Waste of the Week: UNC-TV

This week the Civitas Institute’s “Waste of the Week” spotlights North Carolina’s taxpayer subsidized television station: UNC-TV. Here is a slice:

State tax dollars provide about half of the annual revenue for UNC-TV’s operations, and in addition UNC-TV received $78 million in taxpayer dollars for capital expenses from 2000 to 2011, according to news reports.

UNC-TV had been receiving annual operation support of about $12 million per year for several years, until FY 2012-13 when its funding was reduced to about $9 million per year.

For almost 60 years, scarce tax dollars in the state budget have been diverted to a TV station. Every one of those hundreds of millions of dollars throughout the years is one less dollar for teachers and public safety or, most importantly, one additional dollar taken from taxpayers.