BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Lehigh Valley Public Media laid off nearly half of its staff Friday afternoon as the organization reckoned with years of financial losses.
Hasanna Birdsong, chief executive officer of the nonprofit, said the operation will move forward with 20 to 25 employees after cutting personnel across all its departments.
Sixteen people lost their jobs. Half of those eliminated jobs are coming from the LehighValleyNews.com newsroom.
"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."Lehigh Valley Public Media Chief Executive Officer Hasanna Birdsong
Halfway through the 2025-26 fiscal year, Lehigh Valley Public Media has lost more than $1.8 million, despite cutting significant expenditures, Birdsong said.
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.
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.
While that damaged the organization's financial outlook, it was not the key contributor to Friday's cuts, Birdsong said.
"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."
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.
"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."
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.
Past leadership had failed to operate within those boundaries for years — the nonprofit lost $8.6 million after it expanded to a record 80 employees.
Birdsong was hired in June with an expectation to lead the organization through a challenging media landscape while respecting the board's budget.
Latest hit to local journalism
It was not immediately clear how the cuts will influence future operations at LehighValleyNews.com.
At its launch in October 2022, the news site's leaders boasted the startup was the Lehigh Valley's largest newsroom.
Now, remaining staff will produce less content but more relevant reporting as it shifts to a newsletter-first model, Birdsong said.
"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.WLVR-FM morning host Brad Klein
Similarly, the future of radio station 91.3 WLVR FM is murky.
The radio station only had two on-air staffers starting the week, and morning host Brad Klein was among the layoffs.
Launched in 2019 through a partnership with Lehigh University, the station's future has been precarious for several years.
Birdsong said WLVR's future is part of ongoing discussions that involve regulatory considerations and existing agreements.
In an interview Friday, Klein said he hoped that whatever future lies in wait continues the station's commitment to local journalism.
Lehigh Valley Public Media's cash reserves provide it with a level of stability that other public media stations cannot match, he said.
"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.
"I remain committed to this community and grateful for the opportunity to serve it over the past six years."
'That was the mission'
The cuts didn't spare Lehigh Valley Public Media's education department, which is losing half its staff.
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.
"It's extremely difficult, and it's going to hurt us to the core," said Director of Education Cate Reifsnyder, who remains on staff.
"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."
"We always hear about extraordinary ordinary people. That would never get a platform in any other media, but PBS really focuses on these people."Lehigh Valley Public Media Producer and broadcaster Grover Silcox
Production and engineering also experienced layoffs, including producer and broadcaster Grover Silcox.
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.
He said he was attracted to the mission of building community as opposed to pursuing flashy headlines to ensure high ratings.
"Every day when I got up, that was the mission," Silcox said.
"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.
"We always hear about extraordinary ordinary people. That would never get a platform in any other media, but PBS really focuses on these people."
The layoffs come as the Lehigh Valley Public Media staff mourns the passing of Jessica Lee, an award-winning graphic designer who dedicated 45 years to PBS39.
Her funeral services are slated for later Friday.
Lehigh Valley Public Media's layoffs are just the latest round of tumult in Pennsylvania's media landscape.
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.
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.
