LehighValleyNews.com<\/a> newsroom. <\/p>\n “That combined with the current business model, it’s just not sustainable. If we waited, it would make future decisions more painful and limit our options.”<\/p>\n
Lehigh Valley Public Media Chief Executive Officer Hasanna Birdsong<\/p>\n
Halfway through the 2025-26 fiscal year, Lehigh Valley Public Media has lost more than $1.8 million, despite cutting significant expenditures, Birdsong said. <\/p>\n
Television station PBS39 recently stopped broadcasting its World and Create channels, a move that saved $400,000 in broadcasting expenses, but it was not enough to offset other losses, Birdsong said.<\/p>\n
Over the summer, Congress voted to end funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which amounted to a loss of about $1 million for Lehigh Valley Public Media. <\/p>\n
While that damaged the organization’s financial outlook, it was not the key contributor to Friday’s cuts, Birdsong said.<\/p>\n
“That combined with the current business model, it’s just not sustainable,” she said. “If we waited, it would make future decisions more painful and limit our options.”<\/p>\n
Birdsong praised the diligence and dedication of the staff who were being let go, saying they have been a positive force in the Lehigh Valley. <\/p>\n
“That is not a reflection on the work that anyone has done here,” she said. “I recognize how much the community depends on and respects us. I just want to make sure we’re here to do it.”<\/p>\n
Lehigh Valley Public Media’s board of trustees have set a goal for the non-profit to subsist on 4% of its trust, which stood around $80 million in December. <\/p>\n
Past leadership had failed to operate within those boundaries for years \u2014 the nonprofit lost $8.6 million after it expanded to a record 80 employees. <\/p>\n
Birdsong was hired in June with an expectation to lead the organization through a challenging media landscape while respecting the board’s budget.<\/p>\n
Latest hit to local journalism<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear how the cuts will influence future operations at LehighValleyNews.com. <\/p>\n
At its launch in October 2022, the news site’s leaders boasted the startup was the Lehigh Valley’s largest newsroom. <\/p>\n
Now, remaining staff will produce less content but more relevant reporting as it shifts to a newsletter-first model, Birdsong said.<\/p>\n
“We have asked for and received an enormous amount of support since WLVR started up in 2019. At the moment, I feel like we’ve let those supporters down.<\/p>\n
WLVR-FM morning host Brad Klein<\/p>\n
Similarly, the future of radio station 91.3 WLVR FM is murky.<\/p>\n
The radio station only had two on-air staffers starting the week, and morning host Brad Klein was among the layoffs. <\/p>\n
Launched in 2019 through a partnership with Lehigh University, the station’s future has been precarious for several years. <\/p>\n
Birdsong said WLVR’s future is part of ongoing discussions that involve regulatory considerations and existing agreements.<\/p>\n
In an interview Friday, Klein said he hoped that whatever future lies in wait continues the station’s commitment to local journalism. <\/p>\n
Lehigh Valley Public Media’s cash reserves provide it with a level of stability that other public media stations cannot match, he said.<\/p>\n
“We have asked for and received an enormous amount of support since WLVR started up in 2019,” Klein said. “At the moment, I feel like we’ve let those supporters down.<\/p>\n
“I remain committed to this community and grateful for the opportunity to serve it over the past six years.”<\/p>\n
‘That was the mission’<\/p>\n
The cuts didn’t spare Lehigh Valley Public Media’s education department, which is losing half its staff. <\/p>\n
Birdsong said the layoffs will mean the end of the Book Nook program, in which educators on staff provided free books to underprivileged children in the community.<\/p>\n
“It’s extremely difficult, and it’s going to hurt us to the core,” said Director of Education Cate Reifsnyder, who remains on staff.<\/p>\n
“There’s no way we’ll be able to do everything we want to do. We’re not going to be able to continue to serve the community the way we’d want to.”<\/p>\n
“We always hear about extraordinary ordinary people. That would never get a platform in any other media, but PBS really focuses on these people.”<\/p>\n
Lehigh Valley Public Media Producer and broadcaster Grover Silcox<\/p>\n
Production and engineering also experienced layoffs, including producer and broadcaster Grover Silcox. <\/p>\n
Silcox said that when he was hired in 2006, he hadn’t planned to stay at PBS39 for long, but wound up sticking around for more than 19 years. <\/p>\n
He said he was attracted to the mission of building community as opposed to pursuing flashy headlines to ensure high ratings.<\/p>\n
“Every day when I got up, that was the mission,” Silcox said.<\/p>\n
“Whether you were ever thinking about it consciously or not, the mission was always to give a platform to people who deserved it and other people needed to know about.<\/p>\n
“We always hear about extraordinary ordinary people. That would never get a platform in any other media, but PBS really focuses on these people.”<\/p>\n
The layoffs come as the Lehigh Valley Public Media staff mourns the passing of Jessica Lee<\/a>, an award-winning graphic designer who dedicated 45 years to PBS39.<\/p>\nHer funeral services are slated for later Friday.<\/p>\n
Lehigh Valley Public Media’s layoffs are just the latest round of tumult in Pennsylvania’s media landscape. <\/p>\n
This month, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that it would shut down following its May 3 edition after journalists there won better pay and work conditions following a three-year strike.<\/p>\n
Around the same time, LNP | LancasterOnline.com announced it was laying off 9% of its workforce just before the nonprofit Always Lancaster took over operations of the news group.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. \u2014 Lehigh Valley Public Media laid off nearly half of its staff Friday afternoon as the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92027,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,45383,45384,45381,45382],"class_list":{"0":"post-92026","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-bethlehem","9":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","10":"tag-bethlehem-news","11":"tag-cuts-lehigh-valley-public-media","12":"tag-cuts-pbs39","13":"tag-lehigh-valley-public-media-layoffs","14":"tag-pbs39-layoffs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92026","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=92026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92026\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92027"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}