Boulder’s KGNU battens down the hatches after federal funding cuts

BOULDER, Colo. — KGNU knows how to be scrappy. 

For the past 47 years, volunteer DJs and listener support have kept the public radio station alive. 

But starting October 1, the station — known for its eclectic music and grassroots reporting — will lose $155,000 in funding, roughly 15% of its budget. The cuts are a result of President Donald Trump’s rescission bill, which stripped $1.1 billion in previously allocated funds for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 

“That’s a really tough loss to take at a station that already has a very lean budget and very small professional staff,” said Sam Fuqua, who moved to Boulder in 1991 to work as the station’s news director. He now volunteers at KGNU. 

Community members and University of Colorado students launched the station in May 1978.

Just three years later, the station ran out of money after losing $20,000 in federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. The station went silent in March 1981. 

But three weeks later, a group of community supporters, “Friends of KGNU” resuscitated the station and managed to run the station without help from the federal government. 

Today, eight paid staff members and around 400 active volunteers run the station. 

“If you don't have the staff capacity to welcome and train as many volunteers, it becomes a kind of a vicious cycle of diminishment,” said Fuqua.
 

KGNU is scrambling to devise a new budget ahead of the fiscal year that begins in October. If the station is unable to come up with enough revenue to plug budget holes, it may have to cut staff positions or syndicated programming, like international reporting from the BBC. 

“KGNU has been the only radio station providing updates, almost around the clock, when there are large fires that are threatening people in our county. With reduced staff, you may have a reduced ability to provide that service,” said Fuqua.