Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

March 25, 2010 Bangorbiz

Funding flux jeopardizes MPBN rural programming

By Tom Weber

One of the missions of the Maine Public Broadcasting Network has been to generate diverse television programming that reflects the unique flavor and character of life in the state's rural regions.

Since the early 1990s, MPBN has managed to fulfill that obligation to its far-flung viewers largely with the help of grants administered by the United States Department of Agriculture's Rural Development program.

MPBN, which has an office in Bangor, has used well over $6 million from Rural Development's "Grants to Broadcasting Systems Program" over the years to create shows that focus on everything from the nuts and bolts of starting a business in Maine, to the ways some rural communities have had to reinvent their economic foundations for the 21st century to the folksy and often humorous influence the state's rural traditions have on the foods we eat.

Yet a shifting political landscape and a renewed debate over federal earmarks has caused those crucial funds to dry up as of late, says Gil Maxwell, MPBN's senior vice president and chief technology officer. While the agricultural appropriations bill continues to carry some $2 million in funds earmarked for the rural broadcasting program, he told Mainebiz, none of that grant money has been released in the last two years.

And without it, Maxwell says, the future of MPBN's once-successful rural programming effort is in jeopardy.

"Releasing those funds is at the discretion of Rural Development, and for some reason the powers that be have chosen not to do that," he says. "This really impacts our ability to create content that helps support and promote life in rural Maine."

Maxwell has asked Maine's congressional delegation to use its pull to help get the long-running program funded once again. His videotaped plea for the release of those appropriations is one of many recent funding requests that can be found on Rep. Chellie Pingree's website.

MPBN is now one of only four state broadcasting systems that qualify for the Rural Development grant. As a "statewide, private, nonprofit public television system whose coverage is predominately rural," MPBN has routinely shared the grant money equally with broadcasters in Vermont, Alaska and North Dakota. Up until a couple of years ago, when there were five broadcasting systems in the running, each state received about $400,000.

"Our Congresspeople from the four states have been fighting to get this program funded again," says Maxwell. "We're asking them to please do what they can to convince Rural Development about the true value of this program and the need to keep allocating it."

Like businesses everywhere, MPBN has had to adopt some tough budgeting strategies to remain financially viable in the recent economic downtown. Yet despite the stricter measures, Maxwell says, MPBN is still struggling to keep up with the normal wear and tear on its equipment.

"One problem we run into is having to serve an area from Fort Kent all the way to Kittery, which takes a lot of infrastructure to operate," he says. "Whereas [Boston's public station] WGBH can use one transmitter to reach 8 million viewers, we need five transmitters to reach a million. Our economics are simply not the same, which is why a grant like this is so critical to a rural state like Maine."

Should the broadcasting funds be made available again, he says, MPBN might be able to redirect staff and resources to once again put together three or four different shows geared toward the unique needs of Maine's substantial rural population.

"Our concept ideas among the states have had to with examining the financial issues we're all facing, and getting resources out that could help rural communities," Maxwell says. "It's the kind of content we really need to provide, and the only way we're going to be able to do it is through this grant."

Sign up for Enews

Mainebiz web partners

Most Recent

Most Recent

Comments

Order a PDF