(The Center Square) – A little-known state agency that manages public television and radio stations around Ohio and gets $11 million annually from taxpayers may not be necessary.
State Auditor Keith Faber said less than half of Ohio’s public television stations and the channels they manage actually use money to broadcast programming, according to a new audit.
The performance audit showed the Broadcast Educational Media Commission got $10.6 million in state general revenue funds in fiscal year 2024. It gave $6.5 million to public media entities and used $4.1 million for its own operations. The operational money was used mostly for the Joint Master Control system.
The report said lawmakers “should consider whether the commission structure is the most effective and responsive governance model or whether the operations of the Joint Master Control could be absorbed by another state agency, which could potentially reduce BEMC’s need for standalone finance, procurement, or IT services.”
The Joint Master Control System allows participating stations to lower operational costs and use more money for programming.
The audit said the system “appears to be the largest state-run joint master control system in the country, with most states not offering a (Joint Master Control) model option for public television stations.”
The system is supposed to offer services to the eight Ohio public media entities and the 42 stations they operate. However, only three organizations and 21 channels use it, according to the audit.
The report says, “BEMC has not adjusted to this reality and therefore has for several years been purchasing equipment that is unnecessary for its operational needs. In addition, the commission’s overall inventory data is incomplete, which makes it difficult to properly plan for future purchasing needs or for oversight entities to provides checks and balances against agency requests.”
Auditors want the commission to set a deadline for stations to either rejoin the master system or reduce the capacity. They also said the commission should improve inventory management and track full usage data.
“Having the useful life of all items aggregated in one location would allow BEMC to systematically plan for what items will need to be replaced and mitigate the chance of an item’s upcoming expiration going unnoticed,” the report said.
