“PBS canceled the show due to the loss of federal funding for public media,” anchor John Yang said during Sunday’s final episode.

PBS News Weekend ends abruptly after Trump spending cuts

"PBS canceled the show due to the loss of federal funding for public media," anchor John Yang said during Sunday's final episode.

By Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum

Sydney Bucksbaum is a staff writer at **. She has been working at EW since 2019 and is a published author. Her work has previously appeared in *TV Guide Magazine*, E! News/E! Online, *The Hollywood Reporter*, Mashable, Bustle, IGN, DCComics.com, Inverse, *The Daily Northwestern*, and more.

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January 12, 2026 3:22 p.m. ET

John Yang on 'PBS News Weekend'. Credit:

*PBS News Weekend* has officially — and abruptly — signed off the air due to President Donald Trump's spending cuts.

The news program aired its final episode on Sunday, with anchor John Yang confirming 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 during the broadcast. "We’re grateful that you’ve chosen us over the years as the place to get news on Saturdays and Sundays."

Watch a clip from the final episode below:

The end of* PBS News Weekend* was announced during an episode of *PBS News Hour *on Friday, with hosts Amna Nawaz and Geoff Bennett explaining that the cancellation was a result of Trump and the Republican Party's spending cuts to public media over the summer.

"We want to note a change for us here at *PBS News*," Bennett said.

Nawaz continued, "Due to federal budget cuts, we’ve had to make the difficult decision to rework our staffing and programming. And this Sunday, our *PBS News Weekend* team will sign off the air."

'PBS News Weekend' team signs off.

Nawaz and Bennett welcomed Yang onto the show to thank him and his team for their tireless work over the years.

"We are going to miss you so, so much," Nawaz said. "Thank you does not even begin to cover it. You and your team have done incredible storytelling and covered major breaking news every weekend."

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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 also thanked all his *PBS News Weekend* coworkers, some of whom will be "sticking around" the network for other projects while he is leaving PBS News at the end of the month.

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"This is, as I like to call it, the small but mighty team that handled this, handled these stories week in and week out," Yang said. "We are proud of the creativity and dedication they brought to each and every segment week in and week out."

The *PBS News Weekend* cancellation was announced days after the Corporation for Public Broadcasting — which funded PBS as well as NPR — had been voted to be dissolved after Congress cut federal funding allocated for the organization. The cuts were approved in July, taking back $1.1 billion that had been previously issued for public broadcasters for the next two years.**

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Source: “EW News”