'PBS News Weekend' airs final episode after Trump's public media spending cuts
"PBS News Weekend" aired its final episode on Sunday, citing President Donald Trump and the Republican Party's spending cuts to public media last summer.
"PBS News Weekend" anchor John Yang confirmed the show's end during its last broadcast, saying that the series will stop airing "for the foreseeable future."
"PBS canceled the show due to the loss of federal funding for public media," Yang said. "We're grateful that you've chosen us over the years as the place to get news on Saturdays and Sundays."
The show's cancellation was originally announced on Friday during an episode of "PBS News Hour."
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"Due to federal budget cuts, we have had to make the difficult decision to rework our staffing and programming," host Amna Nawaz said. "This Sunday, our 'PBS News Weekend' team will sign off the air."
Yang appeared on the program with Nawaz and her co-host Geoff Bennett to discuss the end of his show.
"We are going to miss you so, so much. 'Thank you' does not even begin to cover it. You and your team have done incredible storytelling and covered major breaking news every weekend," Nawaz said.
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"That's right," Bennett added. "Weekend after weekend, you and the team brought such rigor and care and heart to the stories you covered. You will be deeply missed, and we are deeply grateful for all of your work."
Yang praised his "PBS News Weekend" team for helping to cover major stories that unfolded over weekends, such as the Oct. 7 terror attacks against Israel, the first assassination attempt against Trump and former President Joe Biden dropping out of the 2024 presidential race.
"This is, as I like to call it, the small but mighty team that handled this, handled these stories week in and week out. We are proud of the creativity and dedication they brought to each and every segment week in and week out," Yang said.
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Yang also announced that he will be leaving PBS News at the end of the month to step back from full-time work, adding that several team members will be "sticking around" for other projects.
PBS confirmed the show's ending in a comment to Fox News Digital.
Last summer, Trump and GOP lawmakers successfully rescinded public media funding from its spending bill, cutting funds to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) that had been allocated to NPR and PBS.
Last week, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced its board voted to dissolve itself after 58 years as an organization, citing the spending cuts as a contributing factor.