the experts have weighed in. now is the time to build the keystone pipeline. no more delays. no more politics. if the president continues to drag his feet, congress is prepared to act. we should not stop. there is much more we can do and should do to support our nation builders builders and unlock our domestic resources as a way to create jobs, lower the costs of living, and put our nation on a path to energy security. doing all of this is not just about the dollars in the sensec. it is about coming together to ensure that our children will have the same chances, the same hope, and freedoms we have had. these are the blessings that we ofebrate during th e ritses easter and passover.

to renew traditions and lift up our spirits and tell old stories that remind us how suffering can be overcome with her age and resolve -- courage and resolve. if we look for opportunities to work together and sees them, if we choose to build on and not sacrifices, we come that much closer to realizing the promise of a more perfect union and peace for one and all. god bless you and your families. thank you for listening. >> coming up, "the communicators" talks with patrick butler. that is followed by our "first ladies" series. then the mayor of saratoga springs, utah, mayor love. >> we want introduce you to

patrick butler, the president of the association of public ev stations. -- tv stations. welcome. >> thank you. stations?you define they have obligations under the law and fcc to provide informational services to the communities that we serve. we serve virtually every american through 170 licensees and operating 360 stations. >> how do you find it? >> it is a little bit complex. the corporation for public and unityng housas service grants for each of our stations. -- community service grants for

each of our stations. the further away from the big cities you get, the more rural you get. the percentage of the grant can get up to one percent or 50% -- 40% or 50%. that is the basic grant. forave about a 6-1 ratio private donations from corporations and foundations and state governments and viewers like you. federaly dollar of invested, we generate another six dollars in nonfederal act to the. -- activity. >> if a station cannot raise money privately, does he go off the air? increase the donation? is a sliding kind of formula here you a larger stations need less.

the grant is less of a factor than it is a more rural stations. we have a universal service fccirement than under regulations. we are obliged to provide our service to everyone whether it is an economic winter are not. we serve native american reservations in the most rural areas and we go everywhere and serve everyone for free. mr. butler, does a government have any other role besides funding? >> no. in fact there is a firewall that was established. it prohibits the federal government from being involved in decisions.

pbs is our national programming service. we make decisions independently of the government. reporter. our guest epb allocations, when broken down, it is not a huge percentage of the federal budget, but why is that a big deal for the public to the community? you have other sources of funding. >> it is a foundational ground that makes possible everything else that we do. it is a platform upon which we base all of our local programming and our educational services and homeland security and public safety services and other things that we do for veterans affairs and so forth.

it is that foundation grant from the cpb makes all the rest of this possible. it makes the other funding possible as well. we can leverage the federal grant to obtain all of his other -- of all this other funding. accountability office and many others have determined over the last several years that this federal grant is essential to the operation of our system. world in the foundation or corporate world wants to pay for a life in our towers and so forth. they want to devote their investments to programming and to the community services and so forth. the federal investment is literally the foundation, the platform upon everything rests on. >> over the years, including recently, allocation has become

threatened. if that allocation is zeroed out, can you give us an idea of how public tv will be changed? will it go away? >> it will be severely damaged. the first stations that would be affected the most severely are the rural stations, the places where we go where no one else goes. then the problem is that because we have a system which supports d soman and new york an forth, and the system breaks down because the smaller systems are not operate, then the bigger stations in boston and new york and washington and so forth will not have a distribution system that makes their programming possible and

makes the service work for all americans. it is really important to have ,his federal contribution small as it is in the grand scheme of things. dollar a lot of that 5.35 -- $1.3 spends about $64 per citizen on public broadcasting. we spent $1.35. >> with the threat of sequester, the new budget coming up for this year, how does that affect your member stations? >> the sequester would reduce .ur grants by about 5% that equates to roughly $22 million or so.

it will be distributed among the various licensees and stations that i have described. 13% cuttaken about a in our overall funding over the last two years. if the entire federal cutrnment had sustained a we had disdained, the budget would be be $500 billion smaller than it is now. we have made a significant contribution to deficit reduction within our own context. the sequester will be a further 5% reduction in our funding. it hurts, but we understand that we have got to be fidgeting to the solution. solution.contributing to the >> everyone points to the point that mitt romney made in his

campaign, i love the bird, but i will cut your funding because of the crisis with the deficit the u.s. is currently facing. -- he hadr romney his facts wrong if i could put it bluntly. has beentreet" remarkably successful in generating private funding and going global and sore fo forth. it is not a matter the government sustaining "sesame street." it is about whether "sesame street" can reach every american home. 90 milliones the preschool students we have been able to get ready to learn over the last 40 years. innerf them are from

cities and rural america and so forth. getting them ready with language skills and math skills is made asame street" difference and getting students ready for success in school and in life. it is not a matter of putting cornflake commercials on sesame street. that is not the point at all erie it the point is having the investment that make services like that available to everyone. >> what about the commercial success of sesame street where the marketing products and licensing of things. that making of a prophet. where does that money go? >> it goes right back into programming. that is why at that investment in the show is a fairly small number now eerie it has been -- now. it has been successful. all of that money goes back into the show.

it is a nonprofit enterprise. it goes back into the programming and into their services. , howuching on programming does public television keep itself relevant in a world where people can have access to hundreds of channels and can stream content online? .> interesting question we get that question a lot on capitol hill. -- the to be providing difference with us is that we are education-oriented. andre providing the works great performances. have more suestudents watching "nova" and any caution size in america.

size inny classroom america. we take our programming and put it through pbs learning media under which digital learning objects are created that are curriculum-based and standards- based and the teaching tools we create for use for k-12 classrooms and homeschooled students and others. it is an educational enterprise that is not duplicated anywhere in the commercial world. .hat is a sensible distinction we are in the educational business and no one else is. public tv stations keeping themselves on the significant effects of sequester? >> it'll will hurt, but it is

5%. we think we can make the adjustments we need to make. what that means in practice is that there'll be less local programming available for the next year or so. this local programming is all about local history, culture, issues. whether it is immigration issues in tennessee or a senior citizens issue in minnesota or a veterans issue in connecticut, job training programs in nevada , vegas pbs is the largest drop trainer in the entire state of nevada under a contract -- larg est job trainer in the entire state of nevada or under a contract. we hope things will get back to normal a bit once the sequester is completed. this will hurt.

the quantity of our service will be diminished. we do not in the quality will drop, but we will not be able to produce as much content in this condition. how welluld you say broadcasting is doing with how viewers access content in regards to digital platform? >> we have a good success story. pbs.org is the most heavily on theked internet site nonprivate side -- non-profit site. is in the top five or so. when pbs does contracts for programming, and contracts for , including internet and other distribution platforms.

we are on mobile, the internet, on tv, in the classroom. he are serving people where they are and giving them this invaluable programming in the format that they most want. >> you are watching c-span's "the communicators"." our guest this week is patrick butler. .ur guest reporter is kamala toi would like to transition the fcc and broadcast spectrum. are there any options that have been thrown out there? can you give us an idea of the options that public tv stations have in terms of that proceeding? >> we have created a spectrum opportunity task force to evaluate all of the opportunities and options on behalf of our public tv

stations. that includes offering spectrum in the option itself, channel , andng, spectrum leaping other opportunities that might be available for private transactions. we think there are both opportunities for greater efficiency in our system and for greater revenue opportunities in our system associated with the preceding. we think this is a once-in-a- alltime opportunity to get of the efficiencies and revenue opportunities that we have been kind of dreaming about for the last several years and accomplish in the next three or four or five years. ofhas urban consideration moving to channels to vhs? may be in a position to

do that. this will all be local decisions here did a great thing about local tv is that everything is locally owned and operated. they make their own decisions about these things. some of the interested in moving to a vhs channel. ine might be interested joint master control rooms with other other tv stations are perhaps commercial elevation stations. being able to be entrepreneurial and opportunistic about these new options that are available is the spirit in which we are approaching the entire spectrum option issue. it might be that most of our stations do not have any impact it will virtually affect everyone in the tv industry, commercial or public.

for those stations in the markets where the spectrum options will be most important, they are considering all of their options. i think there'll be some interesting conclusions to draw. >> in the world of acronyms, can you replace the relationship between cpb and pbs? >> it is a nonprofit corporation owned by the american people that receives federal appropriations every year. they distribute that appropriation through a well- defined formula. in the one percent of the funds owed to local tv stations and radio stations. about 5% goes to the general administrative notices. the rest goes to special programming initiatives and distribution funds and so forth. the is cpb.

they are the purveyor of federal funds. pbs is the national programming service and the national distribution service. they do a lot of work with local stations in terms of improving management and so forth. >> and they are private? >> they are also private and nonprofit. the association of public tv stations is organization for the licensees themselves, the andle on the ground hundreds of american communities that hold these licenses and provide all of these local services him for remain, education, and other services that we have described. it is my honor to represent all of them here in washington. >> one more question. quoted, that perhaps npr would be better off without federal funding. your thoughts?

>> npr does not receive much direct federal funding. it is the local stations that some funding.e some of that goes to npr for programming services. the breakdown is that they produced 28% of their own programming locally i will buy about 30 of the programming from npr and another percentage from other radio stations and other national programming services. it is a local decision. they can take as much or as little npr programming as they want. this is the opposite of a top- .own business model this is all bottom-up and they take what they want. >> kamala lane. >> essenes that public broadcasting has to go to

congress and make a case for why the allocations should remain intact. in the recent years, how is -- has your approach changed at all? >> we have been trying to focus on letting congress understand that we are a public service media stop not only do we provide this high quality programming on television, but we are very actively engaged in the education enterprise in homeland security and other public investments that are justified. the better we can tell that story and the strongest weekend -- and the stronger we can make that case, the more likely congress will say, this is a worthwhile investment of federal funds. that lines up with the overwhelming majority of the

american people who say the federal investment in public broadcasting is the second best investment the federal government makes after national defense alone. that is how much they appreciate what we do on air and online and in the community. >> and how are the stations going about funding? >> we have a big contributor partnership among our stations that has gotten off the ground in the last couple of years. we have found that every public tv station that does as well as the top 20% of our public television stations do in terms of generating income from individual donors and foundations and corporations, we can generate an extra $200 million a year in sponsorship revenue for our system. of going the process

as far as we can possibly go with this initiative. i think that will produce some very significant results. we have other entrepreneurial enterprises under way as well. we are doing a lot of fee-for- service with the state of nebraska. and in south carolina we are attracting the specific education services. kentucky education services has a wonderful program that they market around the country. this is for high school equivalency. there are lots of things like this. vegas pbs has a business arrangement with the hospitality industry under which they trained 100,000 commercial workers every year and the

largest industry in nevada. that entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in public television. we will take it as far as it goes. youn regards to congress, recently gave an award to verysentative ed warden, influential when it comes to telecommunications policy. why did you give him an award? how far is his reach to members? >> we gave him an award for his work on the spectrum auction legislation. he was a big supporter of the legislation and public television's interest in the legislation. for example, the senate bill provided for $1 billion in transition costs, most related to be packing. we had concluded that was not nearly enough money to pay for all of the transition costs that

would be more by both commercial and public television stations. he was able to add another $750 million, which was a huge benefit to the public television station community and the commercial community sto. he thought he was well deserving of the award. he worked in a highly bipartisan way with colleagues in the house. this is a real model of how legislation can be enacted in congress. he took a very enlightened leadership. we were happy to be able to give him our champion of public broadcasting award. we also given to senator barbara mikulski. she has been a steadfast supporter of public television for her entire career in

washington. talking a lot of time with members of congress and their staff about what it is that we are doing at the local level. we bring our station managers to , as well as community leaders who support our enterprise in local areas to tell them our stories about the community service that we provide. we also ask members to come stations and local communities and see on the ground what it is that we are doing. the more that they see, the better that they like what we do. we are encouraging more and more interaction. the more we get, the better off we will be. >> many congressional champions are democrats. issue funding becoming more bipartisan? >> i do. there is a great public media summit at the end of february.

can meet with their senators and representatives. what we found is that there is a bit of a seachange in terms of the bipartisan support that we can now count on. for the last couple of years, it has been difficult, but we think we have turned a page. we are feeling that we are getting back to the tradition of bipartisan support that has been a hallmark of public television since president eisenhower first proposed educational television as a national solution to our science, technology, engineering, and math challenge. president eisenhower, president ford, president reagan, and many -- there is a long tradition of bipartisan support of public television. we think we are on the point of

restore it well. >> unfortunately we are out of time. served as aer consultant to howard baker. ror. president of times mir was a speechwriter for president gerald ford. a seriesmportant of like "downtown abby"? andt energizes our support our donor base. we have gotten a nice ride out in terms of abby" generating new donors. the viewership has been extraordinary. i was talking with some of the cast not too long ago,li