New York Public Radio cuts 21 positions
© Andrew Popper 2018
New York Public Radio is cutting 21 full-time positions and seven open roles in another round of layoffs as it continues to seek financial sustainability.
In an email to staff Tuesday, CEO LaFontaine Oliver said the cuts account for 7.7% of the station’s workforce. The station also paused 403(b) matching last week and has further reduced operating expenses by $1.5 million.
NYPR is “consolidating Development and Membership under one leader, and most recently, integrating HR and DEI under the COO role, which saw the elimination of two C-level roles,” Oliver said. It is eliminating the CCO role for WQXR, its classical station, and has left the CCO role at news station WNYC unfilled.
A restructuring of the development team involved cutting positions, Oliver said, though some new roles will be introduced. The station is also consolidating its audience, design, engineering, and marketing and product teams into one division under a senior leader.
The cost-saving measures could also include the cancellation of New Sounds, an eclectic music show that has aired on WNYC since 1982. The show was threatened with removal in 2019 but survived. Oliver said the station would seek “a new philanthropic supporter or a new home” for New Sounds, as it did with Death, Sex & Money, the podcast it canceled in 2023 that is now produced by Slate.
In a statement posted on Instagram, New Sounds host John Schaefer said if the show can’t be saved, it will end May 31 and he and producer Caryn Havlik will leave the station. NYPR is also canceling New Standards, a Saturday night music show on WNYC.
“I want to assure you that none of the decisions we announced were arrived at lightly or with haste,” Oliver said in the email. “We are saying goodbye to some cherished colleagues, and it is not the first time in recent years that we have had to do so.”
The layoffs are the fourth round of cuts at the station in as many years. It eliminated 14 positions in 2021, 20 in 2023 and 26 last year. As of September, NYPR faced a deficit this fiscal year of almost $12 million.
Salaries for selected hosts are astronomical. If serious cuts were done , it would likely have saved jobs and programs.