Cascade PBS cuts 12% of staff

Cascade PBS in Seattle is cutting 17 employees in response to the rescission of federal funding to public broadcasting.

“This unprecedented federal decision has had devastating effects on more than 300 public television and radio outlets across the country, and we’re not immune here at home,” said Cascade PBS CEO Rob Dunlop in a news release.

The release said the eliminated positions are in the marketing, creative and editorial departments and represent a 12% reduction in staff. The station will also cease production of long-form written journalism.

Cascade PBS will continue to produce several local series and plans to expand its news and public affairs program, The Newsfeed, from weekly to five days a week, according to the release.

The layoffs amount to a net reduction of 16 positions because the station is “hiring some new positions and not backfilling others,” Don Wilcox, a spokesperson for Cascade PBS, told Current in an email. Wilcox added that the layoffs do not affect Local Public, the streaming initiative Cascade PBS launched in 2020 to help stations develop apps and improve viewers’ streaming experiences.

“These are painful cuts to make,” Dunlop said in the release. “It has an impact both on our community and on the staff who’ve served this region with passion. Their work has earned well-deserved industry recognition, and we’re grateful for their dedication and achievements.”

The news release said Cascade PBS will offer severance packages and benefits “that go beyond organization policy and those outlined in the collective bargaining agreement.” Earlier this year, the Cascade PBS Union, which is under the Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild, negotiated a contract that doubled the severance package for union staffers.

“The Pacific Northwest Newspaper Guild is deeply disappointed that Cascade PBS is choosing to eliminate its newsroom and lay off its reporters at a time when we need good, thoughtful journalism more than ever,” said Guild spokesperson Courtney Scott in an email statement to Current. “We do not yet fully understand why this decision was made and we will be meeting with Cascade PBS executives and management in the coming days to discuss the impact on our union members and the reasoning behind these decisions.”

Cascade PBS received a Community Service Grant from CPB of about $3.5 million, according to CPB’s website. That accounted for almost 7% of the station’s total revenue of more than $51 million that year, according to an audited financial statement.

Dunlop said he was “grateful” to Cascade PBS viewers for making additional gifts following the federal funding rescission but that the organization “cannot count on emergency donations as a sustainable form of support in the long run.”

“This is a tremendous loss all around—for our public media team here in the Northwest and for public media across the U.S.,” Dunlop said. “Despite the sudden shuttering of CPB, our commitment remains steadfast: to serve our community, informing and inspiring with the highest-quality national and local programming across news, science, history, culture, the arts, and global drama.”

Since July, more than 20 public media organizations have publicly announced layoffs tied to the rescission of CPB funding.