PBS Pulls Plug on Weekend News
PBS News Weekend will air its final show this Sunday, January 11, after PBS cited federal budget cuts as the reason for overhauling its staff and programming.
PBS confirmed the cancellation in a post on declaring: “Due to federal budget cuts, PBS News had to make the difficult decision to rework our staff and programming. This Sunday, our PBS News Weekend team will stop broadcasting.”
The announcement follows the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) vote disband on January 5, 2026, completing a closure process begun after the cancellation of federal funding triggered by a May 2025 executive order order of President Donald Trump and a $9 billion cancellation program pass by Congress in mid-2025. CPB President Patricia Harrison said: “The CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and democratic values by dissolving it, rather than allowing the organization to remain unfunded and vulnerable to further attacks. » House Speaker Mike Johnson welcomed the budget cuts at the time to end what he called “wasteful spending” at “politically biased media outlets like NPR and PBS.”
In an accompanying video shared with the PBS post, John Yang, the outgoing anchor of PBS News Weekend, reflected on the program coverage. “I think back to the October 7 attacks in Israel, to the first assassination attempt on President Trump, to President Biden dropping out of the presidential race. And it was, as I like to call it, the small but mighty team that handled that, handled all of those stories week after week.” He added: “I will be leaving PBS News at the end of the month as I retire from full-time work, but I’m pleased to say that many members of this team will stay. They will produce exciting new programs that you will see in the days and weeks to come.”
In December, the Arkansas Educational Television Commission vote to disaffiliate from PBS by July 1, 2026, citing the $2.5 million in annual dues and the broader loss of federal CPB funding as contributing factors. Arkansas PBS announced plans to rebrand as “Arkansas TV,” with a renewed focus on local programming. The organization says it will seek continued support from individual donors, foundations and corporate sponsors.
A NewsBusters 2023 report quoted by Breitbart News found that PBS News Hour covered congressional Republicans negatively 85 percent of the time. Conservatives have pointed to PBS children’s programming as evidence of bias, highlighting content that includes LGBTQ+ themes and anti-racist messages.
Last summer, an MSNBC opinion piece warned that cuts to PBS could reshape children’s educational media, suggesting that more young viewers might turn to alternatives like PragerU Kids. The author described PragerU as a “propaganda platform”. The article argues that this change could lead to “explicitly ideological” content reaching more children. PragerU Kids, which promotes pro-American and constitutional themes, is currently approved as an educational resource in several states.
