Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, Pa., laid off 16 employees Friday.<\/p>\n
The organization is left with 24 employees after cutting workers across all departments, CEO Hasanna Birdsong told Current through emails from a spokesperson. Eight of the employees who were laid off were in the broadcaster\u2019s Lehigh Valley News newsroom.<\/p>\n
Like other public broadcasters, LVPM is facing a financial shortfall following last year\u2019s rescission<\/a> of federal funding for public media. According to its fiscal year 2024 financial statement, the organization received a CPB Community Service Grant of about $1.2 million that year, accounting for about 24% of its revenue.<\/p>\n Birdsong told Lehigh Valley News<\/a> that the federal cuts were not the key factor prompting the layoffs. LVPM\u2019s current business model is \u201cnot sustainable,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf we waited, it would make future decisions more painful and limit our options,\u201d Birdsong said.<\/p>\n LVPM\u2019s total expenses in FY24 were $13.5 million, according to its financial statement, while total revenue and support amounted to $4.9 million. Birdsong, who became CEO in June<\/a>, told Lehigh Valley News that the nonprofit has lost more than $1.8 million in FY26.<\/p>\n LVPM dropped the World and Create broadcast channels carried by public TV station PBS39 Jan. 1, according to a programming update. \u201cThis was a difficult decision, and several factors were involved, but the largest is funding,\u201d the update said. \u201cThese channels represent more than $400,000 in annual programming costs, and reducing that expense is a key part of ensuring we can continue investing in high-quality local and national content for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n A Morning Edition host who was one of the two employees at WLVR-FM, LVPM\u2019s radio station, was laid off. The station is operated through a partnership with Lehigh University.<\/p>\n As part of the cuts, LVPM\u2019s Book Nook program, which provides free books to children, will be discontinued.<\/p>\n LVPM secured $82 million in the FCC spectrum auction<\/a> in 2017. In 2018, it used those funds to invest in local news<\/a>. LVPM started managing WLVR on behalf of Lehigh University<\/a> in 2019. Lehigh Valley News was launched in 2022. Going forward, Lehigh Valley News will continue to publish stories on its website but will shift to a \u201cnewsletter-first model.\u201d It currently offers 10 newsletters.<\/p>\n \u201cWith newsletters, we can group stories by topic, follow issues over time, and provide context to each topic instead of one-off updates,\u201d Birdsong said through the spokesperson.<\/p>\n Birdsong told Lehigh Valley News that LVPM\u2019s board of trustees wants the organization to \u201csubsist\u201d on 4% of its trust, which was about $80 million as of December. Past leadership \u201chad failed to operate within those boundaries for years,\u201d according to the article, and costs ballooned when the organization expanded to a record of 80 employees. LVPM laid off eight employees<\/a> in December 2023.<\/p>\n \u201cThe challenges at Lehigh Valley Public Media reflect long-term structural shifts affecting public media and local journalism nationwide,\u201d Birdsong said. \u201cDeclining and uncertain funding, rising operating costs, and changes in how audiences consume information made the traditional model increasingly difficult to sustain. These pressures built up over time, not overnight. Our focus now is on adapting responsibly so we can continue serving the Lehigh Valley for the long term.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Lehigh Valley Public Media in Bethlehem, Pa., laid off 16 employees Friday. The organization is left with 24…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":96060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[153,155,154,2494],"class_list":{"0":"post-96059","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-layoffs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96059","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=96059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/96060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}