Last Stop for Antiques Roadshow?
Funding cuts loom after the popular PBS show visits Charlevoix
On July 1, Antiques Roadshow made its last stop of the season at Charlevoix, but recent cuts to federal funding for public broadcasting have some worried it might be the end of the road for many PBS programs.
For almost 30 years, Antiques Roadshow has featured guests bringing their cherished belongings to the event to be appraised by a variety of experts.
“I think that’s just so appealing,” says executive producer Marsha Bemko. “We all like the everyman aspect of it, and some of us are a very lucky everyman with really good stuff. But it seems like really good stuff has one thing in common: It’s always rare.”
The show’s format hasn’t changed much over the years. However, it was almost deemed a flop from the first episode filmed in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1996 when no one showed up.
“The crew and the staff were calling their families to say, ‘There’s nobody here. Come down, bring something.’ And then the show aired, and in season two people started sleeping out overnight,” Bemko says. “Ten thousand people would line up to get into a convention center back then, and they wouldn’t all get in. We can’t handle that many people.”
By season five, the show started a ticketing process, but they would sell out in a few hours. That is when they went to an online sweepstakes-style entry process with people being selected randomly.
Filming Up North
The Charlevoix event attracted 2,500 attendees and had 15,071 applicants apply for tickets. An Early Bird Ticket sweepstakes had 20,775 people enter with 15 ticket winners.
“A lot more people want to come and see our appraisers than we can see,” Bemko says.
It was the first time Antiques Roadshow visited northern Michigan, but the fifth time it has been filmed in the state. Charlevoix was the last stop in the five-city tour, which started in April in Savannah, Georgia. The other stops included St. Louis, Salt Lake City and Boothbay, Maine.
“This is like a big birthday for us,” Bemko says. “Season 30 is what we’re recording this year. Charlevoix is where we had our wrap party.”
There will be three 1-hour shows aired from Charlevoix on the first Monday of the month sometime between January and May on PBS. (The episodes rarely run in the order that they were filmed.) The “Junk in the Trunk” episode runs in the fall, which includes behind the scenes footage and outtakes.
Bemko has been the executive producer of the Antiques Road Show since season nine, but has worked with the program since season four. She describes the program as informative and educational. A week after filming the Charlevoix event, she was working from her Boston home reviewing footage from Castle Farms.
“To be honest, until we were going to Charlevoix, I had not heard of it,” the executive producer says. “It was introduced to me with our tour. It was a great spot. We had a great day. Castle Farms has a long history there—it was a perfect Roadshow setting. I just spent the last four days looking at some of the Charlevoix footage and it looks great.”
Some of the highlights from Charlevoix include the highest appraised item—a JG Brown painting worth $150,000.
“I actually talked with that guest,” Bemko says. “It had come down in her family, and the owner was a lovely young woman. She had no clue as to what kind of value she had.”
Another top appraisal in Charlevoix was an 1800 John Bailey dwarf clock for $75,000. The owner had bought it online for $300 and paid $4,500 to have it repaired.
“Almost everybody we see won’t sell,” Bemko adds. “Very few people sell, especially with inheritance things.”
The program works with about 150 experts and assigns roughly 70 to each city, with an additional 125 volunteers. Some appraisers have reached celebrity status, like Nicholas Lowry, who specializes in prints. He wears loud full-plaid suits and sports a bushy, curled-up moustache that makes him hard to miss. His line for print appraisals at the Charlevoix show was one of the longest. After each appraisal, guests would ask for a photo with the iconic figure.
“They are unpaid volunteers. Collectively, they donate between $1 and $2 million a year to the Antiques Roadshow,” Bemko says. “The thing that our appraisers have, that you can’t duplicate, even with Internet research and AI help, is the experience of touching and seeing objects. That kind of experience is what people are looking for. Everybody has the same question: ‘Can you please help me understand what I own’?”
An Uncertain Future
During the same month the show wrapped up filming at Charlevoix, the U.S. House of Representatives voted to cut federal funding for NPR and PBS as part of a Trump administration plan to cancel $1.1 billion for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), which provides grants to public media stations. Also part of the bill, an additional $7 billion cut from foreign aid.
WCMU General Manager Rick Westover says $1.6 million for the next two fiscal periods—almost 20 percent of his budget—will be lost.
“Money was literally sitting in the treasury waiting to be released through CPB and to the local stations like WCMU,” Westover says. “So, over the next two years, that’s a loss of $3.2 million in funding.”
Westover says the station reaches three million people across 46 counties in Michigan and provides emergency broadcasts and educational, informative, and unbiased programming. WCMU has four television and eight radio transmitters across central and northern Michigan.
On Aug. 1, CPB announced an “orderly wind-down of its operations” in a press release.
“Despite the extraordinary efforts of millions of Americans who called, wrote, and petitioned Congress to preserve federal funding for CPB, we now face the difficult reality of closing our operations,” stated CPB President and CEO Patricia Harrison.
NPR estimates that it costs about $1.60 per American every year to run the nonprofit.
Westover says he is optimistic about the fate of WCMU, but worries about rural stations, including some in the Upper Peninsula.
“I think we can weather this. I really do here at WCMU,” says Westover. “There are a couple of stations in the state I am concerned for because the percentage of their funding cut was higher. They are in predominantly rural parts and just don’t have the population density to make up the difference. That’s the real problem for them.”
WCMU has already felt the effects of the cut and will not be re-hiring a reporter. The station has a staff of about 30 people.
“We really want to, because it’s the local content that keeps people listening; keeps people watching,” Westover says. “But for saving sake, right now, we’re not going to fill that position until we’re able to make sure we’ve secured the funding we’ve lost. So there’s really a big push for fundraising.”
WCMU has seen an uptick in public support, with 144 new donors and an additional $100,000 in the wake of the federal funding cut.
“It’s a big hit, and we are doing all the contingency planning we can to weather this,” Westover says. “We may have to make some difficult programming decisions at some point.” He adds that at least on WCMU, Antiques Roadshow will be safe.
“It is such a popular program,” the station manager says. “When it’s something that’s really drawing the audience in, we want to do everything we can to keep it there. I would say the Antiques Roadshow is something that I would not be looking to cut, if at all possible.”
Bemko shares Westover’s optimism, but acknowledges that things will be different.
“I think it threatens how we do the show now,” Bemko says. “It will have an impact. I’m determined that we will find a way to move forward with the Roadshow. And I think PBS is determined to find a way to move forward, but I think it jeopardizes how the system is built, and I hope it doesn’t come to that.”
Q&A: Gov. Whitmer at Antiques Roadshow
Governor Gretchen Whitmer made a stop at Antiques Roadshow in northern Michigan on July 1, along with several staff members who brought items to be appraised, including a newspaper, a Michigan football card, and photos of John Lewis.
Express: What did you think of the experience? Are you a fan of the program?
Whitmer: I love the show! It’s interesting to see so many Michiganders bring unique items to learn about their history. I met so many people throughout the day. We talked about what they brought and how much it was worth. I even talked to one person who brought a Herman Miller chair, made in Michigan of course, and it was worth over $5,000.
Express: With recent federal funding cuts to public television, why is this so concerning to viewers and programs like Antiques Roadshow? Is there anything the governor’s office can do to lessen the blow?
Whitmer: Public media, especially PBS and NPR, play a critical role in our communities. Local media keeps people engaged and informed on what’s going on in their own backyards, and Antique's Roadshow is a perfect example. People trust public media often more than other sources of information, which is especially critical during local emergencies. That’s why we must maintain support for NPR stations here in Michigan. Michiganders should contact their representation in Congress and make their voices heard, so we can protect public media in our state.
Express: What was your inspiration for attending the event? Would you ever go again?
Whitmer: They have a lot of fans, including me. I told family and friends that I was stopping by, and everyone was so excited and a little jealous. They all wanted me to bring along their treasured pieces of history. During the event, I spoke with some of the appraisers, and they had so much knowledge to share. I’d love to go back with my husband whose love of history is second to none.
Express: Was this your first time at Castle Farms?
Whitmer: I went to Castle Farms for a Bon Jovi concert back in the day!