WKAR lays off nine employees

WKAR Public Media in East Lansing, Mich., laid off nine employees.

The majority of the staffers who lost their jobs worked in television production. Others held digital roles or worked in fundraising, according to a WKAR news story.

Two of the layoffs were attributed to workforce reductions mandated by its license holder Michigan State University, which ordered cuts across all departments, according to a memo by GM Shawn Turner that was obtained by the Lansing State Journal. The remaining positions were eliminated in preparation for losses in federal funding, Turner said.

A spokesperson for WKAR declined to share the GM’s memo with Current.

In his memo, Turner wrote that potential elimination of WKAR’s federal funding, combined with cuts ordered by the university, put the station at risk of losing $2 million. That sum is approximately 23% of the station’s budget and would reduce its revenues to about $6.6 million.

“We’ve reached a point where if we lose federal funding we can sustain ourselves for a period of time,” Turner wrote, according to the newspaper. “But, there is no replacement for federal funding.”