South Dakota Public Broadcasting cuts 20 jobs, braces for leaner future
Public television-radio network leans on donors as workforce, programming slashed
A quarter of South Dakota Public Broadcasting staff will soon be out of a job, but optimism remains that donors could help restore some services and positions before cuts take effect.
SDPB Executive Director Julie Overgaard announced Thursday that 15 SDPB employees will be laid off and five vacant positions will remain unfilled — a 25 percent workforce reduction effective Friday, Oct. 31.
The layoffs will touch every area of the organization: local journalism efforts will be scaled back, the radio show In the Moment and TV program South Dakota Focus will be eliminated, output on Dakota Life reduced, and educational resources from the Education Team terminated. Several support roles will also vanish, said Overgaard, who has headed the public broadcasting network since 1997.
“This is the hardest decision we’ve ever had to make,” she said during a midday press briefing inside SDPB’s studios in downtown Sioux Falls, telling reporters that the plan prioritizes open government access and continued live coverage of the South Dakota Legislature, SDHSAA athletic championships and fine arts events.
All TV and radio transmitters will also be preserved to maintain nearly universal broadcast access.
The reductions follow a funding rollback under President Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” — a rescission package passed by Congress and enacted in July — which eliminated $2.2 million in federal funding to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The impact on SDPB takes effect Oct. 1.
Ryan Howlett, CEO of Friends of SDPB, lamented the severity of the cuts.
“It is simply not possible to absorb a $2.2 million cut in federal funding and not have it affect our programming and content,” he said, adding that the abrupt reduction in federal funding is a professional crisis for him personally that is second only to being a campaign staffer for Sen. Tom Daschle on election night of 2004.
“These cuts are significant, and they hurt. Local programming is the most expensive to produce because it requires personnel, time, equipment, travel, and engineering resources,” he said.
But hope remains. SDPB and Friends of SDPB are working with community partners to secure emergency donations and long-term solutions. Already, $1.1 million in donations has been raised — a figure that continues to climb.
Overgaard said if gifts and donations accumulate to a level that offsets the federal funding cuts, some of the eliminated positions could be restored.
Additionally, there is work underway to convince Congress to restore public broadcasting funding in the FY 2026 federal budget.
Overgaard said that cannot be counted upon, however, and going forward, donors and the state of South Dakota will be SDPB’s lifelines.
“I think as a public media system, if we want to continue to be viable and providing good services that the American people value and people in South Dakota value, we are going to have to reinvent ourselves,” she said.
Shame on you, Johnson, Rounds, and Thune. Your weak refusal to stand up to Trump (again) hurts South Dakotans. You are complicit in the dismantling of democracy for the sake of pleasing an egomaniac who knows that securing his dictatorship requires silencing any media he does not control.
These are SD Stories and SD Voices that have been reduced or attempting to be "eliminated". I'm so proud of SDPB and all the important information that they provide. Please, if you are not a donor already, reach out to them. We are in great risk of news and information becoming more and more skewed. We need real conversations such as those that Lori Walsh provides on In the Moment.