He says that like it's a bad thing: "Liberal Filmmaker Ken Burns Gets DRAGGED on Twitter/X for Claiming Rural Americans Won’t Get News Without PBS and NPR".
A) This is a preposterous argument on its face. People would need TV or radio to get news from, respectively, PBS and NPR; so, there are clearly other options (not necessarily good ones, because network news is at least as biased as the taxpayer-subsidized stuff, but PBS/NPR obviously isn't the only game in town). But that's not even the case; most people in rural areas either have cable or satellite access to non-network (and non-PBS) news sources.
B) Is Ken Burns really concerned about the rubes out in the sticks, or is he worried about his gravy train getting derailed?
What Ken Burns fails to mention here is that he has relied on PBS to air his documentary films. He has a vested interest in the success of public broadcasting.