5 FM (known as “WESA” post-sale) as a public radio news station. The acquisition of the station by a local group with strong ties to the community helped strengthen WESA both financially and operationally. In Kansas City, FJC helped preserve a public radio station while increasing its reach from 400,000 to 1.4 million potential listeners.
FJC’s financings came at a moment when local public media was acutely at risk: the 2008 recession strained local economies and the finances of universities and state governments, and roughly half of public broadcasting stations are licensed to educational institutions that depend on that funding. Access to capital was essential to preserving stations at risk of being sold, and to preventing the loss of local news outlets in the communities they served. FJC’s loans were instrumental in preserving and strengthening local public media outlets across the country.
At the same time, FJC’s direct support to PMC through the Revolving Public Media Fund I and Revolving Public Media Fund II helped subsidize PMC’s services for smaller stations that could not afford outside expertise.
The capacity and the visibility that FJC helped PMC build early on is the same capacity PMC called on when the public media system needed it most: when the 2025 rescission threatened federal funding for local stations, PMC’s Bridge Fund raised and deployed $26 million in emergency grants to 74 organizations.
—Erik Langner, Executive Director, Public Media Bridge Fund
