Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, the House version of the 2024 budget included the proposed $500,000 for PBS Appalachia, “So, like everything else, it is tied up unless/until budget conferees reach a compromise,” he wrote in an email. The General Assembly adjourned without an approved budget in February, and the impasse continues.Īccording to a spokesperson for state Sen. The project also gained the unanimous support of the Southwest Virginia legislative delegation, which helped secure $500,000 in the Virginia General Assembly’s 2023 budget, she said.īudget amendments were filed during the regular session this year to provide another $500,000 as part of the 2024 state budget, but that money remains in limbo. She noted that the station will invest in high-end equipment that will give the content a rich production quality and feel. Since then, PBS Appalachia has been approved for a total of $530,000 from the commission, and most of the money will go toward equipment, said Newman, a familiar face in Southwest Virginia because she was a longtime anchor for WCYB-TV 5 in Bristol. PBS Appalachia had applied for funding from the commission, whose officials weren’t comfortable funding both organizations, according to Newman.

One of those funding partners was the Virginia Tobacco Commission, which provided a total of more than $11 million over multiple grants to the cultural center, which opened in 2011. It simply was a matter of … once we started trying to piece together a partnership, the marriage of the nonprofits started to get a little messy because the cultural center has several layers of partnerships,” she said in an interview.

“We’re not moving forward with a partnership with the Southwest Virginia Cultural Center. Newman said the change was made once those involved realized how complicated it would be to join two nonprofit organizations under the same roof. The new station was first announced last July. Originally, the plan was for the new station’s studio to be built over the last year at the Southwest Virginia Cultural Heritage Center in Abingdon. The exact location of the studio within the casino/hotel complex off Gate City Highway in north Bristol was not released.

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