Deal for Pittsburgh’s WDUQ: It’s not done yet

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The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the sale of WDUQ in Pittsburgh was delayed after negotiations over the asset purchase agreement extended beyond the 90-day deadline announced in January. Susan Harmon of the Public Media Company, the offshoot of Public Radio Capital that formed a partnership with Pittsburgh’s WYEP-FM to buy WDUQ, said the contract should be signed within days. “There was one clarification that needed to happen on Friday,” April 15, the day of the deadline, Harmon said, and the lawyer who needed to weigh in wasn’t available.

Departing WDUQ G.M. Scott Hanley moved on ahead of schedule, signing on April 1 as communications chief for the Jewish Healthcare Foundation. In a farewell to colleagues after 30 years in pubradio, Hanley wrote about the leadership challenges ahead:

“Over the past decade, there was great fretting about how NPR was not a digital company – that people of our experience and age could only ‘speak digital with an accent,'” Hanley wrote. “I think the greater concern is having leadership that is not fully immersed in the values and vision of NPR and public media. We cannot afford to ‘speak mission with an accent.'”

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