WPSU, central Pennsylvania’s public media provider and PBS/NPR affiliate, is set to close its doors by June 30, 2026. This development comes after a Penn State Board of Trustees committee rejected a plan to transfer ownership of the station to the Philadelphia-based public media entity, WHYY.
“We have worked with the administration to find the best path forward for the station and our people who work there,” Board of Trustees Chair David Kleppinger said in a statement. “But, given the significant headwinds facing higher education and public media, we could not support the proposed transaction. We know this is a deeply disappointing outcome and we are grateful to the dedicated WPSU employees whose work has enriched our lives and made our community stronger.”
The “significant headwinds” are in reference to the federal government eliminating funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which provided funding for PBS and NPR affiliates like WPSU nationwide. Along with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, WPSU is also funded by Penn State.
This fiscal year, Penn State cut $800,000 of WPSU’s funding, approximately 20% of its university-provided funding. WPSU also lost its Corporation for Public Broadcasting funding when the corporation shut down in July, which totaled $1.4 million, or 17% of its total budget.
The sizable loss of funding has forced the station to implement a “wind-down plan” to conclude by June 30, 2026. The station currently reaches 24 counties on TV and 13 on radio, including some of the most rural locations in Pennsylvania. When the station closes its doors, over a million Pennsylvanians will be left without a public media organization covering local news.
“Local news, just in general, I think, is very valuable just to have sometimes in the background or stuff like that. It has a level of connection with a community that you don’t often see with bigger news channels,” senior Brian Wang said. “A lot of local news channels can get a lot more involved in the community, and that creates a much closer connection with the community.”
Another aspect of the closure that has been noted by community members is that WPSU provides emergency alerts for all of its supported areas. WPSU’s shutdown will not impact the content of the alerts, but the public has not received word on how they will receive their emergency notices, adding another layer to the response.
Katie Volz is a life-long State College resident with a special place in her heart for WPSU. Upon reading about her local public media provider’s downfall, Volz started a Change.org petition that has topped 20,000 signatures and amassed hundreds of comments supporting WPSU. The petition has signatures and comments from all 50 states and recently secured at least one signature from every inhabited continent. Volz has a rich family history of watching and listening to WPSU products and grew up on PBS Kids programming. She became a lead defender of WPSU for a multitude of reasons.
“I felt it was completely outrageous that a huge PBS/NPR affiliate that serves around a third of Pennsylvania should just be shut down with seemingly no warning, and I was very disturbed that that would mean the loss of public media in this region, that would mean the loss of PBS Kids, all of the cooking shows, Masterpiece Mystery, all of the things people associate with PBS,” Volz said. “It would also remove the local aspect of hearing local news that pertains to State College and the surrounding area, all of the community events, and things like that that matter directly to us.”
While central PA residents will still be able to access national PBS content, an underrated aspect that has not gone unnoticed in the community is the loss of WPSU’s countless cultural and community-building events.
Wang helped organize a Chinese cultural group at WPSU’s annual Multicultural Children’s Festival. He explained the value of the event and WPSU’s other free opportunities dedicated to fostering cultural understanding in State College
“It was very nice, because you could see, sometimes you would have people come in like ‘oh yeah they’re Chinese,’ but a lot of times you would see a lot of people coming through just learning about all the different cultures, bringing their kids along,” Wang said. “I also on my break times would go visit the other stands and learn a bit about other people’s culture, which I feel like is something that’s a bit lacking in everyday life.”
State College is in a unique situation with its large population of international students studying at Penn State. WPSU has information and events available to those students that will not be easily replicated.
“I fear quite badly, actually, because WPSU and PBS in general, they care about education for other cultures,” Volz said. “It has the potential to make people from overseas, or just other states even, feel more connected because, A, they know what’s happening in the place they have moved to, that being State College and central Pennsylvania, but also it’s quite possible through cultural events for them to see themselves and their own cultures. If we don’t have that, it’s not like many other sources care about that specifically, so that would be a tremendous loss, in my opinion, it’s just knocking another layer down of feeling a sense of community.”
Volz has spearheaded the community outrage at this decision; however, the combined headwinds facing higher education and public media are likely too strong for the decision to be reversed. Central Pennsylvania’s local public media outlet is going by the wayside, much to the displeasure of the community at large.
