With federal funding cuts in place, tribal radio stations figure out next steps to sustain operations

KYKOTSMOVI, Arizona — When LaDonna Jacket and Kerissa Ben were girls, they remember the school bus driver listening to the radio station KUYI en route to their school on Hopi tribal land.

Jacket, 20, lives in Mishongnovi Village on Second Mesa, located on the tribe’s land in northern Arizona. Television signals are not strong enough in the village, but KUYI’s reception is clear and crisp, she explained, making it the source for news and updates for community members.

“It always brings me joy when I listen to it,” Jacket said.

KUYI broadcasts on Hopi land with a signal that covers the entire area and into the satellite village of Moenkopi, adjacent to Tuba City, Arizona.

It is one of the tribal radio stations that received community service grants from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting but will lose that funding after Congress supported in July the White House’s proposal to eliminate public media funding for fiscal years 2026 and 2027.

“Through partnerships with local stations and producers, CPB has supported educational content, locally relevant journalism, emergency communications, cultural programming and essential services for Americans in every community,” according to a statement from the corporation.

The CPB is a private nonprofit organization created by Congress through the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. The organization was responsible for the distribution of federally appropriated funds, making them the largest single source of funding for public radio, television and related online and mobile services.

The corporation will start winding down operations and close on Sept. 30, the end of the federal fiscal year.

Since the CPB was established in 1967, it has supported more than 1,500 locally managed and operated public television and radio stations nationwide. This includes the network of Native radio and television stations that comprise Native Public Media.

There are 36 tribal radio stations and one television station under Native Public Media that receive about $9.4 million each year in support from the CPB. The funding covers between 30% to 100% of each station’s operating budget.

Native Public Media also receives $300,000 annually to help stations with services like grant management, regulatory compliance and training requirements.

President Donald Trump and many Republicans have been outraged for years, if not decades, by what they call biased reporting at the two flagship CPB entities: PBS and NPR. And while many in the GOP are happy to see those two cut off from public funding, there are some Republicans such as Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski who expressed concern that an unintended consequence is the defunding of tribal and rural stations upon which vast swaths of America still rely to be informed and entertained.

“Not only did Congress and the president dismantle the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, they’re gutting radio and television across Indian Country, which took about five decades to build,” Loris Taylor, president and CEO of Native Public Media, said during her panel on Aug. 13 to attendees at the Indigenous Journalists Association conference at Isleta Resort & Casino.

There are 574 federally recognized tribes in the United States. The Federal Communications Commission has issued 61 licenses to tribal governments, tribal nonprofits or educational institutions on tribal lands, according to Native Public Media.

“They’re the ones that amplify the culture,” Taylor said about tribal radio stations during an interview at the conference.

At KUYI, they amplify culture through the radio in various ways. The radio station often receives input from community advisory boards about which traditional music can be played and which months of the year are appropriate to broadcast it. The same goes for sharing traditional stories over the airwaves.

“They only make it so that more people can hear it and be connected through technology, but they don’t take anything away from the community,” said Taylor, who managed operations at KUYI in the early 2000s.

There are four stations in New Mexico – Dulce, Magdalena, Pine Hill and Zuni – that are part of Native Public Media’s network. KUYI is one of the four stations in Arizona within the network.

The mission of these stations remains the same — to inform their communities – but their capacity and ability to pay for services like utilities and tower maintenance, staff salaries or broadcast content like licensed music is now challenged, Taylor explained.

With the Corporation for Public Broadcasting closing, tribal radio stations must pivot to survive, she said. This includes taking steps like developing stronger relationships with funders in their communities or increasing grant funding.

While the main focus of KUYI’s event was to mark its silver anniversary, it also served as an opportunity for them to fundraise $25,000. This amount will help the station in the new year, said Hannah Honani, executive director of the Hopi Foundation, the parent organization of KUYI.

The station has funding through Dec. 31. Moving forward, it faces a 48.3% budget cut, Honani said.

This decline brings about the question of how the station can diversify efforts to increase donations and other financial support.

“Hopi radio brings programming, cultural learning, language, stories and, of course, music,” Honani said. “Music can be anything to anyone. If you hear the radio station, they play an eclectic and different genre of music.”

That broad-ranging connection to songs was evident on July 22 when KUYI devoted air time to play the music of Ozzy Osbourne, who died that day in Birmingham, England. The tribute show tied Hopi to an international news event while recognizing that numerous Indigenous people grew up listening to and remaining fans of Osbourne.

“It’s bringing people awareness beyond just what’s happening here … that’s a special way that music touches people in our community,” she said, adding feedback from listeners was positive.

Louis Abeita Jr., who is Santa Ana Pueblo and Laguna Pueblo, tunes in to KUYI because personnel and volunteers are from the Hopi community, personalizing the listening experience.

“A lot of people are in the rural area, like we are. It might be here, it might be the Plains and it might be in Alaska. I think that they need to look at that and see what their value is to the people out there,” Abeita, 66, said about the decision to eliminate federal funding to tribal radio stations.

Jacket won the pageant title of Miss Hopi on Aug. 9. A day later, she was at KUYI’s 25th anniversary celebration with Kerissa Ben, 26, who was runner-up in the pageant.

“It’s Hopi ran. It’s for our Hopi people,” Ben said about the radio station. “They have the Hopi word of the day. Not a lot of our young people know how to speak our language. They’re trying to use their platform and their outreach to address that in the community.”

In addition to language resources, the station broadcasts information about school and road closures, law enforcement bulletins and programs that focus on health and social services.

“I can’t imagine Hopi without KUYI,” Ben said.