APM plans sale of ‘Brains On!’ podcasts, cuts 15 positions
Minnesota Public Radio/American Public Media's headquarters in St. Paul, Minn.
American Public Media plans to sell Brains On! Universe, a collection of podcasts for kids including its popular namesake science show, and will cut 15 positions, APM President Chandra Kavati told staff in a Monday email.
“This is not the outcome we hoped for, as these are valued colleagues and award-winning, rightfully beloved content,” Kavati wrote in the email, provided by a spokesperson. “This has been a hard decision, and we are deeply saddened to say goodbye to this team.”
Kavati lamented difficulties with monetizing kids and family content. “Larger enterprises that can build substantial audience networks to offer scale to advertisers or have IP (intellectual property, or other monetized brands) that the audio content supports have been most effective in this category,” she wrote. “While we have greatly benefitted [sic] from membership, grants, giving, and sponsorship revenue, it has not reached a level that can sustain this work given business model realities.”
APM is in “active talks” regarding a sale, Kavati wrote.
APM offered the production teams for the shows and a support person “the option to stay on for two weeks to thoughtfully inform the audience of this change,” she wrote.
Brains On! started as a side project of Minnesota Public Radio producers Molly Bloom, Sanden Totten and Marc Sanchez. Bloom told Current in 2016 that the three came up with the idea while chatting in their cubicles.
“We knew that there were lots of public radio listeners with kids who would appreciate something to play for their kids with the public radio sensibility that they loved already,” Bloom said at the time.
With the planned sale, APM will move its other APM Studios shows, including The Splendid Table and The Slowdown, under the national APM brand. In June, Mark Crowley, formerly COO of Marketplace, will oversee those shows. Joanne Griffith, CCO of APM Studios, will “fully assume her role” as CCO of Marketplace, Kavati wrote.
So Sad to see Molly, Joy, Sanden, and the rest of the team go – the kids loved every single podcast. I blame big Mayonnaise.
Have there been any updates from APM?? I understand these are truly unprecedented times. But still… so much jargon in the internal announcement and this had to be one of biggest footholds into an actual kid audience for public radio, the only thing approximating what public tv has, it certainly deserved better than a meek “business model realities reference”… how has the situation with these podcasts been unreported since June 😔