Indiana Public Media cuts staff
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Indiana Public Media in Bloomington, the dual licensee that operates television station WTIU and radio station WFIU, announced a staff reduction Thursday.
The station cut four full-time employees and 14 part-time workers in its marketing, engineering and TV production departments.
“The largest group affected workers in television master control operations, which are expected to transition to an external vendor later this year,” said Executive Director Michael Arnold in an email. Arnold also said six open positions in the stations’ newsrooms will not be filled.
IPM first reported on the layoffs. WTIU and WFIU are part of the Media School at Indiana University.
IPM lost $1.4 million in annual funding from CPB with the rescission of federal funding for public media last year. That made up about 14% of the stations’ combined budget, roughly 5% of WFIU’s budget and 20% of WTIU’s, according to an FAQ on IPM’s website.
Indiana’s legislature also eliminated public media funding in its biennial budget last year.
“While we took a number of steps to reduce expenses outside of staffing, the scale of the funding reductions ultimately required staff reductions as well,” Arnold told Current. “We anticipate no further staff reductions.”
Sorry to see this, but not surprised. Indiana public stations just got pummeled with a double whammy. First the CPB defund, then the state legislature defunded Indiana Public Broadcasting Stations. During my interim period at WBOI in 2023, I got to see first hand what a terrific collaboration IPBS was. Station execs really listening to each other, planning various activities together including news-gathering and special events (e.g. eclipse coverage, elections coverage). It’s a shame, but what isn’t going away is the smarts, and collaborative nature of the staffs and leadership involved. Here’s to a solid future for this group of pros.