SARANAC LAKE — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting — a nonprofit which has funded NPR and PBS stations for 58 years — announced it was dissolving on Monday.

North Country Public Radio Station Manager Mitch Teich said it was “a sad day for public media,” but that it will not have a major impact on local public media stations.

NCPR and Mountain Lake PBS have already felt the impact from the complete cuts to federal funding last year, and are weathering the reduction with local support, he said — getting money from listeners and viewers instead of taxpayers.

“CPB’s been an incredible partner for us for more than half a century,” Mountain Lake PBS President and CEO Bill McColgan said. “We’re going to miss those folks. But a lot of what they were doing in partnership with us was based on the federal funding that they were distributing to us.”

With no money, he said he’s been seeing the dissolution coming for several months now.

“It definitely gives us certainty moving forward that federal funding won’t be coming back anytime soon,” Teich said of the dissolution.

He said he’ll “never say never” and that the funding could come back in the future if Congress or the White House changes course and decides to create a new form of the CPB. But that is unlikely for a while, he said.

Both McColgan and Teich said friends, family and members of the public have been reaching out to them since Monday voicing concern about CPB dissolving. People think the stations are losing more money or at risk of closing.

“We’ve only lost money once,” Teich said.

He said most national coverage of the CPB dissolution has not gotten the nuance of the situation. Local stations like NCPR were already not in a relationship with CPB anymore.

“CPB was not an owner-operator of public broadcasting stations,” McColgan said. “We’re independent. We remain on the air serving the communities. … We have no intention of closing.”

He said the dissolution has also not had an impact on the national PBS and NPR networks.

The CPB board said it was a difficult decision to dissolve.

“When the Administration and Congress rescinded federal funding, our Board faced a profound responsibility,” CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a statement. “CPB’s final act would be to protect the integrity of the public media system and the democratic values by dissolving, rather than allowing the organization to remain defunded and vulnerable to additional attacks.”

The board of director’s statement said that a dormant and defunded CPB could have become “vulnerable to future political manipulation or misuse, threatening the independence of public media and the trust audiences place in it.”

In July, the House passed the rescissions bill 214-212, taking back $1 billion in previously approved funding for the CPB and leaving a $650,000 hole in NCPR’s budget and a $1.9 million hole in Mountain Lake PBS’ budget for the next two years. North Country Rep. Elise Stefanik voted for it, following on a promise she made to defund NPR.

This gap accounted for around 12% to 15% of NCPR’s approximately $2.5 million annual budget and around 35% of Mountain Lake PBS’ annual budget.

Public media station budgets have always varied depending on donors, corporate underwriters and foundation grants. Losing all their federal funding makes their local financial support even more critical, they said.

Both stations have seen an influx of hundreds of new donors — people who have never donated before contributing to their stations.

McColgan said PBS’ loss in federal funding was sizeable, and they haven’t been able to replace it yet.

Teich said NCPR has made up more than what the station lost in CPB funding for this year and the next fiscal year.

“The real issue for us will be moving forward,” Teich said. “We’re going to need to make up the gap, not just this fiscal year and the next fiscal year, but every year after that.”

Public media has been getting lots of attention — and donations — in the past few months. It has increased the baseline for local fundraising, Teich said. But the future is still a big question mark. Without federal funding, this local support will need to be maintained into the future indefinitely to continue with their current level of service.

Teich said stations around the country are seeing this upswell in community financial support. He said he’s always believed that the “public” is the most important part in public radio. For NCPR, he said the most important thing is not “public” and not even “radio” — it’s the “North Country.” The goal of public media is to connect people with civic life and the cultural fabric of the region.

While they’ve been buoyed for the immediate future, Teich said they’ll need to look at other forms of funding — bringing on national funders or holding larger-scale campaigns. He wants to let listeners know they’re on a path to sustainability.

They’ll spend the next few months planning for the future, he said.

Mountain Lake PBS was recently awarded a one-time $600,000 grant from Public Media Bridge Fund to make up its gap in the coming years. McColgan said some of this money will be used for reinventing the station’s funding streams.

Most of the CPB money was used to purchase programming from national distributors like NPR, American Public Media or the PRX Public Radio Exchange. Teich said the donations have allowed them to continue to buy this programming and not have to resort to reruns or dropping shows.

CPB grants funded program development to create new shows or expand their abilities. These advancements are now also getting funded by private donations.