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El Paso’s public radio KTEP-FM could be ‘heavily impacted’ by Trump-backed budget cuts [1]

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Date: 2025-07-24

Karen Vigil said the eclectic programming of KTEP-FM has kept her an avid listener since she moved to El Paso in 1979. The recent federal funding cuts for public broadcasting has left her downhearted.

The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives voted 216-213 last week to rescind $1.1 billion in previously allocated funds to the Corporation of Public Broadcasting, the largest single source of funds for public radio, television and related online services.

It is not clear how much KTEP, which is operated by the University of Texas at El Paso, will lose as a result. Its financial report for 2024 showed that CPB provided $178,000 to KTEP, about 23% of its total budget of just under $768,000.

KTEP General Manager John Carrillo directed questions to UTEP’s Division of Marketing and Communication, which sent El Paso Matters a message Carrillo sent to KTEP listeners July 18.

In the note, Carrillo wrote the station would be “heavily impacted” by the cuts, but did not share how. He said KTEP would continue to offer the programs that listeners expect “for the foreseeable future,” and that the station was working on a sustainable financial model. Additionally, he said that KTEP does not rely solely on the federal government or the university to stay on the air.

In 2024, UTEP ($341,154) and the CPB ($178,303) made up almost 68% of the station’s funding. The rest comes from grants, fundraising, endowment revenue, and business or foundation underwriting, which is a way people, businesses or organizations can financially support a public broadcasting company in exchange for a brief and subtle on-air recognition.

Over the past decade, KTEP’s public reports show the station has become increasingly reliant on support from UTEP, which holds the station’s license, and CPB. Two mainstays of revenue for public radio – membership contributions and underwriting of programming by businesses or foundations – have declined at KTEP in recent years.

Keith Pannell, a retired UTEP professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has been host of KTEP’s “Science Studio” since 1987. He said station management told him that his show will continue unless cuts affect production, and that was not an immediate issue.

“I think (UTEP) wants the radio station to stay exactly where it is, doing what it does,” said Pannell, who stressed he spoke as someone without inside information. “I think they’ll make a very strong effort to get funding needed to keep it operational.”

When UTEP released its 2030 Strategic Plan in April 2021, it included an initiative to develop and strengthen KTEP. The goal was to make it an engaged learning and information platform that could tell the region’s stories to the community and beyond through its affiliation to NPR.

UTEP pays the salaries of most of KTEP’s full-time employees. The marketing and communications division is in charge of underwriting and the Office of Institutional Advancement oversees development, which is the effort to secure philanthropic support. The station is governed by the University of Texas System Board of Regents.

KTEP, El Paso’s first FM station, will celebrate 75 years of being licensed on Sept. 14. It has a 100,000-watt signal that can reach an audience within a 100-mile radius. Among the station’s more popular shows are National Public Radio’s “Morning Edition” and “All Things Considered.” It also offers jazz, gospel and classical music programs, as well as local and national news/talk programs such as “Fresh Air” and “State of the Arts.”

Joh Carrillo, left, and Richard Pineda of UTEP’s public radio station KTEP-FM. (Courtesy Story Corps)

Richard Pineda, former chair of UTEP’s Department of Communication, said the value of KTEP and public radio stations across the country is their ability to provide wide streams of balanced journalism, different cultural perspectives, and unique entertainment.

Pineda said that public broadcasting stations often work under financial constraints, which is why they schedule their many fund drives.

“Cuts to federal funding just makes those margins even more narrow and even more complicated,” he said during a phone interview.

While cuts may be hard, he said KTEP benefits from having UTEP as an institutional anchor that can absorb a lot of the costs that an independent, standalone public radio station would incur such as rent and utilities. Programs are among a station’s most expensive budget items.

“The risk with cuts to the Corporation of Public Broadcasting is that you may lose the revenue that’s necessary to pay for those programs,” he said.

Pineda added that he does not know how the cuts – which take effect Oct. 1 – could affect personnel, but said KTEP will have to make quick decisions about its programming. This may mean that the listener will have less access to news, culture and entertainment.

He knows that proponents of the cuts claim that the internet provides wide access to information, but he counters that some people, especially residents in rural communities, do not always have access to the technology or the technical sophistication to use it.

“I think that what people have to remember is that this is a very large part of the infrastructure of information in this country,” Pineda said. “Getting rid of it, minimizing it, taking money away from it is a huge disservice.”

Vigil, a retired pharmacist, said that she would continue to listen to the news, jazz and classical programs, and support the station, as well as KRWG-FM (90.7) in Las Cruces, New Mexico, as much as possible. She encouraged other listeners to do the same.

“We can write all the letters and make all the phone calls, but it’s not going to make a difference,” said Vigil, who moved in 2017 to Alto, New Mexico, about seven miles northeast of Ruidoso. “I don’t think there’s a thing we can do about it. We don’t have any power.”

NPR President and CEO Katherine Mahar said the nonprofit media organization would reduce its operating budget by $8 million in the year ahead to create fee relief to the most affected stations.

The nonprofit CPB, created in 1968, distributes more than 70% of its funds to more than 1,500 local public radio and television stations across the county.

In a July 18 statement, Patricia Harrison, CPB president and CEO, said the congressional decision to rescind allocated funds to public broadcast stations will have a lasting negative effect on Americans.

“Rather than dismantle public media, we should fund and strengthen it,” Harrison said. “The path to a better, more trusted public media is only achievable with continued federal support and constructive reforms.”

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[1] Url: https://elpasomatters.org/2025/07/24/utep-ktep-fm-faces-public-broadcasting-federal-funding-cuts/

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