By USA Today Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
WQLN, Erie\u2019s public media organization, has received a $751,647 grant to replace some of its funding taken away by the federal government.<\/p>\n
The \u201cstabilization\u201d grant was awarded Dec. 9 by the Colorado-based Public Media Bridge Fund. The grant is one of 74 nationwide designed to help public media organizations continue to provide local news, civic information, cultural programming and emergency alerts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe grant will directly support the costs for our television and radio content, enabling us to continue providing high-quality public media to our community,\u201d said Alyson Amendola, WQLN\u2019s vice president of advancement. \u201cHowever, the funds serve as a temporary bridge to preserve local service and provide us with the time needed to identify long-term solutions.\u201d<\/p>\n
WQLN \u2014 which operates a television station, radio station and website \u2014 lost 42% of its annual budget, or about $1.2 million a year, when Congress voted in July to stop all federal funding for public media.<\/p>\n
Now WQLN officials have to find ways to operate long term on a reduced budget. They have already decided to sell WQLN\u2019s 30,000-square-foot building, located off Peach Street in Summit Township.<\/p>\n
WQLN officials haven\u2019t chosen a new home<\/p>\n
A new, smaller location won\u2019t be selected until the current building sells. There are no plans to share space with another Erie broadcaster, Amendola said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are taking 2026 to look at our internal operations and every variable expense,\u201d Amendola said. \u201cWe have a lot of fixed costs that can\u2019t be dismissed. We will conduct a scope of services study that we hope to complete in the spring.\u201d<\/p>\n
One possibility is to split into two offices, one near the station\u2019s antenna in Summit Township and another more closely located to community activities.<\/p>\n
WQLN employs 19 full-time workers. The station has eliminated a corporate support position since federal funding ended.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By USA Today Network via Reuters Connect WQLN, Erie\u2019s public media organization, has received a $751,647 grant to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":{"0":"post-62587","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-erie","8":"tag-erie","9":"tag-erie-headlines","10":"tag-erie-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}