US funding cuts hit public broadcasting and kills hundreds of shows including Sesame Street

America’s Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps pay for hundreds of local radio and television stations as well as programs like Sesame Street, is closing after the US government withdrew funding.

CPB told employees on Friday most staff positions will end on September. 30. A small transition team will stay until January to finish any remaining work.

The private, nonprofit corporation was founded in 1968 shortly after Congress authorised its formation.

It now ends nearly six decades of fuelling the production of renowned educational programming, cultural content and emergency alerts about natural disasters.

President Donald Trump signed a bill on July 24 cancelling about $US1.1 billion ($A1.7 billion) that had been approved for public broadcasting.

The White House says the public media system is politically biased and an unnecessary expense and conservatives have particularly directed their ire at NPR and PBS.

Lawmakers with large rural constituencies voiced concern about what the cuts could mean for some local public stations in their state, warning some stations will have to close.

Congress passed legislation creating the body in 1967, several years after then-Federal Communications Commission Chairman Newton Minow described commercial television a “vast wasteland” and called for programming in the public interest.

The corporation doesn’t produce programming and it doesn’t own, operate or control any public broadcasting stations. The corporation, PBS, NPR are independent of each other as are local public television and radio stations.

The cuts are expected to weigh most heavily on smaller public media outlets away from big cities, and it’s likely some won’t survive. NPR’s president estimated as many as 80 NPR stations may close in the next year.

Mississippi Public Broadcasting has already decided to eliminate a streaming channel that airs children’s programming.

In Kodiak, Alaska, KMXT estimated the cuts would slice 22 per cent from its budget. Public radio stations in the sprawling, heavily rural state often provide not just news but alerts about natural disasters like tsunamis, landslides and volcanic eruptions.

The first episode of Sesame Street aired in 1969 and over the decades, characters from Big Bird to Cookie Monster and Elmo have become household favourites.

Sesame Street was designed by education professionals and child psychologists to help low-income and minority students aged two to five overcome some of the deficiencies they had when entering school.

Sesame Street said in May it would also get some help from a Netflix streaming deal.

Grant money from the nonprofit has also funded lesser-known food, history, music and other shows created by stations across the country.